Dear Friends,
Further to my licensing on 23 June as the new Priest in charge at St Martin’s Potternewton and Priest with pastoral care at All Souls’ Little London, I have been asked to offer you a few words of introduction for our Magazine.
I don’t like to talk about myself, but I realize that this one time I will have to. As a compromise allow me to say something about “him” rather than me…
Fr Nicholas (this is how people have always referred to him, but if you address him in person he would rather you called him just “Nicholas”) was born in Turin, Italy, some time in the 20th century… After high school, he trained as a missionary priest in the Catholic Church for eight years: four years in Italy (Florence and Venegono, a castle near Milan) and four in Chicago, USA, where he obtained his M.Div. and M.A. in Theology while engaging in ministry in the South Side African-American ghetto (“third world USA,” as local leaders called it) and as Assistant Chaplain to Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. Immediately after his priestly ordination he left for Cairo, Egypt, where he studied Arabic and Islam and worked with Sudanese refugees. He then moved to a remote area in war-torn, famine stricken South Sudan. He stayed in Sudan for about three years. In Khartoum he met Catherine.
After a spell of parish ministry in Italy, Catherine and Nicholas were married at Christ Church (CofE) in Naples. For the following four years Nicholas served as a Self Supporting Minister in Malta – where Catherine was born - at the Anglican Cathedral and as Chaplain to the foreign inmates in the local prison, while teaching Italian full time in a sixth form college.
After moving to Birmingham, he was appointed Assistant Curate at St Mary and St Margaret’s, Castle Bromwich, and then Team Vicar in the Shirley Team Ministry and Industrial Chaplain to the local retail industry. In 2005 the then Bishop of Birmingham John Sentamu appointed him as the Anglican Chaplain to the University of Birmingham where he stayed for eight years. In 2013 Bishop David Urquhart asked him to take the responsibility of the Parish Church of St Alban’s Highgate, in inner city Birmingham, as Priest in charge and Chaplain to ARK St Alban’s Academy, a very successful Church of England secondary school and sixth form with more than 80% of its students from a Muslim background.
In Birmingham Nicholas obtained his PhD in Islamic Studies. Catherine, is a Consultant Histopathologist at Harrogate District Hospital.
Catherine and Nicholas have two daughters: Sara (20) reading French and Italian at Durham University, and Adriana (16) starting sixth form in September at Harrogate Grammar School.
Well, as they say, “enough about me.” Before our “arrivederci” (Italian for “see you soon”), I have to say one more thing. As I have come to Leeds I am aware that with my family I join a community established over many years on the firm foundations of past and present people – clergy, readers, churchwardens, members of the PCCs, volunteers engaging in so many expressions of ministry, and faithful, prayerful members of the two congregations – who have served the Lord with dedication and love. I have read and heard about the forms of ministry you engage in – with special attention given to the most vulnerable members of our community inside and outside the church buildings. I am truly humbled by your faithfulness to Christ and I know inside my heart that I will soon be able to say with confidence to others who may be looking for a spiritual home, “Come and see.”
Speaking also on behalf of my whole family, we look forward to journeying with you all, working with you all and sharing with you all many opportunities for service, celebration and fellowship.
Yours in Christ,
Nicholas
Further to my licensing on 23 June as the new Priest in charge at St Martin’s Potternewton and Priest with pastoral care at All Souls’ Little London, I have been asked to offer you a few words of introduction for our Magazine.
I don’t like to talk about myself, but I realize that this one time I will have to. As a compromise allow me to say something about “him” rather than me…
Fr Nicholas (this is how people have always referred to him, but if you address him in person he would rather you called him just “Nicholas”) was born in Turin, Italy, some time in the 20th century… After high school, he trained as a missionary priest in the Catholic Church for eight years: four years in Italy (Florence and Venegono, a castle near Milan) and four in Chicago, USA, where he obtained his M.Div. and M.A. in Theology while engaging in ministry in the South Side African-American ghetto (“third world USA,” as local leaders called it) and as Assistant Chaplain to Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. Immediately after his priestly ordination he left for Cairo, Egypt, where he studied Arabic and Islam and worked with Sudanese refugees. He then moved to a remote area in war-torn, famine stricken South Sudan. He stayed in Sudan for about three years. In Khartoum he met Catherine.
After a spell of parish ministry in Italy, Catherine and Nicholas were married at Christ Church (CofE) in Naples. For the following four years Nicholas served as a Self Supporting Minister in Malta – where Catherine was born - at the Anglican Cathedral and as Chaplain to the foreign inmates in the local prison, while teaching Italian full time in a sixth form college.
After moving to Birmingham, he was appointed Assistant Curate at St Mary and St Margaret’s, Castle Bromwich, and then Team Vicar in the Shirley Team Ministry and Industrial Chaplain to the local retail industry. In 2005 the then Bishop of Birmingham John Sentamu appointed him as the Anglican Chaplain to the University of Birmingham where he stayed for eight years. In 2013 Bishop David Urquhart asked him to take the responsibility of the Parish Church of St Alban’s Highgate, in inner city Birmingham, as Priest in charge and Chaplain to ARK St Alban’s Academy, a very successful Church of England secondary school and sixth form with more than 80% of its students from a Muslim background.
In Birmingham Nicholas obtained his PhD in Islamic Studies. Catherine, is a Consultant Histopathologist at Harrogate District Hospital.
Catherine and Nicholas have two daughters: Sara (20) reading French and Italian at Durham University, and Adriana (16) starting sixth form in September at Harrogate Grammar School.
Well, as they say, “enough about me.” Before our “arrivederci” (Italian for “see you soon”), I have to say one more thing. As I have come to Leeds I am aware that with my family I join a community established over many years on the firm foundations of past and present people – clergy, readers, churchwardens, members of the PCCs, volunteers engaging in so many expressions of ministry, and faithful, prayerful members of the two congregations – who have served the Lord with dedication and love. I have read and heard about the forms of ministry you engage in – with special attention given to the most vulnerable members of our community inside and outside the church buildings. I am truly humbled by your faithfulness to Christ and I know inside my heart that I will soon be able to say with confidence to others who may be looking for a spiritual home, “Come and see.”
Speaking also on behalf of my whole family, we look forward to journeying with you all, working with you all and sharing with you all many opportunities for service, celebration and fellowship.
Yours in Christ,
Nicholas