The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th person to hold the position, as part of a line of succession going back to the "Apostle to the English", Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent to the island by the church in Rome and arrived in 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams.
The Lambeth Conference convenes as the Archbishop of Canterbury summons an assembly of Anglican bishops every ten years. The first took place at Lambeth in 1867.
The Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion.
The Province of Canterbury, or less formally the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces which constitute the Church of England. The other is the Province of York.
The history of the Anglican Communion may be attributed mainly to the worldwide spread of British culture associated with the British Empire. Among other things the Church of England spread around the world and, gradually developing autonomy in each region of the world, became the communion as it exists today.
Christ Church Cathedral, in Stanley, Falkland Islands, is the southernmost Anglican cathedral in the world. It is the parish church of the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the British Antarctic Territories. The Parish of the Falkland Islands is part of the Anglican Communion. The rector of the cathedral is under the ordinary jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Falkland Islands; since 1978, this office has been held ex officio by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is both ordinary and metropolitan for the small autonomous diocese. In practice, authority is exercised through a bishop-commissary appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and known as the Bishop for the Falkland Islands.
The Anglican Church of South America is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion that covers six dioceses in the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
The Anglican church in the British Armed Forces falls under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury; however, for all practical purposes the function is performed by the Bishop to the Forces. His full title is "The Archbishop of Canterbury's Episcopal Representative to the Armed Forces". The Bishop to the Forces is not a military chaplain. The Bishop always sits in the Church's House of Bishops and (therefore) General Synod; from 2014 to 2021, this fact was utilised to give the Bishop at Lambeth a seat on both.
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.
Waite Hockin Stirling was a nineteenth-century missionary with the Patagonian Missionary Society and was the first Anglican Bishop of the Falkland Islands. He was brother-in-law to Thomas Phinn. He was also a grandnephew of Sir Thomas Stirling, 5th Baronet of Ardoch.
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 more than 1,000 congregations and more than 128,000 members in 2023. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014. In June 2024, the College of Bishops elected Steve Wood as the third archbishop of the ACNA. Authority was transferred to him during the closing Eucharist at the ACNA Assembly 2024 conference in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
The Parish of the Falkland Islands is an extra-provincial church in the Anglican Communion. In 1869, the "Diocese of the Falkland Isles" with jurisdiction over the rest of South America except for British Guiana was established. The name was due to a legal technicality: at that time there was no way an English bishop could be consecrated for areas outside the jurisdiction of the Crown. From the start, the bishop resided in Buenos Aires and had his administrative office there. From 1902 to 1973, the jurisdiction of the diocese was progressively reduced in area as more dioceses were established in South America and after the formation of the "Consejo Anglicano Sudamericano" in 1973 as a step towards the formation of a new province of the Anglican Communion the Parish became extra-provincial under the direct jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Until the war between Britain and Argentina in 1982, at the Archbishop's request episcopal functions were performed by the Anglican Bishop of Argentina.
William Nigel Stock is a British Anglican bishop. From 2013 until his 2017 retirement, he was Bishop at Lambeth, Bishop to the Forces and Bishop for the Falkland Islands; from 2007 to 2013 he was Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
Timothy Martin Thornton is a retired British Anglican bishop. His final post was as Bishop at Lambeth, Bishop to the Forces, and Bishop for the Falkland Islands (2017–2021). He was previously the area Bishop of Sherborne from 2001 to 2008, the diocesan Bishop of Truro (2009–2017), and a Member of the House of Lords (2013–2017).
The Bishop to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York is a position within the hierarchy of the Church of England. It is a non-diocesan appointment in which a bishop acts as head of staff or general assistant to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Archbishop of York. It was created in 2021 to replace the former role Bishop at Lambeth, who assisted only the Archbishops of Canterbury.
Richard Stanley Cutts (1919-1997) was the Anglican Bishop of Argentina and Eastern South America. He acted as Episcopal Commissary for the Falkland Islands, on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, from 1978 until the outbreak of the Falklands War when Episcopal oversight was transferred to the Bishop to the Forces. Cutts was born in 1919 and died in 1997 of a heart attack.
Timothy John Dakin is a retired Anglican bishop. He was the general secretary of the Church Mission Society (CMS) and the South American Missionary Society (SAMS) prior to his consecration. He was appointed as Bishop of Winchester in 2011, and, as such became an ex officio member of the House of Lords. From 2013 he served as the Bishop for Higher and Further Education.
Jonathan Dunnett Clark is a retired Anglican bishop serving as the Bishop for the Falkland Islands. He was previously area Bishop of Croydon in the Church of England Diocese of Southwark, 2012–2022. An Anglo-Catholic, he was rector general of the Society of Catholic Priests from 2005 to 2008 and chair of Affirming Catholicism from 2008 to 2012
The Anglican Church of Chile is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion that covers four dioceses in Chile. Formed in 2018, the province is the 40th in the Anglican Communion. The province consists of four dioceses. Its primate and metropolitan is the Archbishop of Chile, Héctor Zavala.
