Sitting on top of a mountain in the heart of the Swansea valley, lies a beautiful white chapel which was built in 1692. "From the outside it looks like a lot of chapels, it's an old, pretty chapel which is 330 years old," said its minister Reverend Rory Castle Jones, 36. "But once you come inside there's a big Pride flag and I'm the minister. I'm a gay man who is married to my husband. There's no sense of people having to hide who they are and that's as it should be."
Rory and his husband Rhys Castle Jones were the first same-sex couple to get married in Gellionnen Chapel, a Neath Port Talbot Unitarian church, in August 2016. Rory's fiancé at the time wanted to get married in a chapel and the couple found it difficult to locate a church that would marry them. "We went there to get married and we fell in love with the church and the people," said Rory who added the chapel has now become a spiritual home.
Rory first moved to Swansea to study history and later worked at Swansea university in the admin department. Although he had been to Sunday school growing up, he was not particularly religious and had preconceived notions about religion and sexuality. "It would be normal to have those preconceptions because most churches still are homophobic. I was quite apprehensive about going into any church or chapel," said Rory. You can get more Swansea news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
