Sara Mullally has been officially enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, thereby beginning her public ministry as the first woman at the head of the Church of England.
The former nurse took her place on the 13th-century Chair of St Augustine at Canterbury Cathedral on Wednesday, before around 2,000 guests, including the heir to the British throne Prince William and his wife Catherine, as well as Prime Minister Keir Starmer and religious leaders. She will serve as the spiritual head of the global Anglican Communion, which has around 85 million followers worldwide. The Church of England ordained its first female priests in 1994, and its first female bishop in 2015.
Although she legally assumed the position back in January, Wednesday’s enthronement marked the symbolic beginning of her ministry.
“As I begin my ministry today as Archbishop of Canterbury, I once again say to God: ‘Here I am,’” she told those gathered during her first sermon. Wearing a golden mitre, Mullally prayed that “peace may prevail” in war-affected regions of the world, including parts of the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar.
The 63-year-old Mullally also reflected on the suffering caused by the church’s past failures to protect the faithful, one of which led to the resignation of her predecessor Justin Welby, emphasizing the need to “remain committed to truth, compassion, justice and action.” Welby resigned in 2024 following a scandal involving the covering up of child abuse.
At the beginning of the ceremony, Mullally knocked on the west door of the cathedral, wearing a cloak fastened with a clasp modeled after the belt she wore as a nurse in the National Health Service. She was welcomed by children, while prayers and readings were heard in several languages during the service, including Urdu. She also wore a ring that one of her predecessors, Michael Ramsey, received from Pope Paul VI in 1966, symbolizing the improvement of relations between Anglicans and Catholics, centuries after King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church.
Wednesday also marked the Feast of the Annunciation – commemorating the biblical event in which an angel tells Mary she will give birth to Jesus – which was the main theme of the service.
Earlier, Bishop Philip Mounstephen, who blessed her during the enthronement, told Reuters that the arrival of a woman to an “ancient office older than the crown” represents a historic moment. “It truly points to a huge change that has taken place in the life of the church,” he said.
Although her appointment in October sparked sharp criticism from the conservative Global Anglican Future Conference, which consists mainly of churches from Africa and Asia and opposes blessings of same-sex unions and women in leadership positions, the group this month abandoned earlier plans to appoint a parallel leader as a rival to Canterbury and instead decided to form a new council.
That body, which will include bishops, clergy and lay members with voting rights, brings together provinces that have distanced themselves from Canterbury.
The Anglican Consultative Council, a global representative body, also abandoned a proposal for rotating leadership, which would have reduced the traditional leadership role of Canterbury, after concerns that it could create a parallel center of power.
Tensions between progressive and conservative Christians are not specific to Anglicanism alone, but the role of the archbishop is largely symbolic and based on persuasion, unlike the pope who has clear authority over Catholics worldwide.
Recent archbishops have struggled to bridge deep divisions over LGBTQ issues and the role of women between the increasingly liberal Church of England and more traditional communities elsewhere.
Mullally emphasized unity in diversity, telling Reuters in October last year: “We are a family with a common root, and each global church carries great diversity within it.”
The Church of England broke away from Rome nearly 500 years ago. Since then, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, which spread worldwide through missionary work, especially in countries that were once part of the British Empire.
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Source: Al Jazzera, Foto: Printscreen Youtube