The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned after an inquiry found he failed to pursue an investigation into allegations of serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer associated with the Church of England at Christian summer camps.

Justin Welby, 68, resigned on Tuesday, five days after the independent Makin report singled him out for criticism over his handling of abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s.

Here’s what you need to know:

Who is Justin Welby and why did he resign?

Welby announced his resignation “in sadness”, taking “personal and institutional responsibility” for failing to act on the “heinous abuses” committed by the late John Smyth, a Christian summer camp volunteer decades ago.

“The last few days have renewed my long-felt and deep sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England,” Welby said.

Educated at Britain’s most prestigious private school, Eton, Welby worked in the oil industry for more than a decade before being ordained in 1992. He was appointed a senior prelate of the Church of England in 2013.

Welby has been an outspoken spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion who has publicly confronted issues ranging from same-sex marriage to Britain’s immigration policy, Israel’s war on Gaza, reparations for slavery, climate change and his own issues of mental health.

Who was John Smyth and why was he accused?

Smyth was a Canadian-born British evangelical lawyer who held leadership roles in a charity called the Iwerne Trust, which ran Christian camps in England and Wales.

The initial details of Smyth’s physical abuse of schoolgirls attending the camps in the 1970s and 1980s emerged in a 1982 report by the charity.

Smyth allegedly brought students from prestigious public schools in England, including Winchester College, to his home, where he beat them with a cane in the shed.

The case was not reported to the police by the trust, the church or the schools whose pupils were subjected to the abuse.

Instead, Smyth moved to Zimbabwe, where he founded Zambesi Ministries, which ran similar Christian camps for schoolchildren.

In 1992, after being charged with the murder of a teenager who was found dead in a swimming pool, Smyth moved to Cape Town, South Africa.

In 2013, a victim reported Smyth’s abuse to the Church of England, which in turn reported the allegations to the police, but no investigation was launched.

The 1982 Iwerne Trust report was made public in 2016, prompting an investigation by Channel 4 News in 2017.

Smyth died the following year in Cape Town, aged 77.

In total, he was found responsible for the violent abuse of at least 115 children and young people in England, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The report said Smyth subjected boys and young men to “brutal and horrific” physical and sexual abuse over a period of 40 years.

Smyth beat some victims with up to 800 strokes of the cane and provided diapers to absorb the bleeding, the report said.

He would then drape himself over his victims, sometimes kissing their necks or backs.

Welby said he had “no idea or suspicion” of the allegations before 2013, but the independent report concluded it was unlikely he would have been unaware of concerns about Smyth in the 1980s.

Who could succeed Welby?

Under church rules, the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) is a body of clerics handling the selection of Welby’s successor.

It forwards the names of a preferred candidate and an alternative candidate to the UK Prime Minister, who then advises the monarch on the appointment.

It is too early to say who the CNC will select as Welby’s successor, but there are several likely candidates.

Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York and the second most senior bishop in the Church of England, will be in the running.

Cottrell released a statement after Welby’s resignation, saying it was “the right and honorable thing to do”.

A former chief nursing officer in the Department of Health and the current Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, could also be in the running. She is the third oldest bishop in the Church of England.

The Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, has been vocal in calling for Welby to step down, which could make her a possible candidate as the Church of England tries to distance itself from the scandal.

She also recently said she had experienced “coercive language” from Welby and Cottrell in the past.

Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester; Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich; and Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford, were also tipped to succeed Welby.

Snow abstained from a church assembly vote on blessings for gay couples, while Usher is in favor of gay rights.

Francis-Dehqani was born in Iran and spoke about how her brother was killed in the Iranian revolution.

If a woman is elected Archbishop of Canterbury, she would be the first to hold the post.

Has the church faced other allegations of abuse in the past?

Welby’s resignation comes against a backdrop of widespread historic sex abuse in the Church of England.

A 2022 report by the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse found that deference to the authority of priests, taboos surrounding the discussion of sexuality and a culture that offered more support to alleged perpetrators than their victims had helped make the Church of England “a place in which abusers could hide”.