Three Church of England deacons from Brighton have been ordained in a service at Chichester Cathedral.
They were among 16 ordinands, including a woman from Hove who will serve as a deacon in Chichester.
The new deacons who will serve in Brighton are
- Helen Rawlings of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Dyke Road
- Mischa Richards of St Martin’s Church in Lewes Road
- Alex Wood of St Peter’s Church in York Place
In addition Karen Young, who lived and worked in Brighton and Hove, will serve at St Paul’s Church in Chichester.
She was formerly the finance officer at Church House, the headquarters of the Diocese of Chichester, in New Church Road, Hove, and parish treasurer at All Saints Church in The Drive, Hove.
Mischa Richards, has been licensed to the Parish of St Martin, St Wilfrid and St Alban, in Lewes Road, with St Richard’s, in The Crossway, Hollingdean.
He said: “My journey has been relatively direct and for that reason has been one with a steep learning curve.
“I felt a sense of being called to serve God in this manner when I was a young teenager and it’s taken me all the years in between to begin to grasp something of what that means.
“But the journey has been a hugely grace-filled time which has seen me reading theology at Durham University and then later as an ordinand at St Stephen’s House in Oxford, spending time on retreat with the contemplative monks and nuns at Crawley Down and getting involved in the varieties of pastoral ministry in both rural north Lancashire and inner-city parishes in north London.
“I’m thrilled to be living in Brighton and am thoroughly looking forward to all that life there will offer and require of me in my new capacity as a deacon and future priest.”
He is to wed his girlfriend Lea in the summer so that they begin a new chapter of their lives together when he starts his curacy.
The Bishop of Horsham Mark Sowerby is celebrating the 25th anniversary of his ordination on Saturday 13 July at a service at noon at St Michael and All Angels, in Victoria Road, Brighton.
