THE next Bishop of Ely is to be the Rt Revd Sarah Clark, Suffragan Bishop of Jarrow since 2019, in Durham diocese, where she is also currently the Acting Bishop, Downing Street announced on Tuesday.

She succeeds the Rt Revd Stephen Conway, who was translated to Lincoln in May 2023 (News, 26 May 2023). Since then, Ely has been served by its Acting Bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon, Dr Dagmar Winter.

In July 2024, it was announced that the Crown Nominations Commission had not been able reach a consensus over the next Bishop of Ely, and that it was unlikely that the process would begin again before spring 2025 (News, 19 July 2024).

Born in 1965 in an ex-mining area of south Wales — her father and grandfathers were miners — Bishop Clark studied sports science and history at Loughborough University of Technology and worked as a civil servant within the Department of Employment from 1987 to 1995. She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Keele University.

She was confirmed at the age of 31, and shortly afterwards trained for ordination at St John’s College, Nottingham. She was priested in 1990 and served her title at St James’s, Porchester, in the diocese of Southwell & Nottingham, and remained in parish ministry in the diocese until her present appointment. She was Rector of Carlton-in-Lindrick from 2002 to 2009, before becoming Team Rector of Clifton and Dean of Women’s Ministry. She was appointed Archdeacon of Nottingham in 2014.

She became Acting Bishop of Durham at the end of February 2024 on the retirement of the Rt Revd Paul Butler. The vacancy-in-see in Durham has been prolonged by an unidentified nominee’s withdrawal, announced last February (News, 21 February 2025).

Bishop Clark said on Tuesday that she felt “such a sense of joy, vocation, and thankfulness to God about coming to the diocese of Ely”.

She continued: “When I came to explore the diocese before my interview, I was captured by the sculpture of Mary the mother of Jesus in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral, arms raised in Magnificat, in praise of what God was doing.

“I am full of hope that, as we journey together into the future, embracing our rich diversity of tradition, theology, and place, we will write together the next chapter of the diocese of Ely in such a way that it is shot through with that same spirit of thanksgiving to God.”

In a short video, Bishop Clark said of Ely: “I loved the big skies, and all the water, and even the wind that swept across the Fens . . .When I needed to pray, I found open doors at the churches I went to visit. That image of the open door spoke to me as a promise for the future of the doors that the Lord will open before us.”

Welcoming the announcement, Dr Winter said: “I am excited by the leadership, energy and vision she will bring and I am very much looking forward to her joining us.”

Bishop Clark was due to meet staff and pupils from schools in the diocese on Tuesday, as well as churches, businesses, and community groups, before evensong in Ely Cathedral. She is due to be installed in the early summer.

Speaking to the Church Times on Wednesday, she described her 16 years as a parish priest and the people she had encountered as “the foundation” of her ministry as a Bishop. “They have made me what I am.”

Brought up in a family that did not regularly attend church, she became a Christian through her older sister, who went to England as the first member of the family to go to college and came to faith through friends from a Baptist church.

Describing herself as “a convert to Christianity, and also to the Church of England”, Bishop Clark recalled being baptised at the age of 22, four years after first exploring faith.

“I needed those four years in between to explore and to begin to understand what it meant to follow Jesus and be baptised and to have that relationship which changed my life. It is a journey that takes people time to explore and to imagine.”

The people in her first benefice, she said, “taught me what it was to be Anglican parish . . . and how to relate to those who are part of the parish: that we were to look outwards.” In Clifton, she had discovered people in a deprived area “with great entrepreneurship and a tremendous way of being able to live their lives against tremendous adversity”.

Asked about reports of a “quiet revival” and shift in the spiritual atmosphere, she suggested that the Church should be “really open to listen to what people’s experiences are, not impose ours on them.”

People who “unexpectedly” walked through church doors in Durham were hoping to ask questions, she said. “We have to be patient and . . . trust the work of God’’s holy spirit in the person. I think this is a really exciting time.”

This story was updated on 29 January with an interview with Bishop Clark