Norwich is to get a new Bishop for the new Millennium with the announcement that the Rt Rev Graham James is to be enthroned in January 2000.
Bishop Graham, 48, is currently Suffragan Bishop of St Germans in the Diocese of Truro, Cornwall. He has been chaplain to two Archbishops of Canterbury, Robert Runcie and George Carey.
He is married to Julie, 45, who comes from Peterborough and trained as a nurse and works as a classroom assistant. They have two children, Rebecca, 18, and Dominic, 14.
"I'm excited, daunted and honoured in equal measure by this new appointment," said Bishop Graham. "Perhaps not all letters from the Prime Minister drive people to their knees in prayer, but this one certainly did. I look forward to getting to know people and places in the Diocese of Norwich and will give my best powers of mind and spirit to this new ministry."
A firm belief in social responsibility and support for the ordination of women come with the new Bishop who looks forward to a great opportunity for the church in the coming Millennium: "My first priority as a diocesan bishop will be to promote the Christian faith and to remind people of God in a society which seems so often to have forgotten or neglected him rather than rejected him."
Bishop Graham will be enthroned in Norwich Cathedral in January 2000: "I shall begin my ministry here as the new Millennium begins," he said. "The Church does not belong to the past. Its message is always one about a future hope."
The new bishop replaces the Rt Rev Peter Nott who retired in June.
