John Ellis attends the Installation of Sarah Mullally

I do not normally spend my Wednesday afternoons with the heir to the throne, the Prime Minister, a Lord Mayor, an Orthodox Archbishop, the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, the President of the Methodist Conference and 2,500 other people celebrating a unique moment in English history.

On 25 March, in Canterbury Cathedral, I and the other two official URC representatives did just that. The date was pregnant with significance. Exactly nine months before Christmas, it was the Feast of the Annunciation and we were gathered for the Installation of the first Archbishop of Canterbury ever to have conceived and borne a child.

Before the service 85 of us formed the ecumenical procession, offering an exotic…

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This is an extract from an article published in Issue 3 2026 edition of Reformed.