LONDON (AP):

THE HEAD of the Church of England says he can see a case for breaking the Church's ties to the State, but he would oppose it now.

"I believe the Church exists because of God, not because of the State," Archbishop Rowan Williams, said in a BBC radio interview yesterday.

The monarch is the supreme governor of the Church of England, the Government appoints its bishops, and Parliament has the last word on important decisions such as the ordination of women. Twenty-six Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords, and the Church is a major provider of primary education.

Williams was asked about his views in light of his interview with the New Statesman magazine, in which he drew on his experience in the Anglican church in Wales, which had been "disesta-blished" or severed its formal ties to the state.

"The strength of it is that the last vestiges of State sanction disappeared, so when you took a vote at the Welsh Synod, it didn't have to be nodded through by Parliament afterward. There is a certain integrity to that."

Asked on the BBC whether he would back disestablishment of the Church of England now, Williams said: "At the moment, no.

"My unease about going for straight disestablishment is to do with the fact that it's a very shaky time for the public presence of faith in society," Williams told New Statesman.

"I think the motives that would now drive disestablishment from the State side would be mostly to do with ... trying to push religion into the private sphere, and that's the point where I think I'd be bloody-minded and say, 'Well, not on that basis.'"