The new leader of the world’s Anglicans said yesterday he backed women bishops and would examine his thinking on gay marriage, tackling issues that have divided the faithful across the world.

Former oil executive Justin Welby was named the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, capping a remarkable rise for the 56-year-old who has only been a bishop for a year.

In March he will replace Rowan Williams, who will retire as Archbishop in January after a decade spent battling divisions in the worldwide Anglican communion of around 80 million.

Welby, currently the Bishop of Durham in northeast England, said the announcement of his appointment by PM David Cameron’s Downing Street office was “astonishing and exciting”, while his immediate reaction was “oh no”.

He admitted the Church of England faced “deep differences” over the issues of sexuality and the ordination of female bishops, which have threatened to cause a permanent rift with conservative Anglican bishops, particularly in Africa.

Welby said he would vote in favour of women bishops when the General Synod, the governing body of the worldwide Anglican Communion’s mother church, decides on the issue later in November. Welby also said he supported the Church of England’s official opposition earlier this year in response to a British Government consultation on upgrading same-sex “civil partnerships” to gay marriage. But he said he would “examine my own thinking carefully and prayerfully” on the issue.

His naming as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury had been officially approved by Queen Elizabeth II, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England as well as the British head of state.