PRESS RELEASE : Appointment of Suffragan Bishop of Selby [July 2024]

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 31 July 2024.

The King has approved the nomination of The Reverend Canon Dr Flora Winfield, Third Church Estates Commissioner, for nomination to the Suffragan See of  Selby in the Diocese of York in succession to Bishop John Thomson following his retirement.

Background

Flora was educated at St David’s University College, Lampeter, and trained for ministry at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. Ordained as a deacon in 1989 and as a priest in 1994, Flora served as a parish deacon in estates ministry and as Chaplain and Tutor in Church History at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, before becoming National Ecumenical Officer for the Church of England in 1997. In 1997, Flora was commissioned as a Chaplain in the Army Reserve, serving for the past 27 years with operational units and in Brigade and Divisional Headquarters as a Deputy Assistant Chaplain General.

In 2002, Flora was appointed as a Canon Residentiary at Winchester Cathedral and, in 2005, she took up the role of Assistant Secretary General, Religions for Peace, New York. Flora was appointed as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Anglican Relations in 2007 and from 2008 to 2013 she served as Priest-in-Charge at St Mary-at-Hill, in the Diocese of London. She was appointed as Anglican Communion Permanent Representative to the United Nations in 2014, as Archbishop’s Special Representative to the Commonwealth in 2017, as the Archbishop’s Adviser on Reconciliation in 2019 and as the Third Church Estates Commissioner in 2022.

In 2010, Flora was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater London, and serves as the Chair of the Lieutenancy Council on Faith.