Right Reverend Sophie Jelley installed as 10th Bishop of Coventry

HUNDREDS of people gathered in Coventry Cathedral on Saturday (7th June) to welcome the Right Reverend Sophie Jelley as the new Bishop of Coventry.

The cathedral service marked the beginning of Bishop Sophie’s public ministry in the diocese, which also includes Warwickshire.

The service began with a performance by a school choir and included a procession of clergy, readers and visiting bishops, followed by a civic procession which included Stratford’s mayor as well as the Lord Lieutenant for the West Midlands.

During the service, Bishop Sophie was presented with the diocesan crozier as well as some gifts symbolising Coventry and Warwickshire, such as goose quill from Stratford and a model car symbolising Coventry’s engineering legacy.

In her inaugural sermon, Bishop Sophie held a brick made from Coventry Demolition Company which specialises in taking broken things and repurposing them.

She said: “Please don’t ever think that your life has to be presentable before you can join in or offer God your humble life, for just like this brick he specialises in taking the broken pieces of life and making them into something truly beautiful.”

Bishop Sophie, who was previously the Suffragan Bishop of Doncaster, succeeds the Rt Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth, who became the Dean of Windsor, and is the tenth Bishop of Coventry since the modern diocese was established in 1918.

She grew up in Brighton before moving north to study theology and religious studies at the University of Leeds. She trained at Wycliffe Hall theological college where she gained an MPhil in theology from Oxford University and was ordained in 1997 in Bradford Cathedral.

Bishop Sophie has previously held roles in Uganda, Guildford, Chichester and Durham.