Appointment And Notable Archbishops

Unlike offices filled by election or hereditary succession, the Archbishop of Canterbury is formally appointed by the British monarch, who acts on the advice of the Prime Minister. Since 2007 the substantive choice has rested with the Crown Nominations Commission, a body of Church and lay representatives that submits a preferred name and a reserve name for forwarding to the monarch, a process designed to give the Church itself the practical say while preserving the constitutional form of royal appointment inherited from the Reformation settlement. There is no fixed term; archbishops serve until they resign, and recent holders have stepped down around the age of seventy.

The office has produced figures of lasting consequence beyond Church governance. Anselm of Canterbury, appointed in 1093, was one of medieval Europe's foremost philosophers and originated the ontological argument for God's existence. Thomas Becket's 1170 murder in Canterbury Cathedral, following his conflict with Henry II over the rights of Church courts, made him a martyr and turned the cathedral into one of medieval Christendom's great pilgrimage sites. In the twentieth century, William Temple's wartime leadership and Robert Runcie's role in reconciling the Communion after the Falklands War showed the office's capacity to speak on matters well beyond parish life, even without the coercive authority a Roman Catholic pope holds over Catholic bishops.