A chartered accountant and an academic are the two new British deacons of the Prelature of Opus Dei, ordained earlier this month in Rome.

The two men, Andrew Soane and Peter Damian-Grint, both aged 48, were among 31 Opus Dei members from all over the world ordained to the diaconate by their Prelate, Bishop Javier Echevarría.

Andrew Soane studied Materials Science at Imperial College before training as an accountant with BDO Binder Hamlyn. He worked six years for them in London and later Manchester. He then moved back to London, where he worked for 20 years on the governing council of Opus Dei in Britain.

Peter Damian-Grint studied French at University College London and then for a doctorate at Birkbeck College. He has worked professionally in Oxford as a tutor, researcher and academic editor for 15 years, including at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and most recently at the Electronic Enlightenment Project, a project of the Bodleian Library to digitize letters and documents from the Early Modern period.

They will be ordained to the priesthood in May 2013, and soon after will return to Britain to exercise their priestly ministry.

Andrew Soane said: ‘Opus Dei’s Founder St Josemaría taught the importance of work well done as a means to reach God and bring Him to others. I am very grateful that I have had these years of experience of professional work before studying for the priesthood. It will help me understand better the men and women I am now called to serve, who are all called to holiness in their daily lives. I look forward to spreading this message through my pastoral work’.