Explained: Why it’s taking so long to choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury

There were just 17 days between the death of Pope Francis and the appointment of his successor, Leo XIV. Yet the Archbishop of Canterbury resigned in November 2024, and his successor is not likely to be announced until September (at the earliest) - ten whole months since Justin Welby was forced out over his involvement in the John Smyth abuse scandal.  

There is no single reason why the CofE is finding it so hard to appoint a new leader. Partly, the process is designed to be slower and more collaborative. But the drawn-out marathon is also exposing the fractures already present in the Anglican Church. These tensions have already slowed down the process - and could yet flare up again.  

What is the process?

In theory, the Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed by the King, as Supreme Governor of the CofE. However, in reality, the King simply rubberstamps the name given to him by the Prime Minister, which is in turn given to them by an opaque, and typically Anglican committee called the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC).  

The Archbishop of Canterbury does several jobs at once, and so the CNC is designed to include everyone who has an interest in the various sections of the role. They will be bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, chair of the Church’s House of Bishops, leader of the CofE itself, and head of the global Anglican Communion.  

Therefore, representatives from each of those groups are included on the CNC, which is made up of 17 members. The chair must be a lay churchgoing Anglican – this time it will be the crossbench peer and former head of MI5 Jonathan Evans. He is joined by the second most senior figure in the CofE, the Archbishop of York, Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, plus one other bishop elected by their colleagues (this time it is Rt Rev Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich).  

The drawn-out marathon is exposing the  fractures already present in the Anglican Church

Next come five people chosen to represent the global Anglican Communion, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the de facto leader. These are a mixture of archbishops, bishops, vicars and lay people from Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.  

There are also six members of the General Synod, the CofE’s elected parliament. These were elected at the start of the synod’s term in 2021 (long before the Smyth scandal blew up) so this should have been straightforward. However, one - Andrew Cornes – was implicated in the Makin report into Smyth and has been forced to step back, meaning a last-minute replacement had to be found.  

Finally, three people from the Diocese of Canterbury are elected to represent local concerns. It is this last group  which is  gumming up the process.  

So what has gone wrong?

The rules state that a local diocesan committee (the Vacancy in See Committee, or VISC) elects three people to send to the CNC from among its own members.  

After Welby announced his resignation in December, the Canterbury VISC swung into action. Their three-year term of office elapsed at the end of 2024, so plans were already underway to handover to the new VISC elected to serve 2025-28.  

However, in January 2025, somebody realised the original VISC committee had been selected illegitimately due to a misunderstanding way back in 2022, so it had to be junked. To add to the confusion, the second VISC had been elected on the explicit understanding that it would not be involved in the Welby succession, which everyone then assumed was being handled by the old VISC.

So, unbelievably, the Diocese of Canterbury decided to elect a third VISC. In February, officials in Canterbury re-opened nominations. However, in the middle of these elections, the General Synod met and changed the rules. Despite the election already being underway, the diocese decided to implement the new criteria immediately. 

The CofE failed to explain the problems publicly for many weeks, allowing conspiracy theories to flourish

There were a dizzying array of restrictions, trying to balance the VISC membership to include a certain number of women, lay people, and members of each district in the Diocese of Canterbury. As a result, some people were guaranteed to be elected while others could never win. To compound the chaos, they botched the counting of the votes. 

The CofE then failed to explain any of the problems publicly for many weeks, allowing conspiracy theories to flourish. Conservatives and evangelicals worried that progressives were trying to fiddle the results to get more of their supporters onto the VISC - and eventually onto the CNC.  

In one infamous example, an evangelical vicar who got ten votes lost out to a liberal who only got one. This was possible because of the complicated new rules but it appeared from the outside that conservatives were being disenfranchised unfairly. 

Eventually, several weeks later, the diocese quietly admitted it had bungled the elections and scrapped the committee entirely. Now it has begun the process of electing yet another VISC, the fourth in just a few months.  

What happens now?

The CNC membership was supposed to be announced back in March and the first meeting held in May. However, there is no sign yet who the three VISC reps will be. The CNC was supposed to meet again in July and September to shortlist candidates, conduct interviews and finally choose a winner.  

Even assuming the CNC membership is finalised by the end of the month, there is no guarantee the committee will be able to agree on who should be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Any candidate must be approved by a two-thirds majority - and deadlocks are increasingly common.  

In December 2023, the CNC were unable to appoint a new Bishop of Carlisle after failing to find anyone who could garner two-thirds support. In July 2024, the same problem befell the appointment of a new Bishop of Ely. Because of confidentiality rules, nobody knows why, but it is widely assumed that the highly divisive gay blessings row has bled over into the bishop-appointing process.  

Liberals accuses conservative CNC members of blocking any potential bishop who supports the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) which can now be offered to bless gay couples in church. The bitterness over this got so bad that bishops tried to lower the threshold and give the Archbishop of York a casting vote, but these reforms were tossed out by a rebellious synod in February. 

It is plausible that the same problems could arise this summer. Despite there being no evidence of conspiracy rather than cock-up, the botched VISC selection in Canterbury has only hardened the hearts of some conservatives who are convinced the CofE hierarchy wants to ensure a pro-PLF Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed. This seemingly never-ending culture war may render it impossible to find a consensus candidate at all.  

This nightmare scenario would see the whole ten-month process – already tortuously slow - abandoned and the CofE back to square one. In the face of the Catholic Church’s speedy reinvigoration under Pope Leo, it would raise serious questions about whether our national Church has become so bitterly divided over same-sex relationships it is now, in effect, ungovernable.