His Eminence Metropolitan Archbishop Seraphim |
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Primate of the British Orthodox Church | |
Church | British Orthodox Church |
Metropolis | Holy Metropolis of Glastonbury |
Appointed | 19 June 1994 |
Personal details | |
Birth name | William Henry Hugo Newman-Norton |
Born |
London, England |
27 February 1948
Denomination | British Orthodox |
Abba Seraphim El-Suriani (born 27 February 1948 in London, England), born William Henry Hugo Newman-Norton, is the Metropolitan of Glastonbury and Head of the British Orthodox Church.
Metropolitan Seraphim was ordained as a deacon in 1967 and as a priest in 1971. During this time he was diocesan secretary from 1968 to 1977. He served as an assistant priest in Blackheath, London, from 1972 to 1977.
He was consecrated as coadjutor bishop to the Metropolitan of Glastonbury in 1977 and succeeded him as Metropolitan of Glastonbury in 1979. In 1994, Mar Seraphim led much of the UK branch of the Church into union with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, thus forming the British Orthodox Church, and he was consecrated as a metropolitan of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate by Pope Shenouda III.
In 1994 he became a monk of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary (El-Surian), Wadi El Natrun, Egypt, hence the name Abba Seraphim El-Suriani.
On 4 October 2015 the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, in response to a request from the British Orthodox Church, agreed to the British Orthodox Church returning to its pre-1994 status as an autonomous jurisdiction, with Seraphim as primate.