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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Harriet Sherwood

Defender of all faiths? Coronation puts focus on King Charles’s beliefs

King Charles III with the archbishop of Canterbury,  Justin Welby.
King Charles III with the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who said the coronation was ‘first and foremost an act of Christian worship’. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

In 1953, the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, the UK was predominantly Christian, with Sunday church attendance the norm, children taught to say their prayers at bedtime and vicars regarded with unquestioning deference.

Opinion polls in the 1950s and 1960s asking people to name their religion found that between 86% and 91% gave a Christian denomination.

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