File 01 - Chancery Permissions

The Right Reverend Michael Charles Evans was ordained as a priest for the Archdiocese of Southwark on 22 June 1975. He was an Assistant Priest prior to studying for a Master of Theology degree at the University of London for four years (1975–1979). He returned to his seminary, St John’s Wonersh, for eight years as lecturer in Doctrine. From 1995 to 2003 he served as Parish Priest at St Augustine’s Church in Tunbridge Wells before being appointed as the third Bishop of East Anglia on 14 February 2003 by Pope (now Saint) John Paul II. Bishop Evans received Episcopal consecration at the Cathedral Church of St John the Baptist, Norwich on 19 March 2003.

An energetic and prolific writer and spent much of his time trying to organise and consolidate the Diocese with a series of Diocesan Policies and long-range plans for parish mergers in response to a decline in the number of priests and vocations. In November 2006 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer but decided to stay in post until his death on 11th July 2011 at the age of fifty-nine.