Southwark Missioner to be Dean of Derby

THE next Dean of Derby will be the Revd Stephen Hance, Canon Missioner of Southwark Cathedral and Southwark Diocesan Director of Mission and Evangelism. After training for the ministry at St John’s College, Nottingham, he held parish appointments in the dioceses of Portsmouth and London. In 2015, he founded the Cathedrals and Growth Network, which seeks to share good practice among cathedrals. The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, said that Canon Hance had grown to “think deeply about how and why cathedral congregations are growing”. He will be installed in Derby on 30 September.

Healthy prognosis for weekly churchgoers

PEOPLE who attend church more than once a week are likely to live longer than those who do attend less, a study from Vanderbilt University in the United States suggests. The research, “Church attendance, allostatic load and mortality in middle aged adults”, by Marino A. Bruce and others, published online on the PLOS journal site, concerns 5449 people aged 46-65 in the US, and concludes that the churchgoers were 55 per cent less likely to die than non-churchgoers. This was not wholly explained by their having lower stress levels, the researchers concluded. journals.plos.org

Former Rector of Cottingham faces multiple charges

CANON Terence Grigg of Grove Street, Norton, has been charged with nine counts of indecent assault and two serious sexual assaults against five victims. The alleged offences took place between 1973 and 1996, when he was Vicar of Stainton-in-Cleveland, and subequently Rector of Cottingham, and a Canon and Prebendary of York Minster. Some of the offences are alleged to have taken place in London. He appeared at Beverley Magistrates’ Court last week and was released on bail, to appear at Hull Crown Court on 28 June. He retired in 2004. The diocese of York said that the Archbishop of York “withdrew some time ago all permission to minister as a priest in the Church of England”.