12 Facts About Jeffrey John

Jeffrey John made headlines in 2003 when he was the first person to have openly been in a same-sex relationship to be nominated as a Church of England bishop.

Jeffrey John studied at Tonyrefail Grammar and at Hertford College, Oxford, where he gained a first in classics and modern languages in 1975.

Jeffrey John subsequently studied theology at St Stephen's House, Oxford, and obtained second-class honours.

Jeffrey John later undertook a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Oxford, which he completed in 1984 with a doctoral thesis titled "The importance of St Paul and the Pauline Epistles in second century Christian Gnosticism ".

Jeffrey John supported the campaign for the ordination of women.

On 20 May 2003 Jeffrey John was nominated as Bishop of Reading, an area bishop in the Diocese of Oxford.

July 2010 saw widespread media reports that Jeffrey John was the Crown Nomination Commission's preferred candidate for appointment as Bishop of Southwark in succession to Tom Butler.

Jeffrey John was reportedly on the shortlists to be appointed Bishop of Exeter in 2013 and Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 2014.

In 2017, Jeffrey John was again almost elected as a diocesan bishop, this time as Bishop of Llandaff.

Jeffrey John's candidacy was reportedly supported by a majority of the electors, but not the required supermajority.

In 2018, Jeffrey John was on the four candidate short list for election as Bishop of Brechin in the Scottish Episcopal Church; he was not elected.

Jeffrey John cited Julian of Norwich, a widely admired 14th-century English mystic who asserted that there is no wrath in God.