The Church in Wales () is an Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.
The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The position is currently held by Andy John, Bishop of Bangor, since 2021.
Unlike the Church of England, the Church in Wales is not an established church. Disestablishment took place in 1920 under the Welsh Church Act 1914.
As a province of the Anglican Communion, the Church in Wales recognises the Archbishop of Canterbury as a focus of unity but without any formal authority. A cleric of the Church in Wales can be appointed to posts in the Church of England, including the See of Canterbury; a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was from Wales and served as Archbishop of Wales before his appointment to Canterbury.
Official name
The Church in Wales () adopted its name by accident. The Welsh Church Act 1914 referred throughout to "the Church in Wales", the phrase being used to indicate the part of the Church of England within Wales. At a convention (of the Welsh Church) held in Cardiff in October 1917, Mr Justice Sankey said that, while the name "the Church of Wales" appealed to him, he advised that there were good legal reasons why the name "the Church in Wales" should be adopted, at least at first, in order to follow the wording in the act. The matter was therefore left at that convention for the second Governing Body to decide at its first session.
History
Christianity in Wales can be traced back to the Romano-British culture and an organised episcopal church has had continuous existence in Wales since that time. The age of the saints in the 6th and 7th centuries was marked by the establishment of monastic settlements throughout the country, by religious leaders such as Saint David, Illtud, Padarn and Saint Teilo. This was the period when the Welsh people developed a shared national identity, arising from their language and religious beliefs.
The Welsh refused to co-operate with Augustine of Canterbury's mission to the Anglo-Saxons. However, a combination of other Celtic dioceses reconciling with the Holy See and the conquest of Wales by Edward I meant that from the Middle Ages, the Welsh dioceses were part of the Province of Canterbury and also in communion with the See of Rome until the English Reformation. Afterward they were part of the Church of England until disestablishment in 1920, as during the reign of Henry VIII, Wales was incorporated into the legal realm of the Kingdom of England.
Disestablishment
During the 19th century, Nonconformist churches grew rapidly in Wales, and eventually the majority of Welsh Christians were Nonconformists, although the Church of England remained the largest single denomination. By the mid-19th century the failure to appoint a Welsh-speaking bishop to any Welsh diocese for 150 years caused real resentment; disestablishment was seen as a way to assert national and linguistic identity.
Under the influence of Nonconformist politicians such as David Lloyd George, the Welsh Church Act 1914 was passed by the Liberal Government to separate Anglicanism in Wales from the Church of England. The bill was fiercely resisted by members of the Conservative Party and blocked in the House of Lords, but it was eventually passed under the provisions of the Parliament Act 1911.
The opposition to disestablishment was led by the Conservative politician F. E. Smith, who characterised the disestablishment bill as "a Bill which has shocked the conscience of every Christian community in Europe." In response to this description, the writer G. K. Chesterton penned the satirical poem "Antichrist, or the Reunion of Christendom: An Ode" containing the memorable retort "Chuck It, Smith".
The act both disestablished and disendowed the "Church in Wales", the term used to define the part of the Church of England which was to be separated. Disestablishment meant the end of the church's special legal status, and Welsh bishops were no longer entitled to sit in the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual. As the Church in Wales became independent of the state, tithes were no longer available to the church, leaving it without a major source of income.