Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will officially step down on Monday as leader of the world's Anglicans, nearly two months after resigning over failures in the Church of England's handling of a serial abuse case.
Welby, 69, will be replaced on a temporary basis by outgoing Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, currently the second most senior cleric in the mother church of Anglicanism.
He has also faced calls to resign over his own handling of a historical sexual abuse case.
The process to choose Welby's permanent successor is set to take several more months and not be announced until later in the year, according to reports.
Welby, who resigned in November, is expected to spend his final day in the post privately at his London base of Lambeth Palace, UK media said.
He will attend two services there -- a Eucharist at lunchtime and Evensong later in the day -- before his 12-year-tenure formally ends at midnight (0000 GMT), the reports added.
He is set to lay down his bishop's crozier -- a ceremonial long staff -- in a symbolic act marking the official end of his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, they noted.
Welby quit after an independent probe found that he "could and should" have formally reported decades of abuse by Church-linked lawyer John Smyth to authorities in 2013.
Smyth, who organised evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s, was responsible for "prolific, brutal and horrific" abuse of as many as 130 boys and young men, according to the independent Makin Review.
With AFP
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