A former French monk who spent 20 years observing a vow of silence will become priest-in-charge on a Bradford estate next month.

The Reverend Thierry Guillemin, who was born in Lille, spent 15 years at the Grande Chartreuse Monastery near Grenoble as part of the Carthusian Order.

The 48-year-old, who will be licensed as priest of St Paul’s Church in Buttershaw on Tuesday, June 28, converted to Anglicanism after studying the Reformation.

He said: “I began to feel a strong call to a more apostolic life, to give to people outside the monastery what I had received. So I left the community in 2005, with the consent of my superiors, to better discern God’s will.

“As the call was confirmed by everybody, I left the Order that year.

“Once outside the monastery, for reasons of conscience, I could not stay in the Roman Catholic church, so I went to England and was received in the Church of England in 2007.

"In the Anglican spectrum, I would present myself as ‘middle of the road’, with maybe a stronger evangelical side despite my Roman Catholic past.”

Mr Guillemin will also become associate priest of St Michael, Shelf, and St Aidan, Buttershaw.

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