THE Bishop of Horsham, the Rt Revd Mark Sowerby, is to become the next Principal of the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, it was announced this week.

Bishop Sowerby will leave his suffragan post in Chichester diocese to return to the college where he completed his ordination training. He has been Bishop of Horsham since 2009.

At Mirfield, he will succeed Fr Peter Allan CR, who will retire at the end of the academic year

The Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, said on Tuesday: “From the moment of his arrival in the diocese of Chichester, Bishop Mark has been involved in challenging circumstances that have concerned safeguarding. His attention to detail and process has won widespread recognition and respect, locally and at national level.

“In this, as in the pastoral and teaching office of a bishop, he has been a consistently cheerful and encouraging presence and more recently adding to his commitments a lively interest in our church schools.”

From 1997 to 2001, Bishop Sowerby served as the Church’s Vocations Officer and as a Selection Secretary for the Ministry Division. He also has chaired the national Safeguarding Training Working Group.

Bishop Sowerby initially opposed the ordination of women as priests or bishops, before changing his mind in 2015 (News, 12 June 2015). He subsequently resigned from the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda.

Speaking this week, Bishop Sowerby said: “Throughout my ten years in Sussex, I have especially enjoyed time spent in parishes. It has been a huge privilege to confirm adults and young people and to encourage them to explore their individual vocations, and I shall always be thankful to God for the faithful clergy and people of Sussex, in whose mission, for a time, I have had a share.”

A farewell service will be held this summer.