On 24 December 1968 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He was ordained a priest in Arundel on Easter Sunday 1973 [clarification needed] and was assistant curate at Arundel Cathedral and Chantry priest to the Duke of Norfolk from 1973 to 1979. From 1980 until 1990 he served at St Mary Magdalene's parish church in Brighton, holding additionally the post of Chaplain to the Master of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners of the City of London. From 1990 until 1993 he was parish priest of Henfield. In 1999, he was professed in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and was a Provincial Definitor from 2006 to 11. During the academic years 2005–2007 he was the Roman Catholic chaplain to the University of Central Lancashire. Following the retirement of Nicholas Richardson in 2007, Elvins was appointed warden of Greyfriars, Oxford, and upon the dissolution of the permanent private hall was appointed guardian of the friary (Greyfriars) from 2008 to 2011.[citation needed]
Throughout his life Elvins was particularly concerned for the homeless and was the founder of Simon House in Oxford (1967), the St Thomas Fund for the Homeless in Brighton (1980) and Becket Homes in Canterbury (1997), as well as being a co-founder of the Thomas More Legal Centre. In 2011, he founded Regina Palestinae (Our Lady of Palestine), a charity for the support of poor families in Palestine.[citation needed]
The Heraldry Society holds an annual Mark Elvins Lecture. On 16 April 2008, the Rt Revd Dom Geoffrey Scott OSB, Abbot of Douai, spoke on "The heraldry of James II and his cult".
Death
Elvins died on 1 May 2014, aged 74, from cancer.
Publications
Mark Turnham Elvins (Mark of Whitstable), A Eucharistic vision and the spirituality of St Francis of Assisi (Leominster: Gracewing, 2007), ISBN9780852446638
M.T. Elvins, Catholic trivia: our forgotten heritage, illustrated by John Ryan (Leominster: Gracewing, 2002; previously published London: HarperCollins Religious, 1992), ISBN9780852445594
M.T. Elvins, Our Lady and the Ecumenical movement in the light of her maternal patronage: a paper given to members of the Canterbury branch of the Society on 27 September 1997 (Wallington: Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 2000), ISBN9780855973735
M.T. Elvins, St. Thomas Becket and the homeless (London: Buckland, 1994), ISBN9780721208541
M.T. Elvins, "St." Thomas of Dover: monk and martyr (London: Buckland, 1994), ISBN9780721208091
M.T. Elvins, Towards a people's liturgy: the importance of language (Leominster: Gracewing, 1994), ISBN9780852442579