HISTORY will be made in Ripon Cathedral on Sunday when a non-Anglican will be appointed an honorary canon of the cathedral.
A Methodist minister, the Rev David Wilkes, who is chaplain general of HM Land Forces, will be licensed as an honorary ecumenical canon by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer.
Mr Wilkes 57, the first Methodist minister to be installed in the cathedral, follows the Ven John Blackburn, the previous chaplain general, who retired last year.
Mr Wilkes, based at the Royal Army Chaplains' Department in Wiltshire, trained for the Methodist ministry in Manchester and was ordained in June 1976.
He said: "I was delighted to be asked by Bishop John, to become an honorary ecumenical canon of Ripon Cathedral. The statutes of the cathedral have been altered to create ecumenical canonries which allow me, as a Methodist minister, to be appointed.
The service comes at the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
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