Canon Angela Tilby writes:
THE Revd Sarah Chapman was an outstanding pastoral priest who served in four dioceses and was known for gifts of discernment, healing, and prayer ministry.
Sarah was born and grew up in Kenya. She loved sport, sunshine, and the open-air life. After retirement to Portsmouth, she joined a group to swim each morning in the Solent at Hotwalls. She looked and was physically strong, with a broad, open face that could crease with laughter, soften in gentle empathy, or tilt in amused or unamused scepticism. School was Cheltenham Ladies’ College, after which she worked as an occupational therapist in mental health.
A firm Christian from the time of her confirmation in 1969, she trained on the Southern Theological Education and Training Scheme, and was ordained a non-stipendiary deacon in 1989 to serve in Rogate in Chichester diocese. Like most ordained women of that era, she had to cope with hostility and ambivalence. Her training incumbent declined to support her priestly ordination, which led to public protests by parishioners, which were reported in the national press. Her curacy was moved to St Mary’s, Easebourne. She was the first woman to preside at the eucharist in Chichester Cathedral, although the diocese would not support her for the full-time ministry that she desired.
Moving to Portsmouth, where her husband, Giles, was working as a lawyer, she was briefly an assistant priest in Cosham, before becoming Vicar of St Mary Magdalen’s, Sheet, where, in five years, she fostered no fewer than five vocations and trained in spiritual direction. She then moved to Bitterne Park, a huge urban-priority-area parish in Southampton, where she reordered the church, adding a café, and inspired a resurgence in what had become a discouraged church community.
In 2005, she was elected to General Synod, representing Winchester diocese. She moved to Canterbury diocese in 2012, as Chaplain of the Living Well. Here, she promoted a vigorous healing ministry and offered counsel and prayer to many who sought her help. She became an honorary canon of Canterbury Cathedral in 2016.
I met her shortly before she retired to Portsmouth in 2019. She and Giles became friends, offering huge support and encouragement during a period of particular difficulty. She and I were sparring partners as well as friends. She was much more sympathetic to the Charismatic movement than I was, and, while not dismissing my scepticism, she encouraged me to take a more generous view, accompanying me to a New Wine service and a Sunday-morning service at a local HTB church-plant.
The core of her ministry was her care for and support of individuals, especially those who had been wounded or abused. She recorded her experience with one abuse survivor who had attended the Living Well in a vivid and moving memoir, The Statues Gasped. Her care for the wounded came from a strong sense of justice, along with a firm belief that the healing power of Jesus was available today.
In her retirement, the Bishop of Portsmouth persuaded her to serve as interim Team Rector of Newport, Carisbrooke and Gatcombe, on the Isle of Wight. This was a challenging task, which involved supervising an ambitious reordering of Newport Minster and forming a new team ministry. There was healing to be done on both corporate and individual levels, and she saw it through with her characteristic blend of firmness, patience, prayer, and kindness — and an occasional glass of dry red.
During the Covid pandemic, she ministered at a regular healing eucharist in Portsmouth Cathedral, where her readiness to hang around and chat (the ministry of lurking, as she put it) was greatly welcomed. She also volunteered at Rowans, the local hospice, and later became part of the ministry team at St Luke’s, Southsea, and St Mary’s, Portsea.
After treatment for cancer, she had more than a year of good health, in which she and Giles had a much-longed-for holiday in the Maldives and travelled to Australia to see their daughter, Ruth, a school chaplain in Perth. Then, as happens so often, the cancer returned. She died at Rowans, leaving Giles, Ruth, her son, Mark, and three grandchildren. I shall miss her keen appraising glance, her unquenchable faith, and her refusal to be bullied or intimidated. She was, in every sense, a pioneer.
The Revd Sarah Chapman died on 23 September, aged 70.
