For the first time, a Filipino priest has been ordained in the Diocese of East Anglia. Fr Jaylord Magpuyo was ordained at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Norwich in front of 500 people. He is the first new priest in the diocese in four years. There are now 12 more seminarians – the highest number in 30 years, the diocese said. Fr Magpuyo studied for the priesthood in Davao City, in the Philippines, before being invited to transfer to East Anglia, where there is a growing Filipino community. He has two aunts in London and cousins in Cambridgeshire. Fr Magpuyo has been serving as a deacon in Cambridge. He said many Filipinos work as nurses at the city’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Fr Pat Cleary, vocations director, said one factor behind the rise in candidates was the priority placed on vocations by Bishop Alan Hopes. “It’s big on his agenda,” Fr Cleary said. “He remembers each [candidate] by name in his prayers each day. “When he goes around parishes he knows if there are people thinking about it,” he said. “He makes a point of searching them out and encouraging them.” In a blog post at rcdea.org.uk, Fr Magpuyo said that as a young teenager he first became interested in the seminary because of its basketball courts. But, he said, from the age of 16 he realised that “God was slowly preparing and forming me to become not an athlete but a servant of His vineyard”. About 300,000 people from the Philippines are estimated to live in Britain. The number has risen sharply since the early 2000s.