Diocese of Chichester

New ministry of deacons to be celebrated across the Diocese

New Church of England curates are to be ordained locally as deacons this autumn in an extensive sequence of seventeen parish-wide celebrations across the Diocese (19 September – 9 October).

The Ordination of deacons is usually a highlight of the summer in the Diocese of Chichester but the Cathedral event in June with its huge crowds simply was not viable this year.

This year’s individual ordinations to be held in parish churches across Brighton & Hove and East and West Sussex will be led by led the Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner and the newly consecrated suffragan bishops of Horsham (Ruth Bushyager) and Lewes (Will Hazelwood) [full list of services below].

The new curates will be ordained as deacons – which usually marks the first year of Church of England ministry. As curates the women and men put their training into practice working in a parish with a training incumbent before usually being ordained as priest the following year.

Candidates will be supported at the local services by family, friends and representatives of the church communities they are serving and, because of social distancing, it is hoped that many of the services will be able to be live streamed or recorded where appropriate.

The candidates have now completed their pre-ordination training and have been licensed as lay workers by the Bishop of Chichester following the postponement of their ordination earlier in the summer when the Cathedral was still closed.

Canon Stephen Ferns, Senior Chaplain to the Bishop of Chichester, said today:

“As you can see from the extensive list and wide range of venues, this has been a major logistical undertaking and we are enormously grateful to the incumbents and parishes working with us to ensure we provide the very best celebration of these varied new ministries across the Diocese.”

Here is a full list of dates, venues and ordaining bishops for the autumn sequence of services. All events are subject to change at a later date and will be dependent on Government advice at the time.

A list of all the Deacons with the date of ordination, the venue and the parish they will serve is  here 

A prayer diary can be downloaded here