The presiding bishop of the American Episcopal Church will give an address at the royal wedding in Windsor next week.

Kensington Palace confirmed yesterday, on Twitter, that “Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle have asked that The Most Reverend Michael Bruce Curry, the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, give the address at their wedding.”

Curry, 65, from Chicago, is one of the most senior ministers in the US, and was elected as bishop of North Carolina in 2015. He will join the dean of Windsor, the Right Reverend David Conner, who will conduct the service and Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who will officiate as the couple make their marriage vows.

Prince Harry and Markle have yet to meet the high-energy, evangelical preacher, who has been credited with shaking up the face of Episcopalianism, the US-based branch of the global Anglican communion. He presides over 1.8 million members of a Christian community that has historically been home to the nation’s business and political elite.

Curry said: “The love that has brought and will bind Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle together has its source and origin in God, and is the key to life and happiness.”

In his 2015 autobiography, Songs My Grandma Sang, Curry reveals that his family are descended from slaves and sharecroppers in North Carolina and Alabama.

• This article was amended on 14 May 2018 to correct a mistaken reference to Michael Curry being the first African-American bishop of the Episcopal Church. He is the first African-American to be presiding bishop. The church consecrated its first African-American bishop in 1874.

