The Anglican Diocese of Asante Mampong [1] [2] was inaugurated on 23 November 2014, having previously been within the Diocese of Kumasi. The first Diocesan Bishop of Asante Mampong is Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith, formerly suffragan bishop under the authority of the Bishop of Kumasi. [3] The new Diocese covers a remote rural and forest area of the Ashanti region and supports practical ministry in education, health and the provision of clean water as a part of its Christian mission.
Asante Mampong is the 17th Diocese within the Church of the Province of West Africa, 11 of which are in the internal Province of Ghana. [4] The mother church of the Diocese is the Cathedral Church of St Michael and All Angels in Mampong and there are currently parishes established at Kumawu (St Peter), Ejura (St Mary's ), Kwamang (St Andrew), Nsuta (St Joseph), Juaben (St Paul), Odumasi (St Peter), Daaho (St John), Kyiremfaso (St Paul), Abonkoso (St Thomas), Konongo (St Barnabas), Bonkro (St Augustine), Jamasi (St Nicholas sub-parish) and Dromankoma (Christ the King). Five more communities are preparing to receive parochial status: Effiduasi (St Mark), Woraso (St Mary), Agogo Anglican Community, Nobewam (St Anthony) and Kofiase/Benim Anglican Community. There is a larger number of small rural stations. [5]
Raised to cathedral status in 2014, the Cathedral Church of St Michael and All Angels, Mampong, is the centre of mission for the Diocese. The Acting Dean is Bismark Opuku Acheampong and Acting Canon Precentor, Balthazar Obeng Larbi who is also Registrar of the Diocese. A significant number of honorary canons have been appointed from other provinces of the Anglican Communion to support the new Diocese with specific skills. [6]
Since the 1990s, the Anglican Communion has struggled with controversy regarding homosexuality in the church. In 1998, the 13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops passed a resolution "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". However, this is not legally binding. "Like all Lambeth Conference resolutions, it is not legally binding on all provinces of the Communion, including the Church of England, though it commends an essential and persuasive view of the attitude of the Communion." "Anglican national churches in Brazil, South Africa, South India, New Zealand and Canada have taken steps toward approving and celebrating same-sex relationships amid strong resistance among other national churches within the 80 million-member global body. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has allowed same-sex marriage since 2015, and the Scottish Episcopal Church has allowed same-sex marriage since 2017." "Church of England clergy have appeared to signal support for gay marriage after they rejected a bishops' report which said that only a man and woman could marry in church." The Church of England's 2019 General Synod was set to discuss a diocesan motion "to create a set of formal services and prayers to bless those who have had a same-sex marriage or civil partnership". At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain married and recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition provided that the spouses identified as opposite genders at the time of the marriage.
The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East is a province of the Anglican Communion. The primate of the church is called President Bishop and represents the Church at the international Anglican Communion Primates' Meetings. The Central Synod of the church is its deliberative and legislative organ.
The Church of the Province of West Africa is a province of the Anglican Communion, covering 17 dioceses in eight countries of West Africa, specifically in Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Ghana is the country with most dioceses, now numbering 11.
The Anglican Church of Canada is the province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is l'Église anglicane du Canada. In 2017, the Anglican Church counted 359,030 members on parish rolls in 2,206 congregations, organized into 1,571 parishes. The 2011 Canadian Census counted 1,631,845 self-identified Anglicans, making the Anglican Church the third-largest Canadian church after the Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada. Like other Anglican churches, the Anglican Church of Canada's liturgy utilizes a native version of the Book of Common Prayer, the 1962 prayer book. A further revision, the 1985 Book of Alternative Services, has developed into the dominant liturgical book of the church.
A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion, usually working as a part-time volunteer. Holders of these positions are ex officio members of the parish board, usually called a vestry, parochial church council, or in the case of a Cathedral parish the chapter.
A dean, in an ecclesiastical context, is a cleric holding certain positions of authority within a religious hierarchy. The title is used mainly in the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and many Lutheran denominations. A dean's assistant is called a sub-dean.
The Anglican Catholic Church (ACC), also known as the Anglican Catholic Church , is a body of Christians in the continuing Anglican movement, which is separate from the Anglican Communion led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This denomination is separate from the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.
The Anglican Diocese of Quincy is a member of the Anglican Church in North America, and is made up of 34 congregations in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Hawai'i, Colorado, Tennessee, and Florida, in the United States. The diocese was a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America in 2009.
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. "Ministry" commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptized members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.
The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion. This movement is primarily active in parts of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. Two of the major events that contributed to the movement were the 2002 decision of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada to authorise a rite of blessing for same-sex unions, and the nomination of two openly gay priests in 2003 to become bishops. Jeffrey John, an openly gay priest with a long-time partner, was appointed to be the next Bishop of Reading in the Church of England and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church ratified the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay non-celibate man, as Bishop of New Hampshire. Jeffrey John ultimately declined the appointment due to pressure.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Konongo–Mampong is a diocese located in the city of Konongo–Mampong in the Ecclesiastical province of Kumasi in Ghana.
The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition in the United States and Canada. It also includes ten congregations in Mexico, two mission churches in Guatemala, and a missionary diocese in Cuba. Headquartered in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, the church reported 30 dioceses and 1,037 congregations serving an estimated membership of 134,593 in 2017. In 2020, the denomination reported 972 congregations and 126,760 members. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
The Diocese of the Free State is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
The Diocese of Gambia and Guinea was founded in 1935 and had been renamed the Diocese of Gambia and The Rio Pongas by 1940. Today it is simply styled the Diocese of Gambia, is one of 17 dioceses in the Church of the Province of West Africa, and comprises The Gambia, Senegal, and the Cape Verde Islands. In 1985, French-speaking Guinea was split off from it to form the Anglican Diocese of Guinea.
The Diocese of St Mark the Evangelist is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, in the geographical area of the Limpopo province in the north of South Africa.
The Diocese of Quincy was a diocese of the Episcopal Church in western Illinois from 1877 to 2013. The cathedral seat was originally in Quincy, Illinois but was moved to St. Paul's Cathedral in Peoria in 1963. In order to avoid confusion with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria, the diocese retained the name of the location of its original "home" city, Quincy, where its cathedral seat was St. John's.
The Episcopal/Anglican Province of Alexandria is a province of the Anglican Communion. Its territory was formerly the Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa. On 29 June 2020 the diocese was elevated to the status of an ecclesiastical province, and became the forty-first province of the Anglican Communion. The primate and metropolitan of the province is the archbishop of Alexandria.
The Reverend Canon Robin Roy Snyman was a priest in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, who served as Dean of Kimberley and rector of St Cyprian’s Cathedral, and afterwards was Vice-Provost at the Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, Port Elizabeth. He was born at Waterval Boven, in what is now Mpumalanga in 1934. He died in Port Elizabeth on 15 September 2020.
The ordination of women in the Anglican Communion has been increasingly common in certain provinces since the 1970s. Several provinces, however, and certain dioceses within otherwise ordaining provinces, continue to ordain only men. Disputes over the ordination of women have contributed to the establishment and growth of progressive tendencies, such as the Anglican realignment and Continuing Anglican movements.