The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has said that the tension in the Anglican communion following the appointment of Dame Sarah Mullaly as the first woman to hold the role of Archbishop of Canterbury, “has been very overplayed”.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme, he declined to answer questions on the letter from the traditionalist group Gafcon, sent two weeks after Dame Sarah’s appointment, which declared that it is now the true Global Anglican Communion, separating itself from the existing Anglican Communion over its “revisionist agenda”.  

The Archbishop of York told Sunday: “The election of Sarah as Archbishop of Canterbury has been received with great joy by the vast majority of the Anglican Communion and indeed by the Catholic Church who have written and welcomed her….I’m personally delighted that Sarah will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. But of course, yes, there are differences, but we are not going to let those differences cause further division. We’re going to model love and service to each other and to the world across our differences.”

Read it all at the Religion Media Centre