Archbishop Ranks as England\'s Top Non-Royal, in One of the World\'s Least Religious Countries

LONDON - As Queen Elizabeth on Friday ended months of speculation by confirming Bishop Justin Welby, a 56-year-old former oil executive, will be the next head of the Church of England, her increasingly secular subjects might be forgiven for asking what all the fuss was about.

As Archbishop of Canterbury, the new primate will assume the spiritual leadership of 85 million Anglicans worldwide. However, a dwindling number of them belong to the country of the Church's birth.

According to the Church of England's own figures, Sunday attendance at its 16,000 parish churches has fallen to less than one million. As a symbol of Englishness, the Anglican Church is, on the face of it, as anachronistic as warm beer, London fogs and the stiff upper lip.

Anglicanism nevertheless survives as the state religion in what is now a multicultural, multi-faith, but mostly faithless society. So, is it any longer relevant to the mass of its citizens?

Bishop Welby acknowledg ed on Friday he was taking over at “a time of spiritual hunger.”

Summing up the challenge that had confronted Rowan Williams, the departing Archbishop, Fraser Nelson wrote in the Daily Telegraph that, “Dr. Williams has had to keep the Church alive in one of the least religious countries on earth.”

Officially, the Primate of All England enjoys a public status that belies the empty pews. In a well-defined establishment pecking order, he ranks as the senior non-royal. The position elevates the holder to the senior position on the bishops' bench in the House of Lords, upper chamber of the British Parliament.

“The temptation for any archbishop is to suppose he is a terribly important figure,” The Guardian warned.

The Right Reverend Welby, Bishop of Durham for only a year, ticks many of the establishment boxes. Like Prime Minister David Cameron, who confirmed his appointment on Friday, he attended the prestigious Eton College.

As a former businessman and a relative latecomer to the priesthood, however, he does not fit the mold of previous holders of the See of Canterbury (there have been 104 of them since 597.)

Much of the commentary surrounding his elevation has cast him as a compromise candidate capable of healing tensions between liberals and conservative evangelicals in the Church.

Divisions have centered on sexual politics: the ordination of women bishops and gay marriage. Bishop Welby supports the former but has so far opposed the latter. As holder of a post that is as much political as religious, his pronouncements on these and other issues are expected to resound beyond the Church.

As secularists as well as Christians get to know Bishop Welby as he heads towards his enthronement next March, Dr. Williams has advised his successor to carry a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.