Mark Oakley

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Mark Oakley is the Archdeacon of Germany and Northern Europe, an archdeaconry in the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe of the Church of England.

[edit] Early life

Oakley was born on September 28, 1968 in Shrewsbury, and was educated at Shrewsbury School and at King's College London, before heading to St Stephen's House in Oxford where he trained for ordained ministry in the Church of England. He was ordained a Deacon (1993) and a Priest (1994) by Bishop David Hope.

[edit] Work and Thought

Oakley served as Assistant Curate of St John's Wood Church from 1993 to 1996. He was then asked by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, to serve as his Chaplain (1996-2000). He was made a Deputy Priest in Ordinary to HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1996. In 2000 Oakley became Rector of St Paul's, Covent Garden, which is also known as The Actors' Church.

In 2005 the Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, Geoffrey Rowell, appointed Oakley the Archdeacon of Germany and Northern Europe and Chaplain of St Alban's Anglican Church in Copenhagen. His Archdeaconry comprises eight countries (Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Latvia, Estonia and Germany) in which there are many Church of England chaplaincies serving the international Anglican community.

Oakley wrote a popular book called The Collage of God ^[1] in 2001 which earned him a great deal of positive reviews. He has also edited a book of John Donne's poetry and compiled a wedding anthology. He has contributed several essays to various books.

Oakley is known for his interest in the ways literature and poetry explore theological themes and for his preaching, which is often both entertaining and noticeably rooted in his Anglicanism. Whilst he was at the Actors´church he was widely appreciated by the theatre community for his understanding and appreciation of their work. His initiative of having a series of sermons that explored plays that were currently showing in London, to which the actors and production team of each play came and took part in conversation, is a good example of the way Oakley tries to open a dialogue between people of faith and the work of the artistic community. A lecture given by him in Westminster Abbey and Keble College, Oxford in 2002 argued that the Church in its search to be relevant was ironically becoming too secular for the British public and that it should be the deeper human resonances that the Church seeks to identify, explore and dialogue with.^[2] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently wrote that Oakley's thinking and approach is in the tradition of Westcott ^[3].^{[citation needed]} A more recent article by Oakley in the Church Times entitled "An Issue! An Issue! We all Fall Down" ^[4] argues for the renewal of theological generosity in the Anglican spirit.

Oakley reviews for the Church Times, The Tablet and other journals. He also regularly broadcasts.

[edit] References