Liturgy and Canon Law Tutor
Very Revd Protopresbyter Stephen Maxfield
Rector of TMES & Principal Lecturer in Liturgy; Church History; Canon Law and Pastoral Studies. Senior priest, Shrewsbury Greek Orthodox. Archbishop’s representative to the Anglican General Synod.
The Very Revd Protopresbyter Stephen Maxfield was born 1950. He was educated in Sussex and Dorset, then attended Horticultural College in Kent, obtaining a Diploma in Horticulture (1973). He worked in the Nursery Stock industry for 10 years, at Slocock’s Nurseries and Hilliers Nurseries in Surrey and Hampshire, rising to become manager of Slocock’s: at that time the nursery employed 80 staff and covered 500 acres.
He and his family then moved to Chichester, where he attended Chichester Theological College and Southampton University, obtaining a degree in Theology (1977). In 1980 he was ordained into the Church of England, in the Diocese of Hereford. He served in Cleobury Mortimer and Minsterley.
In 1985,on the feast of the Great Martyr, Nestor, Father Stephen and his family were received into the Orthodox Church by Archimandrite Barnabas. At that time, there were very few English Orthodox Christians and only a handful of places where the Liturgy was served in English.
He was ordained deacon on the Sunday before Christmas (21/12) and then priest on the following Sunday (28/12) in1986, at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Birmingham, by His Eminence Archbishop Methodios of Thyateira and Great Britain.
Archbishop Methodios gave his blessing to Fr Stephen to establish a new Orthodox church in Shrewsbury. and on Saturday 13 October 1986 Fr Barnabas and Protopresbyter Alban Barter served the first Orthodox Liturgy in Shrewsbury at Frankwell Methodist chapel with a congregation of 35. Now the Orthodox community in Shrewsbury numbers several hundred, with its priests serving two churches!
Protopresbyter Stephen was also Involved with the setting up of several other Orthodox communities, in Chester, Leyland, Birmingham/Walsall, Rugby, South Lakes and Lampeter. For some years he was the senior chaplain at the Greek Orthodox Youth of Great Britain (GOYGB) annual Youth Camp. He was director of the Orthodox publishing house Stylite Publishing and one time editor and publisher of Orthodox Outlook.
Father Stephen was a founding member of the Midlands Orthodox Study Centre (MOSC), which was well known for the quality of its teaching, and guided its evolution into the present Thyateira Midlands Orthodox Seminary.
