New Bishop’s Enthronement

Nicholas Holtam is to be ordained and consecrated as bishop on Friday 22 July at 11am in St Paul’s Cathedral, and will move with his wife Helen to Salisbury shortly afterwards.    

He will be permitted to commence his public ministry once he has paid homage to Her Majesty the Queen on Tuesday 11 October at Buckingham Palace.

On the day of his enthronement, the new Bishop will walk into the centre of Salisbury from Bishopdown prior to entering The Close, where he will be greeted by the Dean and Chapter and Cathedral Choirs.

He will then be welcomed in the Cathedral by representatives of the Diocese, ecumenical and overseas links, and wider society in Dorset and Wiltshire. The Archdeacon of Canterbury, as representative of the Archbishop, will place him in the Bishop’s throne.

Admission to the service can be by ticket only due to the capacity of the Cathedral. Applicants for tickets should e-mail the Dean’s Secretary Lizzie Rowe: l.rowe@salcath.co.uk by Friday 2 September. Seats will be allocated so as to ensure as wide as possible representation of the varied communities of the Diocese.

The Bishop-elect said today, “I look forward enormously to this service and to becoming part of a great diocese with all the opportunities and challenges ahead, trying to draw people towards God and recognising Him at work in the lives of people in Wiltshire and Dorset.”

Robert Key, Chair of the Diocesan House of Laity, added,"Nicholas Holtam has wonderful gifts of Christian insight and leadership to share with us.He will refresh us and renew our work in all corners of Dorset and Wiltshire."

ENDS

For further information please contact
Jonathan Ball
Bishop’s Chaplain and Press Officer:
07500 872081/01722 334031
bishops.chaplain@salisbury.anglican.org 

Notes to Editors
Nicholas Holtam has just published a new book in conjunction with The National Gallery, The Art of Worship, in which he presents his favourite paintings from the National Gallery. He gives his own personal response to the paintings and presents them as a source of reflection and contemplation with Bible quotations, prayers and poetry. He has chosen paintings from a wide range of artists including Edgar Degas’s Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, Vincent van Gogh’s Long Grass with Butterflies and J.M.W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. The Bishop-elect writes on themes that affect everyone, including struggle, blessing and the search for inner peace, and encourages all to look beyond preoccupation with self through worship.

Nicholas Holtam (aged 56) grew up in North London and was educated at The Latymer Grammar School Edmonton. He read Geography at Collingwood College, Durham and trained for ordination at King’s College, London and Westcott House, Cambridge. He served his first curacy from 1979 to 1983 at St Dunstan and All Saints Stepney in the diocese of London. From 1983 to 1988 he was a Tutor at Lincoln Theological College where he taught Christian Ethics and Mission. From 1988 to 1995 he was Vicar of Christ Church and Saint John with Saint Luke’s Isle of Dogs at the heart of London’s Docklands in the diocese of London during a period of immense change. Since 1995 he has been Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, in the Diocese of London.

Nicholas is married to Helen who is half Danish, a committed Quaker and a Maths teacher. She grew up in South Africa and Kenya before her parents returned to England to live in Devizes where she went to the Grammar School and her father, the late Ted Harris MBE, was Secretary to Wiltshire Community Council. Nicholas and Helen have four adult children. He is a regular broadcaster and has written two books – ‘A Room with a View: Ministry with the world at your door’ (SPCK 2008), and ‘The Art of Worship’, a book of meditations and prayers in response to favourite paintings in the National Gallery (to be published by Yale University Press, July 2011). He and Helen enjoy the theatre, museums and galleries. Nicholas is a cyclist and walker who raised over £100,000 by walking the South Downs Way for the Renewal of St Martin’s.

A full biography is available here.

The Anglican Diocese of Salisbury is the seventh largest in area in the Church of England, extending over 2000 square miles, with a population of about 880,000.  Within the Diocese there is wide diversity in geography between the many urban areas and the deeply rural ones. The Diocese includes 95% of Dorset, 75% of the unitary authority of Wiltshire, the unitary authority of Poole, 40% of the unitary authority of Bournemouth, a small part of west Hampshire and one parish in Devon. Poole is the largest urban area, followed by Weymouth & Portland, Salisbury and Trowbridge (the county town of Wiltshire), with many smaller towns including Dorchester (the county town of Dorset), Ferndown and Devizes. In Wiltshire especially, the rural areas are grouped round a number of market towns to which the rural population looks for shopping and most services.

For the Diocese click here
www.salisbury.anglican.org