St Matthew’s vicar is collated in unique event
A UNIQUE ceremony saw the Rev. Gill Nobes collated as the vicar of St Matthew’s Church in the Castel.
‘This has never happened before,’ said the Dean of Guernsey, the Very Rev. Tim Barker, who explained that while the right to appoint rectors of the island’s 10 parish churches lies with the King, local trustees or clergy are responsible for appointing a vicar to the other Anglican churches.
However, with the Castel being one of the two churches currently without a rector, the role of making the appointment falls to the bishop of the diocese who on this occasion was represented by Mr Barker.
The connection between the Castel and St Matthew’s has also been brought to an end.
‘We came to the conclusion that the Castel and Cobo [St Matthew’s] have been together for about 25 years and it wasn’t working terribly well,’ said the Dean, ‘so the decision was taken that we would separate the two.’
After Mr Barker performed the collation part of the ceremony, Vice-Dean, the Rev. Jon Honour inducted Mrs Nobes into the role.
Mrs Nobes lived in Guernsey prior to being ordained in 2012, after which she spent time as priest in charge of Highcliffe and was assistant area dean of Christchurch.
She became the island’s first full-time female rector when she was appointed to the post at St Sampson’s Church in 2019.
Just over a year later she announced that she believed her calling to be elsewhere and resigned.
She took on the role of interim priest in charge of St Matthew’s in September last year
‘I’m delighted to be joining them as vicar,’ she said. ‘I was helping out as interim priest in charge from September through to Easter then I took a few weeks off and then I joined them again.’
Mr Barker said that the Church was contemplating the possibility of having a part-time rector at the Castel, and once this had been dealt with, St Sampson’s was next on the list.
