Born in Essex, Christopher remembers attending Book of Common Prayer services sung to Merbecke when pews were higher than his head. At the age of seven, he escaped Sunday morning swimming lessons in a chilly pool by joining the choir of All Saints' Parish Church in Loughborough. A musical childhood led to a Bachelor of Music degree at Manchester University, and the first inkling of a call to ordination. A career in computer software development intervened, but in 1988 he sold his Guildford home, wound down his business and moved to Oxford for three years' theological training.
Christopher was ordained at Lincoln by Bishop Robert Hardy to serve his title in a rural parish of twelve churches in South Lincolnshire with the Revd Canon Hall Speers. In 1995 he was appointed to the newly formed benefice of the Billingborough Group. Whilst there, he successfully completed an Oxford University Master of Theology degree in Applied Theology, and was then elected to General Synod. He was appointed to All Saints' and the neighbouring parish of Holy Trinity early in 2003.
Contact Fr Christopher to make arrangements for Weddings, Banns of Marriage, Baptisms (Christenings), funerals and memorial services, other special services, and pastoral visits. (Please direct general administrative enquiries to the Church Office via the Contacts page.) Fr Christopher can be contacted here.
Anne Morris Associate Priest
Anne spent her childhood and University years in this part of the country. She was baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Coventry and confirmed at St Nicholas, Kenilworth. During her teens she was a member of Coventry Cathedral congregation. She attended King’s High School and from there went to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford to read Classics.
In 1969 she married Geoff in Coventry Cathedral and they moved to Manchester to teach. Anne taught Classics in an RC school until the birth of their children, a girl and two boys. In 1982 Geoff was ordained so Anne became a clergy wife. In the same year she completed a London theology degree and later taught RE in a multi-faith school. She also trained as a reader and some years after that trained for ordination.
In 2003 Geoff was appointed vicar of Priors Marston and Anne was ordained to work part-time as a self-supporting minister at All Saints and Holy Trinity here in Leamington. She's been here ever since. Geoff retired in 2008 and they now live in Warwick, a good central location from which to visit their children and grandchildren.
Lis Mordecai Honorary Assistant Priest
Although Lis spent most of her childhood in Leamington, she has travelled far. Following four years as a junior French teacher at a girls’ grammar school in Reading, she felt called to work as a Christian teacher in an underdeveloped country. This led her to Sudan, where she helped to open the first girls’ intermediate school in Southern Sudan – an isolated but highly rewarding position. The next few years saw marriage to a Welsh Clerk-of-Works, a move to the Gold Coast after Sudanese independence, and then five years in Qatar, where her two children were born.
Lis later moved to Nigeria where she taught French and ran an international primary school.
On returning to Leamington, her husband’s health sadly deteriorated and he died 30 years ago. Lis decided to offer more help to the church, went to theological college in Oxford and was in the first cohort of women to be ordained deacon in 1987.
She undertook three years’ non-stipendiary work at All Saints’, then moved to Worcester City Parish for five years, helping to fuse together two churches of very different traditions. It was there that she was priested in 1994.
Since her ‘retirement’ she has been back to Sudan to teach for a year; shared a mental health chaplaincy at Warwick for over two years; returned twice to Khartoum to assist the Cathedral clergy and to represent the Coventry Cathedral Cross of Nails Community; and helped in local interregna in this diocese.
Now she fills in when needed in this and other local churches, and is thankful for the richness and variety of the past years in God’s service.
