Mr Taylor will be based at Holy Trinity, Boar Lane

Reverend Christopher Taylor, who was a community theatre director before he became a priest, takes up his new role on Friday.

He will work from Holy Trinity Church in Boar Lane and has the title Chaplain for Arts and Recreation.

Mr Taylor, 55. will have responsibility for developing links between the church and arts organisations and theatres.

Daily worship

He will also head a project to develop Holy Trinity into a centre for exhibitions, concerts and meetings while retaining part of the building for daily worship.

A graduate of the Central School of Speech and Drama, Mr Taylor was ordained as a priest in 1997.

For several years before that he worked with the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal running theatre and community education projects.

In his last post as Vicar of Wheatley, Oxford, he taught performing arts at a local high school and ran community theatre projects.

"What looks particularly exciting," he says, "is the positive way in which the job has been put together by the team, the diocese and the city.

"The church has got to relate to the community it serves and this is an excellent way of showing this."