Jennifer Adams-Massmann appointed as a Canon of Westminster

Jennifer will share in the Dean and Chapter’s responsibility for the governance of the Abbey and will join the Abbey Board.

Welcome and hospitality

As Canon Steward, she will take a leading role in overseeing and shaping the welcome and hospitality offered to the many worshippers, pilgrims, tourists and other visitors who come to the Abbey. She will ensure that the experience of all who come to the Abbey is rooted in the Gospel and inspired by the Abbey’s rich heritage of Christian faith. As Archdeacon, she will be responsible for the pastoral care of staff, volunteers, residents, worshippers and visitors. 

Jennifer grew up in the United States and France and studied English and American Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, before completing a Master of Divinity degree at Duke University. She moved to Europe in 2002, living first in Germany and then in England. Since her ordination in 2007, she has served in overseas chaplaincies, hospital chaplaincy, and college chaplaincy in both Cambridge and Princeton. She has served as Assistant Chaplain and Welfare Officer at Peterhouse since 2019 and was Acting Dean for the 2024/25 academic year. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of Heidelberg on women missionaries in eighteenth-century America, where she previously taught American religion to undergraduates.

Our common life

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, said:

‘I am delighted to welcome Jennifer to the Abbey as a priest, a member of Chapter and a colleague. She will live in the precincts, and she will quickly help to shape the common life that is so important to us. Her ministry in Cambridge has been much admired. Now we will benefit from her profound commitment to pastoral care, which she combines with real theological insight and a power to express that in a stimulating way.’ 

The Reverend Jennifer Adams-Massmann said: 

‘I am deeply honoured to be appointed Canon Steward and Archdeacon of Westminster Abbey. Since the days of St Dunstan, the Abbey has been committed to the Benedictine tradition of welcome for all pilgrims and visitors. I am excited to work together with the Dean and Chapter and the fantastic Abbey staff, especially on projects such as The King Charles III Sacristy and the Digital Abbey that extend that hospitality and outreach in new ways. I am very much looking forward to nurturing the life of the Abbey as a place of prayer and praise and to promoting the wellbeing of the whole Abbey community. Being able to live and work in such an extraordinary place and with such wonderful new colleagues will be a joy and delight.’