Former archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams summed up succinctly the balance and knowledge someone must have both of religion and current affairs to hold the senior Church of England role.
He said he believed his successor, who ended up being Justin Welby, needed a ânewspaper in one hand and a Bible in the otherâ.
Here, the PA news agency takes a look at some of the challenges the new archbishop might face, both within the Church and on wider matters.
â Safeguarding and abuse scandals
It was failures on safeguarding which led to the downfall of Mr Welby after more than a decade as the 105th archbishop of Canterbury.
He announced his resignation in November 2024, following days of pressure after an independent review concluded barrister and Christian camp leader John Smyth, the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church, might have been brought to justice had Mr Welby formally reported him to police in 2013.
At the time, he said he was quitting âin sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuseâ.
The Church has been plagued by safeguarding controversies over the years, with Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, who himself has also faced calls to quit over failures in handling abuse cases, admitting earlier this year that the Church has âfailed greatlyâ on safeguarding.
The General Synod, effectively the Churchâs parliament, voted not to bring in full independent safeguarding in a move branded a âpunch in the gutâ for victims of abuse.
Despite survivorsâ pleas for the Church to endorse a new model which would have seen all Church-employed safeguarding officers transferred to a new independent body, members instead voted for a less independent model, meaning most national staff move to a new outside non-Church body, but other diocesan and cathedral officers remain with their current Church employers, and for âfurther workâ to be done to implement the move to full independence.
â Same-sex blessings and equal marriage
In May this year a call was made in Parliament for the next archbishop of Canterbury to show leadership on same-sex marriage.
Labour MP Steve Race told MPs he wanted the person chosen to believe in treating LGBT+ Anglicans equally.
While blessings for same-sex couples in civil partnerships and marriages were approved more than two years ago, there has been a failure to reach agreement on their use as part of standalone services.
In February 2023, the General Synod voted in favour of offering blessings, with the first of these given in December of that year.
The issue has divided church members, with blessings being welcomed as progress by some, others believing they go too far and some still feeling the real change needed is same-sex marriage recognition.
â Church attendance
Data published in May showed in-person attendance has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The preliminary snapshot of Statistics for Mission showed the overall number of regular worshippers across the Church of Englandâs congregations stood at 1.02 million in 2024.
While this was a rise from 1.01 million the previous year, it was still below the 1.11 million figure for 2019.
â Migration
With immigration often in the headlines in recent times, the new archbishop is bound to be asked for views, or might even volunteer them as predecessors have done in the past.
Mr Welby strongly criticised the previous Conservative governmentâs scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which he warned was âleading the nation down a damaging pathâ.
In August, Mr Cottrell, as interim head bishop in the Church, accused Nigel Farage of an âisolationist, short-term, kneejerkâ response to the small boats crisis.
The archbishop said the Reform UK leader, who has promised mass deportations, was not offering a solution to the âbig issuesâ driving people to risk the English Channel crossing.
â Poverty
The Church has long been part of calls for the scrapping of the controversial two-child benefit limit, which campaigners say pulls children into poverty.
Organisations working in the sector argue that 109 children across the UK are pulled into poverty by the policy every day and that an estimated 350,000 children would be lifted out of poverty immediately if it was scrapped.
In August, Mr Cottrell said the failure to tackle child poverty was âdeeply shaming for us as a nationâ and said the two-child limit was âone of the contributing factorsâ.
The Labour Government has promised to publish its strategy for tackling child poverty in the autumn, after it was delayed from spring.
â Assisted dying
Bishops in the House of Lords have spoken out strongly against the assisted dying Bill for England and Wales which is currently going through Parliament.
Mr Cottrell described the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill as âwrong because it ruptures relationshipsâ and argued it will âturbochargeâ the agonising choices facing poor and vulnerable people.
Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, said the âchoiceâ to die âis an illusionâ without âfully-funded palliative and social care servicesâ and insisted there are âno amendments to this Bill that can safeguard us completely from its negative effectsâ and that the draft law âfails in its central plank, that it delivers choiceâ.
But Lord Carey, a former archbishop of Canterbury, is at odds with his religious colleagues on the issue and claimed they are not representing their own Church in their staunch opposition to the Bill.
He warned that both the Lords and Church bishops should not stand in the way as to do so would be to ârisk our legitimacy by claiming that we know better than both the public and the other place (the Commons)â.
