History Made As Cherry Vann Becomes First Woman And Lesbian Archbishop In Britain

July 31, 2025 Dan Tracer

A groundbreaking moment for Britain’s Anglican Church as Cherry Vann breaks barriers and a new chapter begins.

Feature image: Wikipedia Commons/Open Table Network

The Church in Wales has elected Bishop Cherry Vann as its next archbishop, making her the first woman and the first openly LGBTQ+ person to lead an Anglican church anywhere in Britain. Her appointment is a landmark not just for Wales, but for LGBTQ+ Christians and women of faith around the globe.

Vann, who has served as the Bishop of Monmouth since 2020, steps into the role following the resignation of Andrew John. While John himself has not been accused of wrongdoing, his departure followed the release of two internal church reports that raised serious concerns about governance and safeguarding practices within the diocese of Bangor. The fallout left a spiritual and institutional vacuum that Vann has now been entrusted to fill.

And that trust runs deep. She was elected with a two-thirds majority by the Church in Wales Electoral College.

“The first thing I shall need to do is to ensure that the issues which have been raised in the last six months are properly addressed,” Vann said in her first statement after the election. “And that I work to bring healing and reconciliation, and to build a really good level of trust across the Church and the communities the Church serves.”

This is not the first time Cherry Vann has found herself walking into a space in need of rebuilding. Before moving to Monmouth, she spent over a decade as Archdeacon of Rochdale in the Diocese of Manchester, helping to steer the church through internal reform and ministering in communities often marked by economic struggle. Her path to the episcopate began even earlier—she was one of the first women ordained in the Church of England back in 1994.

Originally from Leicester, Vann’s calling has always been shaped by a desire to serve those beyond the traditional reach of the church.

“My sense was that God was to be found outside the church as much as inside the church,” she said in a 2020 interview with journalist Martin Shipton. “And the church was, let’s say, of a particular character. So it tends even now, I would say, to draw more middle-class people into its fold. And I felt the gospel was very challenging about the church reaching out to people on the margins, those who are disaffected, those who are homeless, the poor, those who society doesn’t want or isn’t interested in. I wanted to be in a context where there was some real poverty and deprivation and hardship and live out what I believed the church was about in those kinds of contexts.”

The new archbishop is known for her willingness to lead with humility in complex, divided spaces. She is affiliated with the Open Table Network, a movement that offers inclusive worship spaces for LGBTQ+ Christians. She lives with her civil partner, Wendy, and their two dogs. Though the Church in Wales does not currently perform same-sex marriages, it does allow clergy to enter civil partnerships.

As the Church in Wales confronts a difficult chapter in its history, Vann’s election signals both a recognition of the healing needed and a commitment to move forward with purpose. There are hard truths still to be reckoned with. The two safeguarding reports that prompted Andrew John’s resignation pointed to a culture at Bangor Cathedral that blurred sexual boundaries and ignored financial controls. An investigation into six related charities is underway, and calls for an independent inquiry continue to grow.

In the midst of this, Vann has not only broken barriers but offered a different kind of leadership—one of hope.