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UGANDAN IS NEW ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
June 16, 2005
BUCKINGHAM PALACE--The Queen has approved for appointment as Archbishop of York the Right Reverend John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu LLB, MA, PhD, FRSA, Bishop of Birmingham. He will succeed the Most Reverend and Right Honourable David Hope BA, DPhil, who resigned in February 2005. Notes for Editors
The Right Reverend Dr John Sentamu (born 1949) was educated in Uganda, graduating in Law from Makarere University, Kampala, and is an Advocate of the High Court of Uganda. He practised Law both at the Bar and at the Bench before he came to the UK in 1974. He read theology at Selwyn College Cambridge, where he gained a Masters Degree and a Doctorate. He trained for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1979, serving as Assistant Chaplain at Selwyn College. From 1979 to 1982 he was Chaplain at HM Remand Centre Lachmere House and Curate of St Andrew's Ham in the diocese of Southwark.
From 1982 to 1983 he was Curate of St Paul Herne Hill, and from 1983 to 1984 Priest-in-Charge at Holy Trinity, Tulse Hill and Parish Priest of St Matthias Upper Tulse Hill. He then became Vicar of the joint benefice of Holy Trinity and St Matthias from 1984 to 1996. Between 1987 and 1989 he was also Priest-in-Charge of St Saviour Brixton Hill. He was appointed Bishop of Stepney in 1996 and Bishop of Birmingham in 2002.
Bishop Sentamu is married to Margaret who is a Senior Selection Secretary in the Church Ministry Division of the Archbishops' Council, and they have two grown-up children, Grace and Geoffrey. His interests include music, cooking, reading, athletics, rugby and football.
Bishop Sentamu was on the General Synod from 1985 to 1996. He was also a member of the Archbishop's Advisory Group on Urban Priority Areas from 1987, and of the Revision Committee for the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood.
He served on the Decade of Evangelism Steering Group and for five years was a member of the Executive of the Archbishops' Initiative on Evangelism (Springboard). He was Prolocutor of the Convocation of Canterbury from 1990 to 1994 and Chairman of the General Synod's Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns between 1990 and 1999. From 1997 to 1999 he was Adviser to the Stephen Lawrence Judicial Inquiry and he chaired the Damilola Taylor Review in 2002.
He has also been the chairman of the NHS Haemoglobinopathy Screening Programme since 2001. Between 2002 and 2004 he was Chairman of EC1 New Deal. He became President of Youth for Christ in 2004 and President of the YMCA in April 2005.
