Van Mildert Professor of Divinity Divinity is Simon Oliver, who took up the appointment in 2015. Van Mildert Professor of Divinity The Van Mildert Professor of Divinity is one of the oldest chairs at Durham University. The chair is named in honour of Bishop William Van Mildert, one of the founders of the university. The holder of the Van Mildert chair, which is jointly funded by the university and Durham Cathedral, is also a residentiary canon at the cathedral and member of its Chapter, thus one of the requirements of post holder is to be an Anglican priest or a minister in another church in
Johannes van Mildert to the fact that he was born and raised in Königsberg, which was then part of Germany. He was married to Elisabeth Waeyens and his son Cornelis van Mildert was also a sculptor and draughtsman. His daughter Elizabeth married the sculptor Gerard van Opstal. His son Cornelis and his son-in-law Gerard van Opstal completed some of the works left unfinished at the time of his death. From about 1617 onwards van Mildert received multiple large commissions as a sculptor-architect and maker of small-scale architectural stone church furniture. He thus became the main competitor of the workshop of the brothers Hans