The newly appointed Archbishop of Wales, the Most Rev Cherry Vann, has spoken candidly about the personal and professional struggles she faced while hiding her sexuality for decades during her rise in the Anglican Church.
Vann, who made history in 1994 as one of the first women ordained as priests in England, said that gay marriage in the Church is “inevitable.”
She is now not only the United Kingdom’s first female archbishop but also the first openly gay and partnered bishop to serve as a primate in the global Anglican Communion.
Her appointment marks a significant milestone in the Church’s evolving stance on gender and sexuality.
Vann’s experience in the Church in Wales since 2020 contrasts sharply with her earlier years in the Church of England, where, although same-sex relationships were technically allowed, gay clergy were expected to remain celibate.
In Wales, clergy in same-sex civil partnerships are openly accepted.
Born in Whetstone, Leicestershire, Vann grew up in a religious household and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Schools of Music. She entered theological college in 1986, was ordained in 1994, and went on to serve in the Manchester diocese before becoming Archdeacon of Rochdale in 2008.
In an interview with The Guardian UK published on Sunday, the 66-year-old reflected on the tension between her private life and her public ministry.
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“Without the strong belief that God had called me to the priesthood. I would not have survived.
“It happens that I’ve lived in a time that’s meant that I’m a trailblazer, but I’m not a campaigner.
“I’m not somebody to be out there all the time but I do seek to be true to what I think God’s asking of me.”
Upon her appointment as Bishop of Monmouth five years ago, Vann publicly acknowledged her civil partnership with Wendy Diamond, her partner of over 30 years.
“Other people in England were braver than I was and made their sexuality clear. A lot of them suffered the consequences of that, certainly when going forward for ordination.
“For years we kept our relationship secret because I worried about waking up and finding myself outed on the front page of a newspaper. Now, Wendy joins me everywhere, and when I take services, it’s just normal. But in England she had to stay upstairs if I had a meeting in the house,” she recalled.
She said navigating the church as a woman was already difficult. “You can hide your sexuality, up to a point, but you can’t hide being a woman. There was a lot of nastiness; the men were angry, they felt they had been betrayed.”
She said in the 1990s, she and a small group of other female priests began meeting with male colleagues who opposed their ordination.
“It was awful, it was really difficult for all of us, but we stuck at it,” she said.
She believes reconciliation is possible even amid sharp disagreement.
“This is what I’m hoping around the sexuality issue too – modelling that we can vehemently disagree about something, but we can still love one another in Christ and recognise one another as children of God,” she said.
While her appointment is seen as a significant step forward, issues of gender and sexuality continue to divide the Anglican Communion. Vann said she remains cautious on the subject of gay marriage in church.
“I don’t personally feel the need to get married in church; Wendy and I have been together for 30 years, we’ve made our vows, and we are committed to each other.
“Gay marriage in church is inevitable, I think: the question is when. There are people who are very opposed, and as leader, I have to honour their position, which is theologically grounded. It isn’t my job to push something through that would alienate a good proportion of clergy,” she said.