When Canon Leah Vasey-Saunders is inducted at Lancaster Priory on Wednesday, she will be the first female Vicar of Lancaster.<\/p>\n
Leah is joined by her husband of 20 years, Dr Rev Mark Vasey-Saunders, an academic tutor at St Hild Theological College in Yorkshire; and their children: Reuben, aged 17, a student at Chetham\u2019s School of Music; Jude,16; Elias,14; and Miriam,11, who will attend Ripley St Thomas CE High School.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cLancaster is beautiful and reminds me of places we\u2019ve lived before. It\u2019s a wonderful place with heritage, culture and arts opportunities,\u201c said Leah.<\/p>\n
\u201cLancaster feels like a place that has legs, it\u2019s going somewhere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe parish is interesting because it\u2019s in the city centre, part of a heritage site, as well as including the Marsh estate and new housing. It\u2019s got opportunities from every possible perspective and I anticipate it will draw on my experiences of past parishes and cathedral.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Leah will lead worship at many civic occasions in Lancaster and at regular services but such demands don\u2019t faze the former Canon Precentor at Wakefield Cathedral where she organised arts and cultural events.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Music was Leah\u2019s first love as a child born in Grimsby where she joined the Grimsby and Cleethorpes Youth Orchestra.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The family moved to Saudi Arabia for a couple of years with her dad\u2019s work, an important experience in Leah\u2019s faith journey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until Leah joined the church choir at Huddersfield University where she studied music, that she first contemplated a church career.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
And even when a fellow bellringer suggested Leah could be a priest, it took time for her to come to that conclusion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI was from a working class background and not sure if I\u2019d fit in so I took two gap years to explore what it was like to work in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five years of training and studying followed until she was ordained in 2003, aged 25.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
After curacies in Newcastle, Leah was appointed to parishes in Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire before joining Wakefield Cathedral\u2019s clergy team.<\/p>\n
Leah\u2019s first challenge at Lancaster Priory will be guiding the parish through its pandemic recovery. During lockdown, Leah\u2019s family led the Church of England\u2019s national virtual service from their lounge.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone I\u2019ve met so far has been really welcoming. I\u2019ll be listening to as many people as possible and I want to go into schools and shops, get to know the Duchy , the Castle and people at Lancaster City Council.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAnd I really want people to have fun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cChurch should be something people treasure and enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Canon Leah Vasey-Saunders is inducted at Lancaster Priory on Wednesday, she will be the first female Vicar of Lancaster. Leah is joined by her husband of 20 years, Dr Rev Mark Vasey-Saunders, an academic tutor at St Hild Theological College in Yorkshire; and their children: Reuben, aged 17, a student at Chetham\u2019s School of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radium-basement.com\/priory2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}