A VICAR from America has almost completed his first five months as the new canon residentiary of Brecon.

Rev Dr Mark Clavier, 47, started at Brecon Cathedral on Sunday, September 10 last year – only eight days after getting married to his wife Sarah.

Born in South Carolina, Mark is settling in at his house near the cathedral with his two dogs, springer spaniel Cuthbert and sprocker spaniel Humphrey.

Mark, who is also an author on books about religion and consumerism, grew up in the church as his father was a bishop in the American Episcopal Church – one of the breakaway churches in America.

His family moved to Florida, where Mark spent most of his childhood, before going to Virginia where he attended high school and studied medieval history at the College of William & Mary.

Mark, who is a dual citizen of Britain as well as the USA, said: “The first big paper I wrote was on Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and Edward’s conquest of Wales.

“My father’s British so I have lots of family over here and I’ve been a dual citizen my entire life. I have a Welsh aunt and cousin in Carmarthen.”

Mark started his work in the church after studying theology as an undergraduate in North Carolina’s Duke University.

He prepared for the ministry and became a curate of a church just outside Baltimore in Maryland – a small church where Mark said he was his own youth group.

Six months after Mark arrived at the church, the 80-year-old rector resigned – just two weeks before Mark’s ordination into the priesthood.

Mark said: “I was ordained priest one day and installed as the rector on the next. I had just turned 25.

“I sort of cut my pastoral teeth as a rector there. It was at first a difficult place: very low church and very set in its ways but eventually it doubled in size and when I left the average age of the congregation was about 35, when you include the children.

“I met my then wife and that’s where my son Paul, who is now 18, was born. After about five years, a parish become open in western North Carolina in the Appalachian mountains and it seemed like a fabulous place to bring up my son.”

Mark moved to the new parish in 2001 where he said he had an “incredible” ministry, which tripled in size, over seven years.

During those seven years, he said they started three of four missions and had a really active youth group which was heavily involved with the church services. He said: “To this day it epitomises for me what a parish should be in terms of being friendly and social but also very engaged in mission and formation. It was truly a big family.”

The academic urge had never left Mark so he decided to move to Durham to study his PhD which was on how delight operates in the theology of Augustine of Hippo.

After three years and achieving his doctorate, Mark went back into parish work in the northern villages of the Oxford diocese as there were no academic jobs available at the time. Only a year and a half after arriving in Oxford, Mark was offered the opportunity to be dean of residential training in St Michael’s College – an Anglican theological college in Cardiff.

He said: “I loved my time in the Oxford diocese. I got to be an eccentric country parson but a year and a half after I arrived there I was approached by the principal of St Michael’s College in Cardiff, the canon Rev Dr Peter Sedgwick, and he asked if I’d be interested in becoming the dean of residential training.”

The well travelled priest spent around four years at St Michael’s - he started out as the dean of residential training but eventually also became the acting principal following a report on the future of theological formation in Wales.

He was involved in setting out what would eventually become St Padarn’s – a non-residential training institution that is responsible for both discipleship and ministerial courses which replaced St Michael’s college in Cardiff.

Following his time in Cardiff, Mark returned to Oxford as the vice-principal of the theological college St Stephen’s House with the hope of finally settling down.

He said: “I had hoped finally to settle down after too many moves, but it quickly became apparent to me that I wasn’t a good fit there.

“I needed to find somewhere that would work for the long term. I also felt that I needed to reconnect with the pastoral ministry of the Church. That’s what brought me to Brecon.”

Mark’s main priorities in his new post includes capturing the imagination of his congregation and getting to know them as well as engaging with young families who are part of the church.

He also said he wants to get to know a larger number of people beyond the congregation – including those who have some form of connection with the cathedral without being members of the congregation.

He said: “As I used to tell my ordinands, it’s terrible to come into a parish with preconceived notions of what people need so initially it’s going to be getting to know the current congregations and the community of Brecon better, and that will shape how I go forward.

“So I need to begin building up that energy and one of the things I hope to begin right away is not only getting to know the people in the congregations but getting to know the wider penumbra of people who have or have had some connection to the cathedral and see if we can connect better with them.

“The only way that happens is if they get to know me well enough to trust me.”

Mark has started to become more familiar around the town since starting his weekly bible study classes in November which has now grown to having around 25 members.

He said: “It’s what I’ve done in every church I’ve been in, going all the way back to Maryland.

“They are much more common in the States, and when I started them in Durham and Oxford diocese, and now here in Brecon, people have a real thirst to engage in a thinking way with their faith.”

Mark, who is a keen walker, and his wife Sarah, an academic from North Wales who specialises in 17th century Welsh history, are hoping to settle properly in Brecon.

Mark said that Brecon appealed to him as has always enjoyed walking – he’s trekked across the Norwegian mountains both with a group in central Iceland and by himself.

He said: “I regularly do 30-mile walks. When I was living in Cardiff I would get up at an insane time of the morning to be on Pen-y-Fan at sunrise.

“It’s one of the things I love about Brecon. I find getting away out into the countryside and wilderness grounds me.

“It has deepened my appreciation for creation and has made me keenly aware of how our society is moving away from the things that connect us to creation.”

Mark’s bible study group, which is open for anybody to join, is at 10.30am every Wednesday morning at the Cathedral’s heritage centre.