Stephen Cottrell

Stephen Cottrell became the 98th Archbishop of York in July in succession of Dr John Sentamu. He is Primate of England and Metropolitan, a member of the House of Lords and a Privy Councillor.

He is only the second person to hold the role of Chancellor of our university since it was formed in August 2007.

Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in 1958, Stephen Cottrell was educated at Belfairs High School, Leigh-on-Sea, and the Polytechnic of Central London. He found faith as a teenager through the work of youth organisations in his local church. After a brief spell working in the film industry, and at St Christopher’s Hospice in South London, he began training for ministry at St Stephen’s House, Oxford, in 1981 and was ordained deacon at the age of 25. He later studied for an MA with St Mellitus College.

Serving his curacy in Christ Church and St Paul’s, Forest Hill, south London, in the mid-1980s he was priest-in-charge at St Wilfrid’s, in Parklands, a council estate parish in Chichester from 1988 to 1993. He also served as Assistant Director of Pastoral Studies at Chichester Theological College at the same time.