The Church of England marks a major landmark today with the enthronement of its first black archbishop. Mark Foster looks at the route taking John Sentamu to Archbishop of York.

AN extraordinary service at York Minster will today see an extraordinary man take office as one of the highest in the land. By any measure, the enthronement of the charismatic John Sentamu as the new Archbishop of York represents a remarkable milestone for the Church of England - and in the long journey of the man himself.

And as the UK's first black Archbishop, Dr Sentamu has ensured that even today's service will be that little bit different - including his arrival at the ancient cathedral.

A pleasure boat will carry him up the River Ouse from his new official home, Bishopthorpe Palace, and he will float into the city accompanied by African drummers. He will disembark at the Marygate landing, where he will be met by various VIPs before making his way through the Museum Gardens and up Duncombe Place to the Purey Cust Hospital, opposite the Minster, to prepare for the service.

During the ceremony - which is expected to be attended by up to 3,500 people - he will wash the feet of three children, mirroring the actions of Jesus with his disciples.

And later he will place a cross from El Salvador around the neck of youngsters who have taken part in the service, inscribed with the words: "Peace will flower when love and justice pervade our environment".

Hymns to be sung include the African hymn, Siya hamb' ekukhanyen' kwenkhos - We are marching in the light of God - and the collection will raise funds for Martin House Children's Hospice and a trust supporting Ugandan theological students who cannot afford their fees.

UGANDA is where it all began for Dr Sentamu - and where his commitment to Christian values and faith was cemented by the horrors of Idi Amin's regime.

He was born John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu, the sixth of 13 children, in a village near Kampala in 1949. He was so tiny at birth - he weighed in at just 4lbs - that he was described by a neighbour as being "smaller than a rat" and a local bishop was called in to baptise him immediately.

But the tenacious youngster hung on to life and then survived the sickness and famine through which he had to grow up. He studied law at Makerere University and worked as a lawyer in the north-west of the country, later becoming a judge in the Ugandan High Court.

By then, Idi Amin had slaughtered his way to power and it was during that period that Dr Sentamu knowingly sent ten innocent people to jail. Had the ten been freed they would have been summarily executed by Amin's henchmen. "The thing to do was to save lives," he later explained. "Justice is often not just innocent or guilty; justice is often doing what is right."

His stance over the notorious expulsion of the Ugandan Asians made his position with the murderous Amin even worse. An armoured personnel carrier was stationed outside his home to prevent him fleeing the country and regime-friendly thugs gave him a severe beating.

In 1974 however he was finally allowed to leave with his wife Margaret to study theology at Cambridge. "I got out," he said later. "If I had not done so I would have been dead meat."

The murder of his friend and mentor, the Ugandan Archbishop Janani Luwum in 1977, sealed his determination to become part of the church and he served in parishes in Cambridge and London, later becoming Bishop of Stepney and then, in 2002, Bishop of Birmingham.

He was an advisor to the inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder which labelled the Metropolitan Police as "institutionally racist" and also chaired the inquiry into the Damilola Taylor killing which found "serious flaws" in the police investigation.

Racism has featured large in his life. He has fought against it within the Church and outside it - and has also been a victim of it. In 1986 his home was targeted by arsonists linked to the National Front and when his new appointment was announced he was sent hate mail and even packages containing human excrement.

BUT despite his understandable anger at the ravings of such bigots, Dr Sentamu said he would pray for the senders of the letters. "This country, of all the places I have been to, is the most tolerant and welcoming," he said.

"Therefore, this tiny minority is not going to stop me from telling people that if we become a society of friends and a society that will discover the wonderful love of God and Christ, we have a chance of leading the nation in prayer."

But he also plays down his reputation as an anti-racist campaigner saying: "Yes, definitely I am black but what is important is that I have got a living faith in God. I would like people to share my life, my faith, my hope. That, to me, is the most important."

Recently the new Archbishop also re-affirmed his deep affection for his adopted country, describing England "as a place that had allowed reason to be at the heart of things and allowed genuine dissent without resorting to violence".

Admitting he spoke "as a foreigner really" he said: "When you ask a lot of people in this country 'What is English culture?' they are very vague. It is a culture that, whether we like it or not, has given us parliamentary democracy.

"It is the mother of it. It is the mother of arguing that if you want a change of government you vote them in or you vote them out."

And when he is formally enthroned as the 97th Archbishop of York today, in a service broadcast live on the BBC with a member of the Royal Family rumoured to be attending, he will also become part of that culture as well as taking an unassailable place in this country's history.