THE first female Bishop of Crediton has been named as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Rt Rev and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE is the 106th person to take on the top Church of England role.

She succeeds Justin Welby, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 2013 to 2025.

Dame Sarah, 63, had been the Bishop of London since 2018.

Prior to that, she was Bishop of Crediton in the Diocese of Exeter for three years, having been appointed in 2015.

She will be installed in a service at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2026.

“As I respond to the call of Christ to this new ministry, I do so in the same spirit of service to God and to others that has motivated me since I first came to faith as a teenager,” Dame Sarah said.

“At every stage of that journey, through my nursing career and Christian ministry, I have learned to listen deeply – to people and to God’s gentle prompting – to seek to bring people together to find hope and healing.

“I want, very simply, to encourage the Church to continue to grow in confidence in the Gospel, to speak of the love that we find in Jesus Christ and for it to shape our actions.

“And I look forward to sharing this journey of faith with the millions of people serving God and their communities in parishes all over the country and across the global Anglican Communion.

“I know this is a huge responsibility but I approach it with a sense of peace and trust in God to carry me as He always has.”

The current Bishop of Crediton, the Rt Rev Moira Astin, said: “I’m delighted to hear that Bishop Sarah has been appointed as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, especially as she consecrated me a bishop in the summer and was my predecessor-but-one as Bishop of Crediton here in Devon.

“Part of my delight is that she has experience of both urban and rural churches and communities, and so I am confident that when she leads the church in this nation she will have on her heart our villages as well as our towns and cities.”

Dame Sarah was ordained a priest in 2002. She was made the government’s chief nursing officer for England in 1999 and was a specialist cancer nurse.

She was born in Woking, Surrey and is married with two children.