Canon Kathryn Percival has been named new Archdeacon of the Meon.
Kathryn, who is currently Canon Chancellor and Vice Dean of Portsmouth Cathedral, will become part of the Bishop of Portsmouth’s senior staff team, serving and enabling the ministry of parishes in the Petersfield, Bishop’s Waltham, Gosport and Fareham deaneries.
She will work alongside the bishop, the Rt Rev Jonathan Frost, and the two other archdeacons in the diocese.
It will allow Canon Will Hughes, vicar of Petersfield and Buriton, to return to purely parish ministry after serving as acting Archdeacon of the Meon for two years.
Kathryn is married to James, who is a Royal Navy chaplain, and the couple have two grown-up children, Dominic and Eliza. She originally trained to be a barrister and worked in civil litigation, putting her career on hold to have children and volunteering in various roles in Southwark Diocese.
She trained at Ripon College Cuddesdon near Oxford, was ordained in 2010 and ministered in suburban London, and then in semi-rural parishes in East Surrey before going to Portsmouth Cathedral in 2019.
As Canon Chancellor, her role has involved liaising with community, civic and interfaith colleagues and overseeing education, visual art, the work of volunteers, and safeguarding, as well as launching a café-style morning service, #PompeySundays.
She said: “I think the archdeacon’s role is actually to take some of the strain away from parishes, and allow them to experience the joy of doing what they are good at.
“I have an eclectic church background, coming from a non-church family, originally joining a Baptist church, and nearly becoming a Roman Catholic. I’ve also served in small, rural villages and in suburban London, and have been area dean for a deanery of 36 churches across a range of traditions. I hope my legal background will also help, as we focus on to enabling our structures to support our mission.
To see a video of Canon Kathryn introducing herself as the next Archdeacon of the Meon, see https://youtu.be/rKsbXActwHw