CANON Smitha Prasadam was announced as the next Bishop of Huddersfield on Wednesday, and is set to become the third serving Church of England bishop to have been born in India.
She succeeds Dr Jonathan Gibbs, who was translated to Rochester last year (News, 1 April 2022).
Currently Chaplain of St Albans, Copenhagen, Canon Prasadam was born in 1964 into the Church of South India. Her parents were pioneer mission partners with the Church Missionary Society. The family moved to the Church in Wales and her mother, Canon Jemima Prasadam, was the first Indian woman to be ordained priest in the UK, serving for many years in Lozells, in inner-city Birmingham (News, 27 October 2006; 14 February 2020).
Canon Prasadam trained at Queen’s College Birmingham before her ordination in 2003. She has been in her current post since 2018, before which she served as Vicar of St Paul’s, Hamstead, and Curate of St Paul’s, Blackheath, both in the diocese of Birmingham.
She is a Canon of the cathedral chapter for the diocese in Europe where she serves as Bishop’s racial justice adviser, vocations adviser and chair of the House of Clergy. She is a member of General Synod, the Liturgical Commission, and St John’s College Council Durham. She has also been a member of the Archbishop’s Transformations Steering Group, established in 2011 to ensure the “flourishing of women’s ministry”.
A member of the Standing Commission on the House of Bishops’ Declaration and the Five Guiding Principles (News, 8 July), she was last year elected as the chair of the Anglican Minority Ethnic Network (AMEN).
Her appointment to Huddersfield marks a return to Yorkshire: Canon Prasadam studied English Literature and Linguistics at the College of Ripon and York St John (University of Leeds).
“I can’t wait to start meeting people in God’s own country again,” she said on Wednesday. “This is where I came as a student and began my journey so it holds a special place in my heart. I’m looking forward to working together with parishes, clergy and community throughout Kirklees and Calderdale to encourage people in confident discipleship and relish the thought of embracing cultural, educational, commercial and inter-faith partners so we can support this wonderful place and its people in common cause. . .
“My ministry in parish, advocacy and advisory roles over 20 years is joy, justice and dreaming God’s dream anew. I hope to be instrumental in connecting people to God, so they can discover a sense of something wondrous, joyous and beautiful, to develop and deepen a relationship with God that is lifegiving and meaningful in today’s challenging world.”
A press release issued by the diocese of Leeds described Canon Prasadam as “passionate about liturgy which breathes life into ancient texts so that they can be heard with new meaning and relevance. She is known for mission and partnership with children and young people in schools.”
Canon Prasadam’s consecration will mean there are now three serving Bishops in the Church of England born in India. Both the Bishop of Liverpool, Dr John Perumbalath (News, 21 October 2022), and the Bishop of Loughborough, the Rt Revd Saju Muthalaly (News, 19 November 2021), were brought up in the Syrian Orthodox Church in Kerala, which traces its roots to St Thomas the Apostle. The Bishop of Kirkstall, also in the diocese of Leeds, the Rt Revd Arun Arora, is the son of Indian parents.
In an interview with Church Times in 2018, Canon Prasadam called for a broader understanding of India and its people (News, 17 August 2018). “People’s views of India tend to be quite narrow,” she observed. “It’s a culture of many faiths and many languages, but the focus tends to be on maharajas and therefore the British Raj lifestyle, or, at the other extreme, the Dalits; so it’s always the grinding poverty and the misery. But the fabric of India is so much more, and the great big middle band is ignored. They are people of great faith and great spirituality.”
Common grounds in both Hinduism and Christianity were joy, she suggested, and “key images of light and dark”, illustrated both in Diwali and the beginning of St John’s Gospel. They also shared “a quest for holiness”.