A senior Catholic friar and former head of an Oxford theology college is to marry an ex-pupil.

Dominican friar the Rev Paul Parvis, 52, who has quit as Regent of Studies at Blackfriars in St Giles, will wed Sara Dudley Edwards, 29, in September.

She was a student at Blackfriars, where she took temporary vows to be a Dominican sister.

Father John Orme Mills, of the English Dominican Province, said: "People knew they were good friends but it never occurred to anybody that this was happening.

"It has shocked and distressed us. As an order of friars, we take final vows to a life of celibacy. It is a loss of someone who was such a good priest, such a good scholar and such a good head of house."

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