Edinburgh has a new bishop following the installation of the Rt Revd Dr Dagmar Winter at a packed St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral this weekend.

Bishop Dagmar becomes the 27th Bishop of Edinburgh. She succeeds Bishop John Armes, who retired last year, and before him Bishop Brian Smith and Bishop Richard Holloway. She is the second woman to become a Bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Over 700 guests from across Scotland and from as far as Ghana and New Zealand were in attendance, including church leaders the Most Rev Dr Leo Cushley, Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, the Rt Rev Gordon Kennedy, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the Most Rev Rt Hon Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York.

'The service was an amazing and uplifting, hugely encouraging experience,' said Bishop Dagmar, who was greeted with loud and long applause. 'Thank you to everyone who contributed to such a wonderful launch into my new episcopal role.

'In the following weeks and months there will be many to meet and I have much to learn and absorb. I can't wait to get started! The Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church next week comes early in my time and will be a further opportunity for important encounters.

'The joy of the Lord is our strength! In this spirit I look forward to working with all the charges in the Diocese of Edinburgh and the wider communities and their leaders beyond as we seek the kingdom Jesus proclaimed.'

The Service of Translation and Installation on Saturday afternoon was led by the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Rev Mark Strange, and the sermon was delivered by the Rt Rev Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich.

'What, I wonder, is God’s favourite colour?' asked Bishop Graham. 'For half of this city, it is maroon for Hearts; for the other half, Hibs green. But I believe, if God has a favourite colour, it is tartan.

'Tartan, because God brings together the threads of our experiences, joys and failures, dreams and dashed hopes, to create the colour and pattern of our lives. Tartan, because God brings together the threads and messiness of individual lives to create the colour and pattern of our communities. And God brings together often broken threads to create the colour and pattern of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

'Dagmar, as a bishop you have the privilege of seeing the next length of that tartan emerge from the loom of the Diocese of Edinburgh.'

Bishop Dagmar, who is of British and Swiss-German descent, studied at the universities of Erlangen, Aberdeen and Heidelberg. She was ordained priest in 1997 in the Diocese of Rochester, Church of England, serving there and in the Diocese of Newcastle, and was made a Canon of Newcastle Cathedral in 2011. She was consecrated Bishop of Huntingdon in the Diocese of Ely in 2019. She also served as Acting Bishop of Ely in between 2023 and January 2026.

She has served as Vice-President of the Conference of European Churches which runs a number of projects, especially Pathways to Peace, a coordinated response of the European church fellowship to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For more information about the Scottish Episcopal Church.