Mark Sowerby

Appointed to become Bishop of Horsham — one of two suffragan bishops of the Diocese of Chichester — in 2009, Sowerby was ordained and consecrated a bishop by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Chichester Cathedral on 25 July 2009.[13] At first, his post was as an area bishop; but the area scheme was wound up in 2013 and he remained a non-area suffragan. During a protracted investigation – while there was a vacancy in the diocesan see — into the efficacy of safeguarding practices in the diocese, Sowerby was additionally Acting Bishop of Chichester. (The senior suffragan of the diocese, Wallace Benn, Bishop of Lewes, was involved in the ongoing investigation.)

On 30 April 2019, it was announced that Sowerby would be the next Principal of the College of the Resurrection, an Anglo-Catholic theological college in West Yorkshire and his alma mater. He succeeded Peter Allan CR, who retired at the end of the 2018–2019 academic year;[14][15] Sowerby resigned his see effective 31 August 2019.[16]

Sowerby previously held views consistent with traditionalist Anglo-Catholicism, such as holding a traditional Anglican view of the ordination of women as priests or bishops. In June 2015, he announced that he had changed his theological outlook and now accepts the ordination of women as priests and bishops. Consequently, he resigned from the Council of Bishops of The Society, a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic association in the Church of England.[17][18]