I don't need to get married in church': meet the UK's first female and out gay archbishop

The new archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, has spoken of how she kept her sexuality secret for decades as part of her struggle to be accepted as a female minister.

- Bethan McKernan

Speaking to the Guardian, Vann, 66, said that without the strong belief that God had called her to the priesthood she "would not have survived" her journey through the ranks of the Anglican church.

Vann was one of the first female priests to be ordained in England in 1994. Now, as the UK's first female and first out gay archbishop, and the first out lesbian and partnered bishop to serve as a primate within the Anglican communion, she has once again broken the stained glass ceiling.

"It happens that I've lived in a time that's meant that I'm a trailblazer, but I'm not a campaigner," she said in the offices of the Church in Wales in central Cardiff. "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."

Working in the Church in Wales since 2020 has been very different from the many years she spent at the Church of England, Vann said. Here, clergy are permitted to be in same-sex civil partnerships, whereas in England, the Anglican church technically allows same-sex relationships, but with an expectation of celibacy.

Upon becoming bishop of Monmouth five years ago, Vann publicly disclosed her civil partnership with Wendy Diamond, her partner of 30 years, for the first time.

"Other people in England were braver than I was and made their sexuality clear," Vann said. "A lot of them suffered the consequences of that, certainly when going forward for ordination.