I’m looking forward to serving my curacy with you at Hampstead Parish Church. It will be a joy to arrive in your community and participate in all the wonderful things taking place there. In Cambridge this winter, I’ll be volunteering with a charity providing food and shelter overnight for homeless people in local churches. I’m also participating in new inclusive worship groups for people with diverse identities. In addition to Westcott studies and activities, I enjoy swimming, singing, poetry, and being with family and friends (some of whom are scattered across many time zones).
I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada and arrived in the UK in 2003. I studied theology at Oxford, then moved to London to study art history. While a student at the Courtauld Institute of Art, I also worked as a lay assistant chaplain at Whitelands College in Roehampton and was an assistant to the Church of England’s National Adviser on Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns, helping to develop the Church’s response to the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 2007. Spending time getting to know people in these different situations alongside being in the arts helped me to begin to see how culture and faith are always in dialogue.
Recent trips to the Georgian Caucasus mountain churches and to stay with the Delhi Brotherhood in India have begun to expand my understanding of Anglicanism in international contexts too, and have led to new friendships. This year I’m pursuing a Cambridge MPhil, researching Anglican identity and the Eucharist. Alongside this I spend time with a L’Arche-style group for people with mental and physical disabilities.
Following my PhD on Gothic Revival architecture in 2011, (and at this point I should probably say that I’m also a fan of Hampstead’s beautiful Neo-Classical church!) I continued my research at the Courtauld and at Yale, where I was a research fellow at their Institute of Sacred Music. Links between music and visual art in Christian contexts are constantly and innovatively illuminated there, and I learned a lot about both. I’ve also been a lecturer at the University of Nottingham (which I once innocently described as The North – I was swiftly corrected!) and more recently at the University of Essex. It will be great to return home to London and to get to know everyone in Hampstead. I will be delighted to meet you in person in the summer.
Ayla Lepine