BRITAIN: The Church of England last night said sorry for the role it played in the 18th century in benefiting from slave labour in the Caribbean.
The church's general synod in London began its deliberations yesterday by commemorating its role in the abolition of slavery in 1807, pledging members to continue campaigning against modern slavery.
But the debate was transformed at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, with an apology being issued for the church's complicity in sustaining - and profiting hugely - from the trade.
When the British parliament voted compensation in 1833 - to former slave owners rather than the slaves themselves - the church received £8,823, about £500,000 in today's money, for the loss of slave labour on its plantation in Barbados. The contemporary bishop of Exeter received nearly £13,000. Dr Williams told the synod that the church ought to acknowledge its ancestral guilt.