The newly appointed Archbishop of Wales, Most Rev Cherry Vann, has spoken about her journey as a gay woman in the Anglican Church, her decades-long struggle with secrecy, and her belief that same-sex marriage in the church is only a matter of time.
In a recent interview which went viral on Monday, August 4, the 66-year-old prelate described the personal and professional tensions she endured, especially during her early years in the Church of England, where gay clergy were expected to remain celibate despite being technically allowed same-sex relationships.
“Without the strong belief that God had called me to the priesthood, I would not have survived,” she said.
Vann made history in 1994 as one of the first women to be ordained a priest in England and now holds the distinction of being the UK’s first female archbishop and the first openly gay bishop to serve as a primate in the global Anglican Communion.
Reflecting on her life and calling, she said, “It happens that I’ve lived in a time that’s meant that I’m a trailblazer, but I’m not a campaigner. 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.”
Since becoming Bishop of Monmouth in 2020, Vann has served openly alongside her partner of over 30 years, Wendy Diamond. However, she recounted how things were very different in England.
“Other people in England were braver than I was and made their sexuality clear. A lot of them suffered the consequences of that, certainly when going forward for ordination,” she said.
“For years we kept our relationship secret because I worried about waking up and finding myself outed on the front page of a newspaper. Now, Wendy joins me everywhere, and when I take services, it’s just normal. But in England she had to stay upstairs if I had a meeting in the house.”
Vann, who was born in Whetstone, Leicestershire, and trained at the Royal College of Music before pursuing theology, also highlighted the added difficulty of navigating the church as a woman.
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“You can hide your sexuality, up to a point, but you can’t hide being a woman. There was a lot of nastiness; the men were angry, they felt they had been betrayed,” she said.
She recalled how, in the 1990s, she and a group of newly ordained female priests met regularly with male colleagues who opposed their ordination.
“It was awful, it was really difficult for all of us, but we stuck at it,” she said.
Despite ongoing divisions in the Anglican Communion over gender and sexuality, Vann remains hopeful for reconciliation.
“This is what I’m hoping around the sexuality issue too – modelling that we can vehemently disagree about something, but we can still love one another in Christ and recognise one another as children of God.”
While she personally does not feel the need for a church wedding, she sees marriage equality within the Church as inevitable.
“I don’t personally feel the need to get married in church; Wendy and I have been together for 30 years, we’ve made our vows, and we are committed to each other,” she said.
“Gay marriage in church is inevitable, I think: the question is when. There are people who are very opposed, and as leader, I have to honour their position, which is theologically grounded. It isn’t my job to push something through that would alienate a good proportion of clergy.”