With a residential community at its core, Cuddesdon has grown to be able to offer a broad range of full-time and part-time pathways and programmes to meet the needs of people with different circumstances, stages of life, and academic experience:
Ripon College Cuddesdon
- full-time residential, context-based and part-time training for ordained clergy
- ordained pioneer ministry training in partnership with Church Mission Society
- bespoke programmes for independent students
- a Retreat and Conference Centre for hosting our own programme of guided retreats and events, and also available for external hire for conferences, meetings, parish away days, summer schools and clergy holidays
Cuddesdon Gloucester & Hereford
- part-time training for ordained clergy, Readers and independent students at centres in Gloucester and Ludlow
- Gloucester Foundations in Theology, Ministry and Mission in partnership with Gloucester Diocese for independent students
The Formational Aims of Cuddesdon
A community of communities shaped and centred in Christ
Our Ethos
Faithful worship – Eager learning – Diverse community: Formation for generous service in God’s Church
Cuddesdon treasures and seeks to reflect the comprehensiveness of God’s Church for God’s world. Believing that there neither is nor should be any division in the Body of Christ, we are committed to the flourishing of all and to building a community of communities in which each disciple is enabled to make their unique contribution within the calling and ministry of the whole.
Within this ordered unity there is much diversity, promising both enrichment and challenge for each individual. We believe that every member of the body brings particular gifts and insights and is to be a blessing to every other. Diversity calls for generosity on the part of each, and a recognition that all are likely to experience sacrifice, as well as affirmation and acceptance, as we grow together in God’s wisdom and love.
We rejoice in our unity and celebrate our diversity through a commitment on all our pathways to joyfulness in worship, learning and fellowship. We seek to delight in our common calling and in one another, as we learn and grow by God’s grace and look for, and see, the fruit of the Spirit and the signs of the Kingdom.
Hospitality and environmental responsibility are at the heart of our common calling. We aspire to be an institution living in harmony with creation and a place of learning, shared belonging and refreshment for individuals and groups in a wide range of circumstances.
Formation
Character – Wisdom – Ministry
Formation is always and principally the work of the Holy Spirit. Our calling on the Cuddesdon pathways – as students and staff, pilgrims and disciples together – is to seek to work with the Spirit in this glorious endeavour. Formation for authorised public ministry may be considered under three broad headings, as intensification of Christian discipleship: Character, Wisdom and Ministry.
Character
We aspire to form:
- Ordinands and ministry students who are confident in their vocation and how to be obedient to it. They will continue to be people formed in and for a life of walking closely with God in prayer, committed to growing in holiness and the gifts of the Spirit. They will rejoice in the diversity of those God calls into the Church and Kingdom.
- Ordinands and ministry students who are instinctively collaborative with one another and the whole people of God, capable of deep relationality, imaginative and hopeful about the future of God’s Church and world, and ready to adapt and shape their lives to work within rapidly changing dynamics and contexts.
Wisdom
We aspire to form:
- Ordinands and ministry students who are rooted in the scriptures and in the learning of the Church, with a vision for ministry that is informed by theological scholarship and a healthily inquisitive engagement with the mystery of God and God’s ways with the world.
- Ordinands and ministry students who are natural theological reflectors, capable of reading and interpreting contexts and situations, responding well and bringing to bear rigorous, sensitive and critical theological insight to enable ministry that is both pastoral and prophetic.
Ministry
We aspire to form:
- Ordinands and ministry students who are realistic and enthusiastic about the challenges and opportunities of 21st century mission, confident in being, and helping others to be, missionary disciples engaging with the needs and blessings of the world.
- Ordinands and ministry students who are assured and equipped to engage in the tasks of ministry that await them, specifically as effective preachers, loving pastors, faithful leaders of worship and reliable evangelists of hope and good news.
Our History
There has been a theological college in the village of Cuddesdon for over 160 years. Cuddesdon College was established in 1854 by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, whose vision was for a college independent of any specific Church faction, and with a focus on the discipline of daily prayer and spiritual formation. A merger with Ripon Hall in the 1970s, forming Ripon College Cuddesdon, brought in new resources and fresh thinking, and helped develop a new and open approach to theological study.
The incorporation of the Oxford Ministry Course in 2006 (now the Part-time Pathway), and the West of England Ministerial Training Course in 2011 (now Cuddesdon Gloucester & Hereford) has enabled the College to offer a wide range of outstanding part-time courses that have been well established for over forty years. From 2014, a partnership with Church Mission Society has enabled us to offer training for Ordained Pioneer Ministers.
The Cuddesdon Sisters
In 2012, the remaining Sisters from two Anglican religious orders - Communities of St John Baptist and The Good Shepherd - joined the College community, providing a praying presence throughout the year. Due to the pandemic, they moved in the autumn of 2020 to St Mary's Convent and Nursing Home in Chiswick. We miss them being here greatly but keep in close contact with them.
The Community of St John Baptist funds The Clewer Initiative, the national work of the Church of England in the combat of modern slavery.