The Reverend Dr James Hawkey
Canon Theologian and Almoner
The Reverend Dr Jamie Hawkey is Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, and Chair of the Westminster Abbey Institute. He is a Chaplain to HM The King, having first been appointed a Chaplain to HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2017. Canon Hawkey is also a Bye-Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and a Visiting Professor in Theology at King’s College, London. Born and educated in Sussex, he read theology at Cambridge, before proceeding to the MPhil and PhD degrees as a Gosden Scholar of Selwyn College.
Ordained deacon in 2007, and priest in 2008, much of his current teaching and research is in ecclesiology and ecumenical theology. He trained for the priesthood at Westcott House, spent a semester at the Angelicum University in Rome, and served his curacy in inner-city Portsmouth, at St Mary's Portsea. He was appointed Minor Canon and Sacrist of Westminster Abbey in 2010, becoming Precentor in December 2013. In 2015, he was appointed Dean and Director of Studies in Theology at Clare College, Cambridge, where he taught both undergraduates and postgraduates for the Cambridge Divinity Faculty and Theological Federation. Alongside work in Cambridge, he became assistant Director of Ordinands for the Diocese of Ely in 2016.
Dr Hawkey has been a member of the International Reformed/Anglican Dialogue, and continues to work with the Malines Conversations Group. His commentary on the latest agreed statement of the Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission was published by SPCK in 2018, and current projects include further writing on ecclesiology and ecumenism. Amongst other commitments, Dr Hawkey is a member of the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission, a Governor of the Anglican Centre in Rome, an advisor to the Center for Empathy in International Affairs, a member of the Church of England's Estates Theology Group, and of the Editorial Advisory Board for the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church. For the academic year 2022/23, he will be a Professore Invitato in the Faculty of Theology at the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome.
