LONDON: The Church of England's Manchester United-supporting, saxophone-playing first female bishop is an ordinary woman facing an extraordinary job.
Libby Lane, 48, will have to work within an organisation still deeply divided on whether she, or anyone of her gender, should be a bishop at all.
Lane formally becomes a bishop on Monday during a ceremony in the Gothic splendour of York Minster in northern England.
Friends say her humour and common sense will stand her in good stead, faced with the pressure of being the Church of England's first female bishop since it was founded by King Henry VIII in 1534.
"She's a non-anxious presence, she's a calming feature of life, she's got a very lively sense of humour and her lack of self-importance means she will cope with being the first woman bishop brilliantly," Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said last month.
Lane was appointed Bishop of Stockport, northwest England, in December, five months after the Church of England voted to allow women bishops after decades of bitter debate.
"She's a resilient and well-rooted person so I don't think she'll be thrown by what she faces," said John Pritchard, a former bishop of Oxford who was warden of Cranmer Hall in Durham when Lane trained for the ministry there in the early 1990s.
"She's got mountains of common sense and godliness and I think you need both as a bishop."
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