Cambridge will welcome a new vicar of the University Church, Great St Mary’s, on Wednesday, September 5th.

The church has said that the Reverend Canon Adrian Daffern will be officially installed as vicar with “bells, choirs, candlelight, two pipe organs and a great outpouring of joy”.

Dignitaries representing both the University and the City of Cambridge will join children, schoolteachers, market traders and interfaith representatives at the induction ceremony, set to take place in the candlelit University Church.

They claim that the ancient traditions in the induction service will serve a “very contemporary purpose”, through “bringing together diverse community” in religion and prayer.

The incoming vicar, Revd. Canon Adrian Daffern, was born in Wolverhampton in 1968. After being educated at local state schools, he studied Theology at Durham University and, since graduation, has worked with the Church of England in many locations across the country, including Lichfield, Coventry and Oxford.

Great St. Mary’s church, the ecclesiastical centre of Cambridge, is the location of many civic events and was formerly where University degrees were conferred. The church plays a minor role in the University’s statutes, and is the location of the ‘University Sermons’, which usually occur once or twice during each Cambridge term. 

Music will include works by Johann Sebastian Bach, and hymns such as ‘All my hope on God is founded’, which will be sung as the great procession to present the incoming vicar begins.

Sir Gregory Winter, the master of Trinity College – which serves as the patron of the University Church – will present the new vicar, who will be instituted and inducted into his new position by senior figures in the local church community.

Two churchwardens will present Daffern with the key to Great St Mary’s Church and, after ringing the church bell, he will be officially installed by the archdeacon.

The deans and chaplains of the majority of Cambridge colleges will attend the service.