By KAMPALA: The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, The Most Rev Stephen Samuel Kaziimba Mugalu, has expressed profound sadness following the appointment of the Rt Re. Dame Sarah Mullaly, Bishop of London, as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
In a statement issued on October 3, 2025, Archbishop Kaziimba said he was troubled by Mullaly’s known support for positions on sexuality and same-sex marriage that, in his view, deviate from the historic teachings of the Anglican faith.
“This appointment deepens the tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion, a divide that began in 2003 with the consecration of a divorced father of two living in a same-sex relationship by The Episcopal Church,” Kaziimba said.
“There appears to be no repentance. Make no mistake, this is a grievous decision at the highest levels of the Church of England to separate itself from the vast majority of the global Anglican Communion,” he added.
Archbishop Kaziimba, a founding member of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), reaffirmed the Church of Uganda’s commitment to Biblical faith and the authority of Scripture.
He extended solidarity to members of the Church of England who may be disillusioned by the appointment, offering fellowship through GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans.
“As we declared in our 2023 GAFCON statement from Kigali, we no longer recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as having global authority. The office is certainly no longer an ‘Instrument of Communion,’” he said.
“With this appointment, the Archbishop of Canterbury is reduced simply to the Primate of All England.”
Despite his disappointment, Kaziimba expressed optimism about the continued vitality of Gospel-centered mission within the Anglican tradition.
“The future of Gospel-centered mission in our Anglican tradition is bright. The fields are ripe for harvest; we pray for laborers to go into the harvest,” he said, citing the 2018 GAFCON Jerusalem statement: “We will proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations.”
The 63-year-old Bishop Sarah Mullaly, who became the first female Bishop of London in 2018, previously served as Bishop of Crediton from 2015 to 2018.
Before entering ministry, she spent more than 35 years in the National Health Service (NHS), becoming England’s youngest-ever Chief Nursing Officer in 1999.
Women were first ordained as priests in the Church of England in 1994, and the first female bishops were appointed in 2014 — milestones that marked significant turning points in the denomination’s history.
