Visit from Mark Clavier

We are please to welcome Mark as our “Theologian-in-Residence” for a week.

Join us on September 8 at 6:30 in Graves Hall as Mark presents: “Life in a Welsh Cathedral” 

Former Oxford Professor, Priest in Wales, Avid Backpacker, author of several books, Mark will join us to discuss life & ministry in Wales. Also, books will be available for purchase/signing.

He will also preach on Sunday, September 11 at the 9 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. services and kick off this year’s Rector’s Forum: “What’s the Big Idea: an exploration of the Bible’s main themes.”

Mark Clavier bio:

Mark Clavier was born in Greenville, SC but grew up mainly in south Florida and Virginia. After earning an A.B. in History from The College of William & Mary and an M.T.S at The Divinity School, Duke University, he spent more than twelve years in parish ministry first in Maryland and then in North Carolina.

In 2008, he moved to the UK where he earned a PhD from Durham University for his dissertation on the role of delight in Augustine of Hippo’s theology. While living in Durham, he served as an assistant priest in four post-industrial pit villages and lectured at Cranmer Hall, Durham.

After briefly returning to full-time parish ministry in the idyllic countryside of north Oxfordshire, Mark moved to the Cardiff area of Wales to serve as the Acting Principal and Dean of Residential Training at St Michael’s College, Llandaff and lecture at Cardiff University. Afterwards, he spent two years as Vice-Principal and Charles Marriott Director of Pastoral Studies at St Stephen’s House, Oxford.

He is now the Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon, Bishop’s Chaplain, and Vicar of St Mary’s Brecon in Wales where he also directs Convivium, an initiative to foster a vision of the Church that stands apart from consumerism and tries to reconnect with creation. He is regularly invited to give public talks and lead retreats in both the UK and USA. He is also regular contributor to BBC Radio Wales programmes such as Prayer for the Day and Weekend Word.

He is the author of a number of books, including his latest A Pilgrimage of Paradoxes: A Backpacker’s Encounters with God and Nature, which won a silver award for the Natutilus Award in Religious Literature.

He spends much of his free time walking in the beautiful Brecon Beacons with his wife, Sarah, and their two Spaniels Cuthbert and Humphrey.