King Charles knights Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby for his ‘personal service’ to the Crown in New Year’s honors list

The Archbishop of Canterbury will be knighted by King Charles for his ‘personal service’ to the Crown.

The Most Rev. Justin Welby, 67, will be admitted to the Royal Victorian Order in the upcoming New Year Honors List – marking only the second time in recent history that a servant leader of the Church of England has received the honor.

The warrant is granted by the sovereign, independently of the government, in recognition of loyal service to the monarchy.

The knighthood of Dr. However, Welby is likely to raise eyebrows given his many political interventions, including attacks on the Conservative Party.

He has been an outspoken critic of the government’s migration policy, accusing ministers of ‘outsourcing’ their responsibilities to asylum seekers through the Rwanda expulsion plan and claiming it would not withstand the ‘judgment of God’.

In 2021, he was forced to apologize after saying that international leaders’ failure to reach a climate deal would result in a global ‘genocide’ worse than that of the Nazis.

He quickly admitted that it was “never right to make comparisons with the atrocities the Nazis inflicted” and apologized to the Jewish community.

It is a rare and personal honor. The last serving church leader to receive such recognition from the monarch in recent history was the post-war Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, who had crowned the late Queen Elizabeth in 1953.

It is clear that the honor of Dr. Welby has to do with being the first Archbishop of Canterbury to perform a coronation since then. In May, he crowned King Charles at Westminster Abbey and previously married the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018.

He formed a special bond with Harry and Meghan after giving them pre-marriage advice.

But he was left embarrassed when the Duchess subsequently claimed he had agreed to secretly marry them in a backyard wedding three days before their official ceremony in Windsor because they wanted to exchange vows without the world watching.

Dr. Welby was forced to point out that this would not have been a legally binding ceremony, explaining that he would have committed a ‘serious criminal offence’ if he had signed their marriage certificate knowing it was false. The archbishop also baptized Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis and took part in Queen Elizabeth’s funeral service.

The King is known to have a ‘soft spot’ for Dr Welby, and the Archbishop is featured extensively in the BBC’s upcoming Boxing Day documentary about Charles’ first year on the throne.

The monarch can be seen giggling as the archbishop forgets the blessing during a coronation rehearsal.

In another excerpt, Dr. Welby jokes about the crown “getting stuck” on the king’s head, saying, “I don’t want to break your neck, sir.” It could ruin the service.”

The Royal Victorian Order was created by Queen Victoria in 1896 to enable her to recognize and acknowledge special personal services to the sovereign. Appointments are largely – although not always – made through the New Year and Birthday awards, and recognize a wide variety of services to the Royal Family.

It has five degrees of membership, including the two highest degrees of Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) and Knight Commander (KCVO).

It is not yet known what grade Dr. Welby will be awarded; this will be announced in the new year.

But both entitle the holder to use letters after their name and the title ‘Sir’, although clerics appointed to the higher levels of the Royal Victorian Order do not use this style in everyday life. This means it will take some time before Dr. Welby calls himself ‘Sir’.

Depending on rank, knights of the order wear their insignia on a ribbon at the neck or on a sash from the right shoulder to the left hip.

All badges are in white enamel with gold edging, but the size of the badge varies by rank and increases as you level up. All knights – whether a Grand Cross or a Commander – have their cross surrounded by a star.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment last night, as did a spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Welby has been Archbishop of Canterbury since 2013, before which he worked in the oil industry for eleven years.

In 1983, his seven-month-old daughter Johanna was tragically killed in a car accident. He describes her death as a ‘very dark time’ for himself and his wife Caroline, with whom he has five other children.

But he said it ultimately “brought us closer to God.”

Six years later he gave up his six-figure salary to retrain as an Anglican priest, and in 2007 became Dean of Liverpool, where he gained a reputation for increasing the size of his congregation, organizing events with the Trades Union Congress and reaching asylum seekers within the community.

He was elected Bishop of Durham in 2011 and subsequently joined the Parliamentary Committee on Banking Standards. “Focusing solely on profit is an ethic of greed,” he has said.

He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of Durham in 2015.

Known for his self-deprecating humor, Dr. Welby once said: ‘Let’s be clear, I am one of the fatter bishops in the Church of England.’

In May 2023, just days after Charles’ coronation, the Archbishop was convicted of speeding after driving at 25mph in a 20mph zone in London, and given three points his driver’s license and a fine of £150.

It took place on the same day as his high-profile parliamentary speech protesting against the government’s illegal migration law.

In his speech in the House of Lords, he called the bill “isolationist, morally unacceptable and politically impractical” and said it risks “major damage” to Britain’s reputation.

Growing up, Dr. believed. Welby that his biological father was the man who raised him, Gavin Welby, the son of German Jewish immigrants.

But in 2016 he revealed that DNA tests showed his biological father was in fact Sir Anthony Montague Browne, a private secretary to Sir Winston Churchill.