London: UK on Wednesday announced its first female bishop, exactly a month after historic change was made to the law to end centuries of male domination of the Church of England.
Reverend Libby Lane will become the new Bishop of Stockport, a post in the north of England that has been vacant since May. Lane has been the vicar at St Peter’s Hale and St Elizabeth’s Ashley in Cheshire since April 2007.
The general synod, the church’s governing body, had voted to back plans for female bishops in July and formally adopted legislation on November 17 and comes 20 years after women became priests. Lane was ordained a deacon in 1993 and a priest in 1994, serving her curacy in Blackburn, Lancashire.
Since 2010 she has also held the role of Dean of Women in Ministry for the Diocese of Cheshire. (PTI