Justin Welby: Curry's Royal wedding sermon 'blew the place open'

The archbishop of Canterbury has praised the sermon preached by Most Rev Michael Curry, primate of the Episcopal Church in the US (TEC), at the Royal wedding yesterday.

The sermon has been widely praised for its passion and truthfulness to the gospel. In conversation with Curry for Sky News, Justin Welby told him: 'I think what we saw in that is that preaching is not a past art, that the use of language to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ just blew the place open. It was fantastic. And you could see people just caught up in it and excited by it.'

The two both spoke warmly of the service itself and the happiness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, with Welby – who led them in exchanging vows – saying: 'Everything went perfectly, the couple – it was a proper wedding, this was not theatre with a couple of pretty beautiful people in the middle, it was two young people profoundly in love with each other, committing to each other. It was just – it was tear-jerking, it was really beautiful.'

Curry said: 'They were making eye contact throughout, they were – one of the things I've learned as I've been ordained a long time, is, that when you do a wedding, talk to the couple. And they, their eyes and their smiles and their reactions were talking back. It was non-verbal communication throughout the whole thing. And you could watch them look at each other, and even when when they weren't talking, the way they looked at each each other, just sent the message, these people were in love. For real.'