London: King Charles III's coronation won't be broadcast, according to Rabbi Nicky Liss. He'll be spending the Jewish Sabbath praying for the monarch, which he views as being more important.

He will join rabbis from all over Britain on Saturday to read a prayer that praises the new king in the name of the "one God who created us all."

Liss, the rabbi of Highgate Synagogue in north London, said that British Jews appreciated Charles' promise to support the coexistence of all faiths and his track record of doing so throughout his protracted apprenticeship as the heir to the throne.

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"When he says he wants to be a defender of faiths, that means the world because our history hasn't always been so simple and we haven't always lived freely; we haven't always been able to practise our religion," Liss told The Associated Press. But it is very comforting to know that King Charles behaves and speaks in this manner.

Charles is attempting to reduce tensions between the various faiths that make up Britain's increasingly diverse society at a time when religion is fueling conflicts all over the world, from Hindu nationalists in India to Jewish settlers in the West Bank and fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

The new king's efforts to demonstrate that the monarchy, a 1,000-year-old institution with Christian roots, can still represent the people of contemporary, multicultural Britain depend on him succeeding in that endeavour.

Charles, the head of the Church of England, must deal with a nation that is very different from the one that fervently praised his mother's coronation in 1953.

More than 80% of England's population was Christian seventy years ago, and the massive immigration that would change the country's face was just getting started. 

According to the most recent census data, that percentage has now fallen below 50%, with 37 percent claiming to have no religion, 6.5 percent identifying as Muslim, and 1.7 percent identifying as Hindu. In London, where more than 25% of people practise a non-Christian faith, the change is even more noticeable.

Long before he was crowned king last September, Charles was aware of the change.
The monarch's traditional title of "defender of the faith," which refers to Christianity, has been changed to "the defender of faith," a small but profoundly symbolic change, by Charles as early as the 1990s. It's a crucial distinction for a man who once referred to Islam as "one of the greatest treasuries of accumulated wisdom and spiritual knowledge available to humanity" and who believes in the therapeutic benefits of yoga.

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At his coronation, when religious leaders from the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh traditions will participate in the ceremonies actively for the first time, the king's commitment to diversity will be on display.
Charles said to religious leaders in September, "I have always thought of Britain as a 'community of communities.

"That has caused me to realise that the Sovereign has another duty that is less formally acknowledged but that must be carried out just as diligently. It is our responsibility to preserve the diversity of our nation, including by defending the right to practise one's religion in accordance with the cultures, traditions, and beliefs that speak to each person's heart and mind.

In a nation where religious and cultural differences occasionally flare up, that is not an easy task.

In Leicester, young Muslims and Hindus fought one another just last summer. The government's counterterrorism strategy has come under fire for focusing primarily on Muslims, and the main opposition Labour Party has struggled to rid itself of antisemitism. Then there are the sectarian divisions that still exist in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants.

These conflicts highlight how important it is for Britain to have a leader who actively promotes inclusivity, according to Farhan Nizami, director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

Since Charles has been the center's patron for 30 years, Nizami has been able to leverage his influence to create a centre for academic study of the history, science, literature, and religion of the Islamic world. During those years, the centre changed from a plain wooden building to a complex with a mosque complete with a dome and minaret, a library and conference rooms.

It is crucial that we have a king who has consistently embraced inclusivity, according to Nizami. "The head of this state should promote unity through both action and example in the modern age, with all the mobility, difference, and diversity that exists."

Sometimes those actions are modest. But they strike a chord with individuals like Balwinder Shukra, who recently witnessed the king inaugurating the Guru Nanak Gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, in Luton, a multiethnic city of almost 300,000 people north of London.

Charles chose to sit on the floor with other members of the congregation, and Shukra, 65, who was patting out chapatis for the communal meal the gurdwara serves to all visitors, took a moment to admire Charles' decision. She also adjusted her floral shawl.

Shukra referred to the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred text of the Sikhs, when he said, "All the people (are) equal." It "doesn't matter" if you are the king, she continued.

One conservative religious commentator recently warned that a multifaith ceremony could weaken the "kingly roots" of the monarchy. Some British newspapers have claimed that the Church of England opposed Charles' desire to include other faiths in the coronation.

However, George Gross, an expert on the relationship between religion and monarchy, disregarded these worries.

There is nothing inherently Christian about the crowning of monarchs, according to Gross, a visiting research fellow at King's College London, as it is a tradition that dates back to the ancient Egyptians and Romans. Additionally, Church of England clergy will lead all of the main religious aspects of the service.

Other significant public gatherings in Britain, like the Remembrance Day services, have already featured representatives of other faiths.

If there were no other representatives, it would seem extremely strange because "these things are not unusual in more modern settings," he said.

The progress made in mending a rift in the Christian tradition that started in 1534 when Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church and proclaimed himself head of the Church of England is also symbolised by Charles' commitment to a multifaith society.

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According to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic clergyman in England, that split ushered in centuries of tensions between Catholics and Anglicans that finally subsided during the queen's reign. When Charles is crowned on Saturday, Nichols will be present in the Abbey. I get a lot of privileges, he chuckled. But this will be one of the biggest, in my opinion, to take part in the monarch's coronation.