Will the Archbishop of York start wearing his dog collar again?

The Archbishop of York famously cut up his clerical dog collar live on television nearly ten years ago in protest at President Robert Mugabe's regime.

He vowed then not to wear the mark of holy calling until Zimbabwe's leader was out of office.

'As an Anglican this is what I wear to identify myself, that I'm a clergyman,' he told the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday, December 9, 2007.

'Do you know what Mugabe has done? He's taken people's identity and literally, if you don't mind, cut it to pieces. This is what he's actually done to a lot of - and in the end there's nothing.

'So, as far as I'm concerned, from now on I'm not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe is gone.'

So does the military's take over in Zimbabwe mean the Church of England's number two can start donning his full clerical outfit again?

Now 93-years-old, Mugabe is said to be under house arrest and Ben Freeth, speaking to Christian Today from Harare, said it was unlikely he would return to full power.

'It appears that Mugabe has been neutralised. Whether they will keep him as a figurehead because they realise there will be no constitutionality for any regime they put in place we will see,' he told Christian Today.

'I cannot see it coming back to normality for a while. The military will take control.'

But a spokeswoman for the Archbishop of York said it was 'too early' to say whether John Sentamu would start wearing his dog collar again, saying the situation was very much still fluid. She added that he was not wearing his dog collar at the moment. 

However she said that BBC presenter Andrew Marr still has the pieces of Sentamu's dog collar ready to give back to him 'when the time is right'.

Sentamu himself was unavailable for comment when approached by Christian Today but tweeted that his prayers were with Zimbabwe and its people.