New Archbishop of York

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John Sentamu has been appointed as Archbishop of York, according to the BBC. +John was my Bishop when I was serving my title in Stepney. I found him to be a very caring man, and very capable. His elevation sends lots of positive signals about who we are as a church. I’m sure he will be a tremendous help to ++Rowan.

Good news!

4 thoughts on “New Archbishop of York”

  1. Okay, explain this to an American. You have the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he is supposedly as close to an Anglican Pope as we’re going to get. Then there is the Archbishop of York. York is a few hours north of Canterbury on that high speed train out of King’s Cross, yet York is just, well, barely noticed. Why does Canterbury get the accolades, while York gets the crumbs? I’ve been to both Cathedrals, and they’re both nice, but I think Durham and Exeter top York or Canterbury. So why is Canterbury so much more important? Enquiring minds want to know.

  2. The Anglican Communion is split into provinces, each with an Archbishop. The country of England has two Anglican provinces, Canterbury (Southern England) and York (Northern England). The Archbishop of Canterbury is by custom primus inter pares – in other words, the AB of York is at the same rank as the ABC, even though the ABC is the ‘head’ of the Communion, and communion is defined as being ‘in communion with the see of Canterbury’.

    In practise they are looking to make the ABC more of an international figure, and the AB of York more of the leading ‘English’ Archbishop. The ABC won’t end up like the Pope, but he’ll probably get closer to that than he is at the moment.

    The historic explanation is that in the “Dark Ages” York was the major northern town. Canterbury was merely the first place Augustine stopped after landing in ?597AD.

    I agree with you about Durham Cathedral.

    HTH

  3. It just occurred to me that both the ABC and the ABY are not Brits. How is that going over? Or is British public pretty apathetic to the whole church scene in general? I’ll never forget when a friend from England came to see me in Michigan… he asked why all the churches had such big parking lots… and I looked at him and said “because people need to park their cars when they go to church” and he nodded and said, “I forgot that a lot of Americans still go to church…”

  4. He he he. Yes, on the whole the British public care little for the church – as long as it’s still there for ‘hatching, matching and despatching’. But I must correct a misapprehension – +Rowan is Welsh, which makes him more British than the English. (Great Britain = England, Wales and Scotland)

    Church in England is a bit like soccer in the US. You can do it if you’re interested, but nobody else is likely to take any notice.

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