First Female Archbishop Of Canterbury Sparks African Anglican Divide
LAGOS, Nigeria — Mixed reactions have followed the appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. The 63-year-old was appointed on Oct. 3, and will succeed Justin Welby, who resigned last year over his failure to report serial child abuser John Smyth, who was affiliated with the Church of England.
Liberal Anglicans have welcomed Mullally’s appointment. However, conservative church leaders have crticized it. The Church of Nigeria, for example, has formally rejected both the leadership of the Church of England and that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, citing Mullally’s support for same-sex marriage and her position as the first woman chosen for the role.
Women were first ordained as priests in the church in 1994, and in 2014, the Church of England officially adopted legislation allowing female bishops.
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On Thursday, the bishops of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, known as GAFCON, announced they were cutting all ties with the Anglican Communion following Mullally’s appointment.
The group’s statement said the bishops have been “prayerfully advancing toward a future for faithful Anglicans, where the Bible is restored to the heart of the Communion.” They said it will be “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.”
GAFCON, a global network of conservative Anglican leaders, is made up primarily of churches from the Global South, particularly Africa, along with conservative groups in North America, South America and Australia.
Henry Ndukuba, Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of Nigeria, described Mullally’s appointment as “devastating” and criticized it for failing to recognize the current challenges facing the Anglican Communion.
“It is a double jeopardy; first, in its insensitivity to the conviction of the majority of Anglicans who are unable to embrace female headship in the episcopate, and second, more disturbing that Bishop Sarah Mullally is a strong supporter of same-sex marriage as evidenced in her speech in 2023, after a vote to approve the blessings of homosexuals when she described the result as a ‘moment of hope for the Church,’” he said in a statement.
The Archbishop of Canterbury serves as the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England. The role is also seen as the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes more than 85 million Christians in over 165 countries. However, since rejecting the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of Nigeria, for example, has reaffirmed its commitment to the Global Anglican Future Conference.
GAFCON had previously condemned Mullally’s appointment. In a statement soon after the announcement, Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of Rwanda and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council, said it received the news “with sorrow” and warned that the decision would further deepen divisions within the Anglican Communion.
“This appointment abandons global Anglicans, as the Church of England has chosen a leader who will further divide an already split Communion. Though some will welcome the decision to appoint Bishop Mullally as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy. Therefore, her appointment will make it impossible for the Archbishop of Canterbury to serve as a focus of unity within the Communion,” the statement said.
Ian Paul, a theologian and associate minister at St. Nic’s Nottingham, acknowledged that Mullally’s appointment has created “pressure and tension.” However, he said rejecting her appointment is unnecessary, given that the provinces in the Communion are autonomous and that the See of Canterbury is only one of the four “Instruments of Communion.”
“I don’t quite understand the objections to this in the sense that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not head of the Anglican Communion,” Paul told Religion Unplugged. “The Anglican Communion is a communion of provinces that have autonomy and independence.”
“The Archbishop of Canterbury is not a pope. Many people have responded as if the views of the archbishop determine the views of the church; that is not true,” said Paul, a member of the General Synod. “In the Church of England, the bishops are first among equals within the clergy, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is no more than the first among equals among the bishops. It’s certainly true that the pronouncements of the archbishops and bishops do not form the doctrine of the church.”
Mullally, like Justin Welby, will have to navigate deep divisions between liberal and conservative Anglicans — particularly over the blessing of same-sex couples and the role of women in church leadership. Nonetheless, Paul believes these issues will not hinder Mullally’s leadership.
“If she’s not welcomed in a province, I don’t think she will force herself on it. I think she will go where she’s welcomed [and] build relationships if she can,” Paul said.
He added that repairing relationships across the Communion may not be Mullally’s top priority and that she is more likely to focus on other pressing challenges facing the Church of England.
“We have got plenty of challenges in the Church of England around the legacy on safeguarding and issues of decline in numbers. I think those are the things that are going to concern her more centrally,” Paul said. “But she is someone who has shown a track record of wanting to work with others and trying to build bridges and trying to mend disagreements, so she may want to do that in relation to the Communion.”
Ekpali Saint is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged.