Candler School of Theology Dean Jan Love has announced the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Gabrielle Thomas to the faculty as assistant professor in early Christianity and Anglican studies, effective fall 2021. The appointment comes after a successful committee-led search chaired by Ian McFarland, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Theology.

Thomas is currently lecturer in early Christianity and Anglican studies at Yale Divinity School, a position she accepted after a two-year tenure as a post-doctoral research associate at Durham University in the United Kingdom. An ordained priest in the Church of England, she has served churches as both a lay and an ordained leader. She completed her Ph.D. in Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham while working in full-time parish ministry. Thomas is also a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Theological Reflection Group, a small group of academic theologians who gather with the archbishop for an extended visit twice a year to reflect theologically on pressing issues in the church and the world.

In addition to authoring a significant number of journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, she has published three books: The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory Nazianzus, Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church: Explorations in Theology and Practice, and For the Good of the Church: Unity, Theology and Women.

Since moving to the U.S. in 2019, Thomas has been involved in the work of St. John’s Episcopal Church in New Haven, Connecticut. She also mentors those discerning a call to ordination in The Episcopal Church.

Candler will officially welcome her to the faculty at Fall Convocation in August.