Two women, among favorites leading to one of the largest Christian confessions in the world
Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester Photo: MR Standfast / Alamy / Profimedia
The United Kingdom is about to announce the next Archbishop of Canterbury on Friday, two women being among the favorites to lead the Anglican Church and become the symbolic figure for 85 million Anglicans from all over the world, according to Agerpres.
The 106th Archbishop of Canterbury will replace Justin Welby, who resigned in November last year because of a scandal of child abuse and will inherit an institution that has long experienced theological schisms and the approach of homosexual couples and the role of women in the church.
Homosexuality and Episcopate of women, controversial themes
According to bookmakers, the Anglican Church could have the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, a decade after she began to ordain women as bishops. Among the favorites are Bishop Rachel Treweek, the first woman diocesan bishop of the Anglican Church, and the bishop of Iranian origin Gulis-Dehqani, who came to the UK as a refugee with her parents following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Maintaining a balance between the expectations of conservative Christians in African countries – where homosexuality is forbidden in some nations – and their counterparts, generally more liberal in the West, has proven to be a difficult task for the former leaders of the Anglican Church.
The appointment of an archbishop could aggravate the situation. The Global Anglican Conference for the future (Global Anglican Future Conference) conservative organization, claiming to represent most Anglicans around the world, rejected Welby's approach related to homosexuality and said that only men should be devoted as bishops.
Another favorite at the head of the Anglican Church is Bishop Martyn Snow, while the media reports also called Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield.
Unlike the Catholic Church, which chose Pope Leon just 17 days after the death of Francis, the Anglican Church needed almost a year to make a decision due to a complex verification process. The appointment of a woman in Archbishop would mark a historical change for global religious institutions.
The decision will be validated by King Charles III
Although the Catholic Church, the largest Christian confession in the world, with 1.4 billion members, does not ordain women as priests, the Anglican Church under Welby's leadership has embraced female leadership, women now representing almost a third of the total bishops in England.
Jonathan Evans, former head of the MI5 spy agency, elected by the government to run the selection commission, said in July that he wants to avoid a list of candidates in which everyone is “white, oxbridge graduates (Oxford or Cambridge no), men and from southeastern England.”
The Commission consisted of 17 voting members, including five representatives of the Anglican communion worldwide, three in Canterbury and six of the Belt of the Anglican Church. According to the regulation, the Commission makes a recommendation to the Prime Minister, who submits to King Charles III for consent. In the UK, the monarch is formally the supreme leader of the Anglican Church from its schism towards the Catholic Church under the leadership of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century.
It happened, however, that predictions would be wrong in the past, when for example Welby – a former executive director in the oil industry – was surprising to replace Rowan Williams in 2013, Reuters notes.
