[5] From 1968 to 1972, his served as assistant chaplain of New College, Oxford and honorary curate at St Andrew's Church, Headington.

[4][5] His part-time appointment at St Andrew's was his only experience of parochial ministry in the Church of England.

[4] It was at New College that Rowell's "very Anglican brand of conservative Anglo-Catholicism" was nurtured by the chaplain Gareth Bennett.

[8] From 1999, Rowell was an episcopal patron of Project Canterbury, an online archive of Anglican texts.

[10] In 2004, Rowell disagreed publicly with parishioners in Turkey over his plans to lease a historic and recently renovated church building for use as a nightclub.

[11] In January 2007, Rowell suspended the chaplain of Istanbul, Ian Sherwood, and the entire chaplaincy council.

The secretary of the Istanbul chaplaincy council described Rowell as a "rogue bishop",[11] whilst the senior chaplain in Turkey accused Rowell of causing suffering to ordinary people because the bishop's life had been largely "in the shelter of Oxford University".

[4] Rowell was a member of the men-only, high-church dining club, Nobody's Friends, and wrote its official history in 2000.