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In a recent annual report from Buckingham Palace, the title “Defender of the Faith” has been replaced with a multi-faith alternative in describing King Charles III’s duties.

Buckingham Palace has revised the role description of King Charles III, stating he “protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation” in place of last year’s “Defender of the Faith” wording.

The change appears in the Sovereign Grant report 2025-26, an annual review of public funding for the Royal Household published on Thursday.

Last year’s report described the King’s “Head of Nation” duties as “Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith”. This year’s states: “His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.”

The report also describes the King as a “catalyst for charitable action” and credits him with “fostering a sense of pride, continuity and stability, whilst strengthening the UK’s social fabric and cohesion, particularly at key moments in national life.” It adds that “His Majesty also has a special role in bringing communities and faiths together, engaging with them across the regions and nations of the UK.”

The Buckingham Palace report is a financial and administrative document that does not alter the King’s statutory titles or the Church of England’s constitutional status.

The wording change follows remarks King Charles made to UK faith leaders at Buckingham Palace in September 2022. “I have always thought of Britain as a ‘community of communities,’” he said, adding:

That has led me to understand that the Sovereign has an additional duty – less formally recognised but to be no less diligently discharged. It is the duty to protect the diversity of our country, including by protecting the space for Faith itself and its practise through the religions, cultures, traditions and beliefs to which our hearts and minds direct us as individuals.

In a separate address in 2021, he described interfaith work as “a major part of my life’s work,” saying he had spent years “trying to build bridges between faith communities and to deepen mutual understanding”.

The Title Set Aside

The title “Defender of the Faith” dates back to 1521, when Pope Leo X granted the title to Henry VIII in recognition of a book defending Catholic doctrine against reformers such as Martin Luther. The original papal bull survives in the British Library. Pope Paul III revoked the title after Henry’s break with Rome and the establishment of the Church of England.

Parliament restored the title by statute in 1544, conferring it on Henry VIII “and his heirs and successors, kings of this realm”. Every English and British monarch has used it since, and the abbreviation “F.D.” — for Fidei Defensor, Latin for “Defender of the Faith” — continues to appear on UK coinage and official documents.

Before his coronation, there was public debate over whether King Charles would adopt “Defender of Faith” in the plural, departing from the singular wording used by his predecessors. He retained the traditional singular form for the coronation service and oath, in which the monarch swears to maintain the Protestant religion and the rights and privileges of the Church of England.

The late Queen Elizabeth II’s description in Sovereign Grant reports during her reign was shorter, identifying her only as “Supreme Governor of the Church of England”.

Decades of Public Comment on Islam

King Charles has addressed Islamic theology, history and law in public speeches spanning more than three decades, both as Prince of Wales and as monarch.

In a 1993 speech at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, of which he has been patron since 1993, he said:

If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straitjacket of history which we have inherited.

He added that Islam had “preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us,” which he said the West had lost following the scientific revolution. He told the same audience:

We must not be tempted to believe that extremism is in some way the hallmark and essence of the Muslim. Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity.

At the Markfield Institute for Higher Education in 2003, he stated, “Anyone who doubts the contribution of Islam and Muslims to the European Renaissance should, as an exercise, try to do some simple arithmetic using Roman numerals. Thank goodness for Arabic numerals and the concept of zero introduced into European thought by Muslim mathematicians!”

Addressing Al-Azhar University in Cairo in 2006, the then-Prince said, “We need to remember that we in the West are in debt to the scholars of Islam, for it was thanks to them that during the Dark Ages in Europe the treasures of classical learning were kept alive.”

The King has also studied Arabic in order to read the Quran, a fact Cambridge Central Mosque’s imam noted in a sermon following the King’s accession in September 2022. His garden at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire residence, includes plants referenced in the Quran and design elements drawn from Islamic tradition.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.