On Wednesday, March 25, 2026 — the Feast of the Annunciation, a day the Church celebrates Mary’s response to God’s call — Dame Sarah Mullally walked into Canterbury Cathedral, knocked three times on the ancient west door, and was welcomed by local schoolchildren who asked why she had been sent.
“I am sent as archbishop to serve you,” she replied, “to proclaim the love of Christ and with you to worship and love him with heart and soul, mind and strength.”
With those words, Sarah Mullally formally became the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury — the leader of the Church of England and the ceremonial head of the global Anglican Communion’s 85 million members. She is the first woman to hold the position in its 1,400-year history.
Who Is Sarah Mullally?
Born in Woking, Surrey in 1962, Sarah Mullally’s path to Canterbury is unlike any of her 105 predecessors. She did not come through the traditional route of Oxford or Cambridge — in fact she is only the second Archbishop of Canterbury since the Middle Ages not to hold a degree from one of those universities. She came through nursing.
Mullally trained as a nurse at St Thomas’ Hospital in London and spent over three decades working in the NHS, rising to become Chief Nursing Officer for England — the youngest person ever to hold the post — at just 37 years old. She was responsible for the nursing and midwifery workforce across the entire National Health Service.
While still serving in that role, she began training for ordained ministry. At 40, she was ordained as a priest. In 2015, she became one of the first four women to be consecrated as bishops in the Church of England. In 2018, she was appointed Bishop of London — the third most senior position in the Church of England. And on January 28, 2026, she was legally confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Her ceremonial cloak at the enthronement was secured with a clasp featuring the buckle from the belt she wore as an NHS nurse — a deliberate, beautiful statement about who she is and where she came from.
The Ceremony That Made History
The 90-minute enthronement ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral was attended by approximately 2,000 invited guests including Prince William and Princess Catherine, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, religious leaders from across the world, and — notably — a contingent of NHS nurses and healthcare workers from Canterbury, honouring Mullally’s former career.
In keeping with ancient tradition, she knocked three times with a staff on the cathedral’s west door before being admitted. Dressed in deep golden-yellow robes, she was eventually seated in two thrones — one symbolising her role as bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, the other as spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.
In her inaugural sermon, Mullally looked back across her own life with characteristic honesty: “As I look back over my life at the teenage Sarah, who put her faith in God and made a commitment to follow Jesus, I could never have imagined the future that lay ahead, and certainly not the ministry to which I am now called.”
She spoke about unity: “We walk with God — trusting that God walks with us. Trusting that — in all that we face, in the sorrow and the challenges as much as in the joy and the delight — we do not walk alone.”
She also faced the difficult directly — acknowledging the abuse scandal that caused her predecessor Justin Welby to resign in 2024: “We must remain committed to truth, compassion, justice and action. We must not overlook or minimise the pain experienced by those who have been harmed through the actions, inactions or failures of those in our own Christian churches.”
The Controversy — and the Global Anglican Response
Mullally’s appointment has not been without significant pushback. The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) — a conservative network made up largely of African and Asian Anglican churches — expressed its “sorrow” at her appointment, stating that the Church of England “has relinquished its authority to lead.” The Most Rev. Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda issued a statement arguing the appointment proved the Church had “chosen a leader who will further divide an already split Communion.”
However, other African Anglican voices strongly supported her. Emily Onyango, Kenya’s first female Anglican bishop, said Mullally’s election indicated that “things will be done differently — we know there will be justice in the church.” The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, called it “a thrilling development.”
The Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York — the Church of England’s second most senior bishop — told NPR: “I don’t underestimate the challenge this is for some people in the Anglican Communion, but equally I don’t think we should overplay that. I think the world is rejoicing today at what’s happening.”
What She Faces — and What She Carries
Mullally takes the helm of a church in genuine crisis: divided over theology and sexuality, rebuilding after the Welby abuse scandal, and facing decades of attendance decline across England. She has six years until the mandatory retirement age of 70 to either hold the Anglican Communion together — or preside over a historic fracture.
Yet those who know her well speak of a person of rare spiritual depth and calm. Madeleine Davies of Church Times described her as “very calm, in control, self-contained — with a peaceable presence that will be reassuring to people.” The dean of Canterbury Cathedral simply said: “Today matters.”
She walked 87 miles from St Paul’s Cathedral in London to Canterbury before the ceremony — a pilgrimage, in the tradition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, that no Archbishop had made in modern times. It said something about what kind of leader she intends to be: one who arrives on foot, having walked the road, rather than being carried to the throne.
