Bishop of Coventry welcomed at Coventry Cathedral

The cathedral service marked the beginning of Bishop Sophie’s public ministry in the Diocese of Coventry and was the first time she delivered a sermon at a service in the cathedral as Bishop of Coventry.

The service began with a combined Coventry school choir of children singing. Next a procession of Clergy, Readers and visiting Bishops moved down the nave, followed by a civic procession which included the Mayors of Warwick, Whitnash and Stratford-upon-Avon, the Lord Mayor of Coventry and the Lord Lieutenant for the West Midlands. Lastly the new Bishop and her procession proceeded from the Ruins, via the Queen’s Steps, to the West Screen.

Bishop Sophie stood at the entrance to the cathedral whilst two young people, one from Barrs Hill School and another from Bluecoat CofE School asked her who she was and why she has come. She answered “I am Sophie, a servant of Christ, called to be a bishop in the Church of God. I come in faith and obedience, to share in the life of this diocese and to walk with the people of God in this place.”

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-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare and a model car symbolising Coventry’s engineering legacy and its ongoing spirit of innovation.

In her inaugural sermon, Bishop Sophie held a brick made from Coventry Demolition Company which specialises in taking broken things and repurposing them into something new. She talked about Coventry’s unique purpose of reconciliation, of taking broken things and making them anew. 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.”

At the conclusion of the service, there was gelato from Mirabelle, the vintage gelato van stationed in the Cathedral Ruins, served and a jazz band played as new friends and old celebrated together.