The Rev Dr Giles Fraser, who resigned as canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral last year over plans to forcibly remove Occupy protesters from its steps, has been appointed parish priest of an inner-city church in south London.
Fraser will begin his new job at St Mary's Newington, in Elephant & Castle, later this month. He will chronicle his experiences in the parish in a regular column for the Guardian, which begins on Sunday.
Fraser, 47, said he was looking forward to starting work after a difficult few months. "After I resigned there was no plan B whatsoever. It was just a total principled decision. It has been a very dark period thinking about what I'm supposed to be doing with my life."
Despite being shortlisted for jobs as a bishop and a dean, Fraser said he immediately felt drawn to the parish in Southwark, a London borough undergoing a £1.5bn redevelopment after years of neglect.
"I love London and I couldn't leave it," he said. "I went to see the bishop of Southwark and he said: 'I've got a parish coming up and I think you should have a look.'
"London is a tale of two cities: you've got the City of London, where people make extraordinary amounts of money, and you've got another London, represented by places like the Elephant & Castle, which is largely forgotten. It's the church's job to be an advocate and to shine a light on poverty."
He said the Church of England derived its moral authority to speak out on issues of poverty and urban neglect from the fact it had a church in every community in the country and could therefore provide a voice for the forgotten and marginalised.
Fraser said he did not regret his time at St Paul's – "I learned a great deal about the way the world works and I had some fantastic colleagues" – but was looking forward to his "slightly scary" new role.
As well as his Guardian column, Fraser is also working on a book about the "meaning and impact" of the financial crisis, which lent an odd symmetry to his time at the cathedral. "I arrived at St Paul's when Lehman Brothers collapsed and I left during Occupy," he said. "The St Paul's building is magnificent but it can be a distraction. That ceremonial side of things is all very well but I'm not sure it was the right place for me to address the wider moral issues that are going on in this country."
Fraser explained the reasons for his resignation in an interview with the Guardian shortly after he stood down last October.
"St Paul was a tentmaker," he said. "If you looked around and you tried to recreate where Jesus would be born – for me, I could imagine Jesus being born in the camp. It is not about my sympathies or what I believe about the camp … The church cannot answer peaceful protest with violence."x-ref to Giles Fraser CiF piece
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