The leader
of the worldwide Anglican communion on Thursday called on followers to
acknowledge all aspects of the Church of England's past, both good and bad, as
his new number two was sworn in with little of the usual high ceremony.
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Stephen Cottrell has been sworn in as the 98th Archbishop of York.
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Archbishop
of Canterbury Justin Welby said followers had to confront the church's
troubling historical "baggage" as they looked to make a better future.
The Church
of England's highest-ranking cleric was speaking in a virtual ceremony to mark
the formal election of Stephen Cottrell as the 98th Archbishop of York.
The Church
of England, established in 1534 after king Henry VIII's split from Roman Catholicism,
last month apologised for its links to slavery, calling it a "source of
shame".
The apology
came against a backdrop of anti-racism protests in Britain and across the
world, sparked by the death during the police arrest of an unarmed black man, George
Floyd, in the United States.
Welby said
the Church's past included both "saints and slave traders".
"Living
as Christians requires us to live not only in fellowship with Christians around
the world but also with the Church throughout time," he said.
"With
the Church of England, we know that some of those bring baggage. We find saints
and slave traders, the proud and prelatical, with the humble servant of the
people.
"They
are part of us, of our inheritance, to be reformed, to be repented of, to be
imitated."
Churches
across Britain have been shut since late March because of the coronavirus
outbreak, forcing services to be held online.
Restrictions
are gradually being eased, but remain in place for large church services.
Open
doors
Measures to
halt the close-contact spread of the virus have forced the postponement of
Cottrell's enthronement but one aspect was retained in the ceremony.
After
receiving his archbishop's crozier, he ceremonially banged three times on the
west door of York Minster, the northern English city's imposing Gothic
cathedral.
The doors
were then opened to symbolise the Church being open to all.
The
61-year-old takes over from Britain's first black archbishop John Sentamu who
fled Idi Amin's Uganda and became a leading voice against racial injustice.
Cottrell,
who was previously Bishop of Chelmsford in southeast England, has previously
promised to use his new role to help soothe divisions following years of
political turmoil over Britain's departure from the European Union.
He has also
said he hoped to "address the discrepancies of wealth and
opportunity", including working with government to rejuvenate northern
England.
He said he
was daunted but excited about taking up the position, which dates back to Saint
Paulinus in the year 627.
And he
called for the lessons of the coronavirus outbreak to be learned, "to
build a better world, a fairer world, a more just world... where status and privilege
don't count so much, where everybody has an equal opportunity".
"We
want this (pandemic) to end but we don't want to be back to normal," he
added.
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