Sarah Mullally Becomes First Female Archbishop of Canterbury in Historic Enthronement

Sarah Mullally, the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury and the first woman appointed to the office in its 1,400-year history, was enthroned today at Canterbury Cathedral before a congregation that included Prince William, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and more than 2,000 guests drawn from across the globe.

Mullally knocked on the west door of Canterbury Cathedral to be admitted and installed in a service replete with ancient rituals and symbols traceable throughout Christian history. She wore a mitre and a cope secured by a clasp modelled on the belt she wore during her years as an NHS nurse, a detail that drew the past and the present into sharp relief. She was also adorned with a ring given to one of her predecessors, Michael Ramsey, by Pope Paul VI in 1966, a symbol of improving ties between Anglicans and Catholics, centuries after King Henry VIII split from Rome. Children greeted her at the door before she was seated in the Chair of St Augustine, the early 13th-century seat made from Purbeck marble.

The installation took place on March 25, 2026, the Feast of the Annunciation. As the first woman to be enthroned in the office, the date was chosen because it is the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel visited Mary to announce she would be the mother of the son of God. Mullally personally chose music for the service that celebrates female composers, musicians and writers through history.

The ceremony was livestreamed to the Anglican Communion's 42 provinces. Inside the cathedral, the liturgy was designed to reflect the global reach of a church with roughly 85 million members: the service looked forward with the hope of Jesus Christ and celebrated the diversity of the Church of England, the nation and the Anglican Communion today. Singing in Urdu, a Gospel reading in Spanish and a prayer in the Bemba language of Zambia were woven into the service alongside African choruses. More than 100 guests travelled to Britain from provinces across 165 countries to attend, with Prince William deputising for his father King Charles, the supreme governor of the Church of England.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch was among the political figures present alongside Starmer. Mullally had also personally invited NHS nurses and carers working in hospitals and hospices in Canterbury to witness the ceremony, a gesture consistent with her four decades in health care. Mullally worked in Britain's National Health Service for more than three decades, rising to become chief nursing officer for England in 1999; ordained a priest in 2002, she became the first female Bishop of London in 2018.

Mullally said she felt an "immense privilege" entering the role. "It is an extraordinary and humbling privilege," she said at her confirmation in January. "With God's help, I will seek to guide Christ's flock with calmness, consistency and compassion."

She arrived at Canterbury having completed a six-day, 140-kilometre walking pilgrimage from St Paul's Cathedral along the Becket Camino route, stopping at churches, schools and abbeys along the way. Mullally acknowledged the historical significance of pilgrimage in the investiture of new archbishops by undertaking her own 140-km pilgrimage from London in recent days. Bishop Rachel Treweek, who was consecrated alongside Mullally in 2015 among the Church of England's first women bishops, told Reuters: "It's a huge moment for the Church... I don't think any of us thought we'd have a female Archbishop this quickly."

The ceremony was not entirely without disruption: a heckler interrupted Mullally's confirmation at St Paul's Cathedral in January, and security removed the protester from the historic building while she was being confirmed. The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, addressed the disruption directly, confirming that "full opportunity" had been given for lawful objections to be lodged against the confirmation; none had been received, he said, meaning the ceremony would proceed as planned.

The enthronement comes as Mullally inherits what the Independent described as the formidable task of uniting a fractured global Anglican Communion. The Communion's cohesion was called into question under her predecessor when, in 2023, the Church of England began allowing same-sex couples to receive blessings; some conservative bishops said they rejected the continuation of England's centrality in the Communion. Gafcon, a conservative grouping of Anglican churches largely in African and Asian countries, sharply criticised her appointment in October. According to Reuters, the bloc this month abandoned plans to name a parallel figurehead, establishing a new council instead.

The Dean of Canterbury, Very Reverend David Monteith, said the appointment of a female archbishop "would have almost been unimaginable even 50 years ago," adding: "Today matters. As we combine centuries of tradition in this ancient service with those elements unique to Sarah's ministry, we welcome her to our Cathedral and diocese, and pray for her as she takes on the role of Archbishop of Canterbury."

In a forward-looking break with tradition, Mullally took her oath on a copy of the recently completed St John's Bible, the first hand-scribed, illuminated Benedictine Bible produced since the invention of the printing press over 500 years ago, rather than the sixth-century St Augustine Gospels used by recent predecessors. She is scheduled to convene her first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council this summer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.