Parish OfficeNEW TEAM VICAR!
St Wilfrids are delighted to announce the appointment of a new Team Vicar, Fr John Thompson-Vear SSC.
Fr John was ordained priest in 2004 and is married to Ruth, with three young daughters - Elizabeth, Imogen and Anastasia. He is coming to the end of a 2 year spell as a Chaplain in the Royal Navy, based in Plymouth, and the family hope to move up to Harrogate at the end of July/beginning of August.
Both Fr John and Ruth are from the North of England and Harrogate happily falls midway between Newcastle and Lincolnshire, where parents and grandparents remain. They married in 1999 and moved, the following year, to Oxford where Fr John trained for the priesthood at St Stephen's House.
Fr John served a 3 year curacy in the Parish of the Ascension, Plymouth, which is largely suburban. He also had parish experience before ordination, working as a pastoral assistant in inner city Sunderland. Fr John joined the Royal Navy as a Chaplain in 2006 and trained at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. Deployed mainly with warships at sea over the last 2 years, he has travelled widely, most recently serving operationally off the coast of Iraq.
Fr John's interests are many and include Christian worship and liturgy, Early Modern history, drama and writing, the countryside and walking, Fresh Expressions of Church.
Fr John is to be a Team Vicar at St Wilfrid's, with particular responsibility for the Jennyfield/Killinghall Moor area of the Parish.
The Bishop of Ripon & Leeds, The Right Revd John Packer, licensed Fr John at St Wilfrid's on Monday 15th September.