Archbishop of Canterbury Archbishop of Canterbury The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle to the English", sent from Rome in the year 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams. From the time of Augustine until the 16th century, the Archbishops of Canterbury were
Province of Canterbury was no longer the state church; it consists of six dioceses and is an ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion. The province's metropolitan bishop is the Archbishop of Canterbury who also oversees the Falkland Islands, an extraprovincial parish. The Church of Ceylon - Anglican Church in Sri Lanka has two dioceses - the Diocese of Colombo and the Diocese of Kurunegala which are extraprovincial dioceses under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishops of the southern province meet in chapter, in which the episcopal roles (those of Bishops) are analogous to those within a Cathedral chapter. In the 19th