Election of Bishop Stephen Cottrell as the 98th Archbishop of York, Thursday 11 June 2020

11/06/2020

Bishop Stephen Geoffrey Cottrell was today formally ‘Elected’ by York Minster’s College of Canons to be the 98th Archbishop of York. The election endorses the Queen’s nomination of Bishop Stephen as the new Archbishop, in a ceremony that has been part of the statutory process for appointing senior bishops in the Church of England since 1533.

The Election ceremony normally takes place in York Minster’s Chapter House with all of the Minster’s Canons present in person, but it was held today via video conference to comply with the Coronavirus restrictions.  

As required by the 1533 Appointment of Bishops Act, the proclamation below, issued by the Right Revd Dr Jonathan Frost, Dean of York, as the President of the Minster’s College of Canons, was published at the end of the Election ceremony to announce the result:

“In the name of the College of Canons We, Jonathan Hugh Frost, being the Dean of the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York and President of the College of Canons of the said Cathedral Church,

“Being required publicly to notify and declare that the See of the Archbishopric of York having been for some time vacant by the resignation of the Most Reverend John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu last Archbishop thereof,

“We the said College of Canons of this Cathedral Church (in pursuance of and proceeding according to the tenor of a Writ of Congé D’Élire and Letter Recommendatory from Her Sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second to Us directed and delivered) have this day Elected the Right Reverend Stephen Geoffrey Cottrell Bishop of Chelmsford to be our Archbishop and Pastor in this Archiepiscopal See of York whom God long preserve.

Read in the Deanery of the Cathedral Church of York aforesaid the eleventh day of June in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty, By us, Dean of York.”

Bishop Stephen’s appointment as Archbishop will be completed in the Confirmation of Election ceremony to be held at 11.00am on Thursday 9 July 2020, in a service that will be broadcast entirely via video conference due to the Coronavirus restrictions.  The service will be available on the Church of England website at www.churchofengland.org.

Arrangements for Bishop Stephen’s enthronement service at York Minster will be announced later in the year.

Prayer on the Election of the Archbishop of York

Generous God, we give you thanks:
you have heard our prayer,
guided your people
and raised up Stephen
to serve as the next Archbishop of York.
By your Holy Spirit, grant to him
good counsel, holy insight and
joy in the gospel,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.   
Amen.

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