My Role As Archbishop Of Canterbury & Appointing Bishop Of Colombo

By Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby –SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

Archbishop of Canterbury

The role of Archbishop of Canterbury is always surprising. It is a great humbling experience for those who would be foolish enough to believe that they were important. I have been told that I was too short, too untheological, and too English. 

The Anglican Communion is also a remarkable gathering. It arises from a history with many bad times to it, the history of colonialism and imperial rule. But in the power of God and through the teaching of Jesus Christ, the church slowly learned to separate faith and the flag and to become more what Christ designed for it to be, a holy people, belonging to God, who seek to bless the communities in which they live. 

There are about 80 million Anglicans in the world. The average one is not from the UK or the USA, but is a woman in sub-Saharan Africa, in her 30s, with a 50-50 chance of being in a place of persecution. She will be living in extreme poverty, probably on less than three US dollars per day.

The miracle of the church, for Christians, is not that it disagrees. After all, with over 2000 languages and cultures it is absurd to think that we would always be in agreement.

Fr. Dushantha Rodrigo

The miracle of the church is that we agree on the basics and the most important things, especially the obligation to love God and to love our neighbour. We agree on the nature of Jesus Christ. We agree on the love of God which reaches out to us. We don’t always, sometimes not often, practice what God has given us but we agree that when we do fail we are able to turn around and go in a different way, what Christians call repent, and seek the forgiveness of God and his power to do better in the future. 

So, what’s this got to do with Sri Lanka? Well, to go back to the first paragraph, one of the most surprising things about this job is I found that I had direct responsibility as what in the church is called a Metropolitan in all sorts of parts of the world. One of those was Sri Lanka. The Church of Ceylon had not joined in with the Church of South India when that was created in the late 1940s and had not formed its own independent and autonomous church at any time later. The Anglican Communion has 41 provinces and although if it were a province the Church of Ceylon would not be by any means be the smallest, it does need to form at least one possibly two more dioceses (area overseen by Bishop) in order to reach the minimum size. 

For historical reasons that had not happened and therefore a few weeks ago I found myself with responsibility for choosing the next Bishop of Colombo, because the electoral college had nearly but not quite been able to get a sufficient majority to make their own choice. 

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