March 2026: Archbishop of Canterbury Dame Sarah Mullally delivers her first sermon at the Enthronement Ceremony installing her as the 106th Archbishop, at Canterbury Cathedral in Kent.
[photo: PA Images/ Alamy]
[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies. Views expressed do not reflect the position of the editorial board.]
Archbishop Sarah’s sermon at the installation service expounded the Gospel passage about the Annunciation to Mary, celebrated annually on 25 March. It began with her recounting her own pilgrimage with her husband, Eamonn, and a small group of friends:
Over the last week I have walked the ancient pilgrim path from St Paul’s Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral. Each day my heart and spirits were lifted immeasurably by the people young and old we encountered, even though my aching feet and limbs tell a different story!
She concluded with a sensitive, evangelistic and vocational call:
Maybe as you are listening to me, you are thinking about your own journey. Perhaps it’s smooth, perhaps it’s hard. Knowing God is with you on the journey makes all the difference. I encourage you to visit a church — for a quiet prayer or for a conversation. If you want to talk, you will be heard. And you can respond to God’s invitation with words as simple as the words of Mary: ‘Here I am’.
On the day after the installation, I sat for an hour by the Chair of St Augustine, praying for Archbishop Sarah, and giving thanks for all her predecessors.Footnote3 The Dean of Canterbury, The Most Revd David Monteith, came and sat next to me and commented how easily she related to people whom she met on the walk. The BBC engineers were clearing up around us. David was delighted that the BBC, with significant encouragement from the Church of England, broadcast the whole service throughout the world.
During an in-depth interview with the editor of The Church Times, Sarah Meyrick (Citation2026), on 9 April 2026, Archbishop Sarah mentioned:
What I want to offer is a consistency: a calm, non-anxious leadership. I see myself as a shepherd, as somebody who supports and provides pastoral care.Footnote4
She is not afraid of being vulnerable in public. I remember, in particular, the moving moment in the February 2025 General Synod when she was Bishop of London. Premier Christian News reported her words and added a comment:
‘I would love to encourage women, which I do all the time, but there continues to be institutional barriers, we continue to experience micro-aggressions’.Footnote5 The bishop who had tried to fight back the tears, was then overcome with emotion and turned away from the podium. She was met with applause from Synod members, with some giving her a standing ovation (Birrell, Citation2025).
She then gestured to the members to sit down, with humour and realism:
You’re using up my time! And people will say that I have manipulated you, I have not …
The Archbishop took her pilgrimage from London to Canterbury on to Rome over four days in April. She had attended the funeral of Pope Francis II, because she and Eamonn had been walking the last 100kms of the Via Francigena, from Montefiascone to Rome.Footnote6 She met Pope Leo XIV on 27 April 2026 and prayed with him in the chapel of Urban VIII.Footnote7 After her private audience, she presented him with an antique edition (1910) of The Dream of Gerontius by Saint John Henry Newman, a Peruvian devotional work of art, and a pot of Lambeth Palace honey: she and Eamonn are beekeepers. I wonder if they also discussed music? She plays the French horn and he plays the piano … Archbishop Sarah addressed the Pope:
Your Holiness, you have spoken powerfully about the many injustices in our world today, but you have spoken even more powerfully about hope. Your pilgrimage to Africa was full of life and joy.
The Pope recalled Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey seeking ‘the restoration of complete communion in faith and sacramental life’ and added:
While much progress has been made on some historically divisive issues, new problems have arisen in recent decades, rendering the pathway to full communion more difficult to discern. I know that the Anglican Communion is also facing many of these same questions at this time. Nevertheless, we must not allow these continuing challenges to prevent us from using every possible opportunity to proclaim Christ to the world together.Footnote8
In my article for Churches Together in England about Archbishop Sarah, I concluded:
If we look back at the last three Popes and Archbishops of Canterbury, perhaps we may trace a pattern of personalities: Benedict and Rowan were renowned theologians; Francis and Justin were mission activists; and now Leo and Sarah are quiet servant-leaders (Kings, Citation2026).
There will be many challenges (Wyatt, Citation2026). The unity of the Anglican Communion is important throughout the world, including in the Commonwealth of Nations, where between 85% − 90% of its members reside. Currently it is fragile, but resilient. A key moment will be in June 2026 in Belfast, when the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meet to discuss the ‘Nairobi-Cairo Proposals’.Footnote9 Amongst other matters, these propose that Provinces in the Anglican Communion would no longer be defined supremely as ‘in communion with the see of Canterbury’ but rather one of their many characteristics would be simply having an ‘historic connection’ with the see.Footnote10 There has been some recent trenchant questioning of these proposals and also responses to these criticisms (Avis, Citation2026; Goddard, Citation2025, Citation2026).
May this trailblazer of an Archbishop preside at the ACC, and throughout her six years in office (before she retires at the age of 70), with her customary aplomb, humility, collegiality, transparency and kindness.
Graham Kings, Diocese of Ely, Ely Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, Cambridge.
