Archbishop of Canterbury
Enthronement of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at Canterbury Cathedral, England, March 21, 2013.
archbishop
ecclesiastical title
archbishop, in the Christian church, a bishop who, in addition to having ordinary episcopal authority in an assigned diocese, usually has jurisdiction (but no superiority of order) over the other bishops of a province. The functions of an archbishop developed out of those of the metropolitan, a bishop presiding over a number of dioceses in a province, though the title of archbishop, when it first appeared, implied no metropolitan jurisdiction. It seems to have been...