If the King Will Not Name Christian Persecution, What Does “Defender of the Faith” Mean?

His Majesty The King
Buckingham Palace
London SW1A 1AA 

S. Joseph Sponsi B.M.V. Confessoris MMXXVI

Sir,

Christians in parts of the world—not least in Nigeria—are facing violence, displacement, and death on account of their faith. Nor is this suffering distant from our own life. Within this kingdom are those—Copts, Syriac Christians, and others—who have fled such persecution and now live among us, bearing witness to it in their own lives.

This is not conjecture. A review commissioned by the United Kingdom’s own Foreign Office concluded that Christians are the most widely persecuted religious group in the world¹, and that in some regions the scale of that persecution approaches the level of genocide².

In such a moment, whether those entrusted with public authority will speak plainly is not a theoretical question.

It is immediate.

In recent remarks, Your Majesty spoke of religious harmony, yet without reference to those who suffer for the name of Christ. That absence may appear slight. It is not. It draws attention to a more serious question—one that concerns not only a particular speech, but the meaning of the title you bear.

What does it mean to be Defender of the Faith?

That title, as received within the constitution of this realm, does not refer to religion in general, nor to a plurality of beliefs held in equal regard. It refers specifically to the Christian faith, as historically professed and established in this kingdom. To speak of the Defender of the Faith is therefore to speak of a sovereign charged—not with affirming all faiths indiscriminately—but with upholding the truth claims and moral inheritance of Christianity itself.

That title cannot therefore be understood as ceremonial. It is not a gesture of goodwill, nor a symbol of general religious regard. It presupposes something definite: that the Faith is real, that it is true, and that it can be defended.

If the Faith is undefined, the title is emptied of content.
If the Faith is treated as one expression among many, the title becomes indistinguishable from its opposite.

The Crown of this realm has never been religiously neutral. The Sovereign stands within a moral order he did not create and cannot redefine. The title Defender of the Faith exists because the Crown recognises that truth is not constructed by the State, but received—and that it carries a duty to uphold it.

Your Majesty’s coronation made this plain. You were not only installed; you were anointed with oil from the Holy Land. That act signified that kingship in this realm remains ordered under God, and that the authority of the Crown is exercised in relation to that order³.

You swore, moreover, before Almighty God to uphold the religion established by law in this realm⁴. That oath is not a formality. It binds the conscience of the sovereign to the recognition that the Crown is not indifferent to truth, but accountable to it.

It is precisely in moments such as this—when Christians are persecuted, and when the language of public life turns toward generalities—that the meaning of that responsibility becomes clear.

For if the Defender of the Faith does not speak of the suffering of the faithful, the title itself is called into question.

Silence, in such a context, is not neutral. It is interpreted.

Your Majesty stands within a living inheritance. Your late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, understood that the Crown is not self-explanatory. She spoke of it as vocation—something received, sustained, and judged under God⁵.

That understanding gave substance to the office she bore.

The question now is whether that substance will remain.

You are not called to compel belief. But you are called to bear witness. Not as a private individual, but as a Christian king, whose office carries a public responsibility to truth.

For where Christians are persecuted, the absence of such witness is not experienced as neutrality, but as abandonment.

To defend the Faith is not to speak in generalities, but to speak with clarity—to name what is true, and to refuse to lend the authority of the Crown to what contradicts it.

This will require not silence, but speech. It will require the willingness to affirm, publicly and without ambiguity, that the Faith you are charged to defend is not a symbolic inheritance, but a living truth.

Without that clarity, the title remains—but its meaning does not.

And a title without meaning cannot be defended.

I therefore write, in fidelity to the office I bear, to ask what it now means—for you, and for the Crown—to defend the Faith.

Not as ceremony.
But as truth.

May Almighty God grant Your Majesty clarity to see, firmness to act, and the courage to stand.

I have the honour to be, Sir, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant in Christ,

✠Jerome Seleisi

The Most Reverend Dr Jerome L H Lloyd DD OSJV FRSA
Titular Archbishop of Selsey
Old Roman Apostolate

¹ UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Bishop of Truro’s Independent Review for the Foreign Secretary of FCO Support for Persecuted Christians (London: FCO, 2019), Executive Summary.
² Ibid., p. 16.
³ Church of England, The Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla: The Order of Service (London, 2023).
⁴ Coronation Oath Act 1688 (1 Will. & Mary c.6); see also the form of oath used at the Coronation of King Charles III, Westminster Abbey, 6 May 2023.
⁵ Queen Elizabeth II, Christmas Broadcast, 25 December 2000.