Professor Paul Avis, BD(Hons), PhD

Honorary Professor

Biography

Background

Paul Avis is Honorary Professor in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, and Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Theology and Religion, University of Exeter, UK. He has previously held honorary chairs in the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University (2017-21), and in the University of Exeter (2008-17). Following 23 years in parish ministry and service on the General Synod and the Doctrine Commission, he became General Secretary of the Church of England’s Council for Christian Unity (1998–2011) and Theological Consultant to the Anglican Communion Office (2011–12). He has taken part in international theological dialogues on behalf of the Anglican Communion and served on the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order and its predecessor body (2000-20) and was a senior inspector/reviewer of theological education for the Church of England for twenty years. Paul was a Chaplain to HM Queen Elizabeth II in England (2008–17) and consecutively Prebendary, Sub-Dean and Canon Theologian of Exeter Cathedral. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ecclesiology and the editor of the series Anglican-Episcopal Theology and History (Brill). He edited The Oxford Handbook of Ecclesiology (2018) and jointly with Benjamin Guyer The Lambeth Conference: Theology, History, Polity and Purpose (2017). His publications include In Search of Authority: Anglican Theological Method from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (2014); Becoming a Bishop: A Handbook of Episcopal Ministry (2015); The Vocation of Anglicanism (2016); Jesus and the Church: The Foundation of the Church in the New Testament and Modern Theology (2020); Reconciling Theology (2022) and Theology and the Enlightenment: A Critical Enquiry into Enlightenment Theology and its Reception (2022).

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