Portsmouth: new statue to be unveiled at Cathedral

Philip Jackson's St John the Evangelist

Representatives of some 50,000 Catholics from across the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth – covering Hampshire, the IoW, Channel Isles and parts of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Dorset – will assemble at St John’s Catholic Cathedral in Portsmouth on 22 July to witness the unveiling of Philip Jackson’s sculpture of St John the Evangelist in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire and Archbishop Vincent Nicholls.

Philip Jackson, one of the foremost figurative sculptors in Britain today, is already known to the people of Portsmouth for The Yomper, the statue standing stoically on Southsea’s seafront.

The three-metre high statue of St John the Evangelist, sponsored by the Friends of the Cathedral, has taken two years to complete and will be unveiled on its two-metre high plinth in a ceremony conducted by Bishop Crispian Hollis, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth.

Canon David Hopgood, Dean of St John’s Cathedral, said: ‘The sculpture, standing proudly outside our Cathedral, will bear testimony to the vigour of our faith. It will be a statement to bring focus, attention and further quality to the city of Portsmouth for the benefit of its inhabitants and those visiting the city, be they of the Christian faith, other faith or none’.

Source: Diocese of Portsmouth