Olushola Omogbehin
Sarah Mullally has emerged on Wednesday, as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to lead the Church of England.
She will serve as the spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, with over 85 million members across the world.
The former nurse took her seat on the 13th-century Chair of St Augustine at Canterbury Cathedral before 2,000 guests, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife Kate, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other religious leaders.
She took up the role in January, 2026 but the official installation which marked the symbolic start of her ministry was on Wednesday.
“As I begin my ministry today as archbishop of Canterbury, I say again to God: ‘Here I am’,” she told the congregation as she delivered her inaugural sermon.
In line with tradition, the installation began with Mullally knocking three times with a staff on the cathedral’s west door to request admission.
She was then greeted by children, as prayers and readings in multiple languages, including Urdu, rang through the cathedral during the service.
Responding to the question of why she was sent by the children, she said:
“I am sent as archbishop to serve you, to proclaim the love of Christ and with you to worship and love him with heart and soul, mind and strength.”
She was thereafter seated in two different thrones which symbolise dual responsibilities of the role. One as a bishop in the diocese of Canterbury and as the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.
Her predecessor, Justin Welby, resigned as the head of the Church of England in November 2024 after a report found the Church of England had covered up a 1970s serial abuse case which he failed to report the abuses to authorities when they came to his attention in 2013.
Mullally however, promised to do all she can to ensure that the Church becomes safer and also responds well to victims and survivors of abuse.”
The Church of England became the country’s state establishment church following King Henry VIII’s split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s.
While the British monarch is its supreme governor, the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen as the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.
Ordained a priest in 2002, Mullally became the first female Bishop of London in 2018, only four years after the church began allowing women bishops.
As many churches around the Anglican world have long permitted women bishops with the first coming from the United States in 1989, others are still opposed to it.
The Church of England ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015.
Now, more than 40 of England’s 108 bishops are women, with a similar proportion among priests, after women clergy were first permitted in the early 1990s.
Mullally worked in Britain’s state-run National Health Service for more than 30 years, rising to become its chief nursing officer for England in 1999.
