Diocese of British Columbia Diocese of British Columbia The Diocese of British Columbia is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon of the Anglican Church of Canada. Despite the name, the diocese comprises only the 32,630 square kilometres of Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands in the civil Province of British Columbia. Its see city is Victoria, and it presently maintains fifty-five parishes serving nearly 13,000 Anglicans. The diocese was established in 1859, and is the oldest in the ecclesiastical province, once extending over the entire civil province of British Columbia, hence the origin of its name. Its first
Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia province's order of precedence, preceding even other members of the Canadian Royal Family and the Queen's federal representative, the Governor General of Canada. The first British settlement in the area was the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66), of which the first Lieutenant Governor, from 1858 to 1863, was Richard Clement Moody, who had previously served as the first Governor of the Falkland Islands. Moody selected the site for and founded the original capital of British Columbia – New Westminster – and established the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park. He named Burnaby Lake after his private secretary Robert Burnaby and named