New Bishop of Ely is announced
The Right Revd Stephen Conway
The next Bishop of Ely will be the Right Revd Stephen Conway, currently the Bishop of Ramsbury in the Diocese of Salisbury. He succeeds the Rt Revd Anthony Russell who retired earlier this year.
Following the formal announcement and a press conference with the local media, Bishop Stephen spent the day touring the Diocese visiting some of his future colleagues and parishioners.
After meeting Diocesan Office staff and others he visited a farm in Ramsey. He then went to Hampton, the site of a new church, for lunch with others from the Diocese. In the afternoon he met with a headteacher from one of our church schools, and visited a small innovative hi-tech business and one of the Universities in Cambridge. His day concluded at Ely Cathedral where he joined worshippers for Evening Prayer.
Bishop Stephen hopes to move to Ely in the new year and to be installed before the beginning of Lent. He is intending to use the intervening time to begin to get to know members of the Diocese informally.
He grew up in multi-cultural South London, where some of his family still live. Following his time at a Church of England grammar school with views of the Oval cricket ground, he was the first member of his family to go to university, reading Modern History at Keble College, Oxford. He trained as a teacher and taught at an Anglican public school in Scotland. He coached the school basketball team, with the obvious advantage of his height at nearly six and a half feet.
After his time as a teacher, he trained for the priesthood at Westcott House in Cambridge. He has had a passionate interest in mental health since doing a student placement on an acute admissions ward at Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge. He also has family links with East Anglia as his great-great-grandfather was a farmer here. Bishop Stephen says, “you could reputedly see him on horseback from all around. I’d like to think that it will be the same with me”.
On hearing the news of the appointment, the Ven Hugh McCurdy, Archdeacon of Huntingdon and Wisbech and a member of the Crown Nominations Commission, said, “I am delighted that Bishop Stephen is to be the next Bishop of Ely. As well as a man of great experience, he is an outstanding Bishop of Ramsbury and a pastor with a heart for mission”.
Bishop Stephen is single and part of a loving family including his mother, stepfather, two married sisters, a teenage nephew and niece and a number of godchildren. He is a keen walker. He enjoys rugby and cricket as a spectator, enjoys the cinema and is interested in the connection between faith and film.
You can read Bishop Stephen's full biography here.