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The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion of churches. Founded in 1867 in London, England, the communion currently has over 85 million members within the Church of England and other national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrines are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The Archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all member churches of the communion, are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition which has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation.
Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
The Lambeth Conference is a decennial assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The first such conference took place in 1867.
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 gay marriage since 2015." "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 General Synod is 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.
Peter Jasper Akinola is the former Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria. He is also the former Bishop of Abuja and Archbishop of Province III, which covered the northern and central parts of the country. When the division into ecclesiastical provinces was adopted in 2002, he became the first Archbishop of Abuja Province, a position he held until 2010. He is married and a father of six.
George Leonard Carey, Baron Carey of Clifton, is a retired Anglican bishop who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, having previously been the Bishop of Bath and Wells. In 2018 the UK Child Sex Abuse Report found Carey had committed serious breaches of duty in covering up child sex abuse within the Church. In June 2017 he resigned from his last formal role in the church after a finding that he had covered up child sex abuse allegations against the bishop Peter Ball.
Frederick Donald Coggan, Baron Coggan, was the 101st Archbishop of Canterbury from 1974 to 1980. As Archbishop of Canterbury, he "revived morale within the Church of England, opened a dialogue with Rome and supported women's ordination". He had previously been successively the Bishop of Bradford and the Archbishop of York.
The Anglican Consultative Council or ACC is one of the four "Instruments of Communion" of the Anglican Communion. It was created by a resolution of the 1968 Lambeth Conference. The council, which includes Anglican bishops, other clergy, and laity, meets every two or three years in different parts of the world.
The Anglican Communion Primates' Meetings are regular meetings of the primates in the Anglican Communion, i.e. the principal archbishops or bishops of each ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion. There are currently 38 primates of the Anglican Communion. The primates come together from the geographic provinces around the world for discussion and consultation. As primus inter pares of the communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury chairs the meetings, with the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) serving as secretary.
In 2003, the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed by the Anglican Communion to study problems stemming from the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first noncelibate self-identifying gay priest to be ordained as an Anglican bishop, in the Episcopal Church in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions in the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster. The Commission, chaired by Archbishop Robin Eames, published its findings as the Windsor Report on 18 October 2004. The report recommended a covenant for the Anglican Communion, an idea that did not come to fruition.
The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, frequently referred to as the Lambeth Quadrilateral or the Lambeth-Chicago Quadrilateral, is a four-point articulation of Anglican identity, often cited as encapsulating the fundamentals of the Anglican Communion's doctrine and as a reference point for ecumenical discussion with other Christian denominations. The four points are:
- The Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation;
- The creeds, as the sufficient statement of Christian faith;
- The dominical sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion;
- The historic episcopate, locally adapted.
Michael James Nazir-Ali is an Anglican bishop who was the 106th Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England from 1994 to 2009. He is now director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue, and has been Visiting Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, in the United States, since 2010. He is a dual citizen of Pakistan and Britain.
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 which 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.
Thabo Cecil Makgoba is the South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. He had served as Bishop of Grahamstown.
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) is a series of conferences of conservative Anglican bishops and leaders, the first of which was held in Jerusalem from 22 to 29 June 2008 to address the growing controversy of the divisions in the Anglican Communion, the rise of secularism, as well as concerns with HIV/AIDS and poverty. As a result of the conference, the Jerusalem Declaration was issued and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans was created. The conference participants also called for the creation of the Anglican Church in North America, as an alternative to the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, and declared that recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury is not necessary to Anglican identity.
The moral theology of Rowan Williams has had a significant impact on the ongoing debate on Anglican views of homosexuality and has been cited both by opponents and defenders of the gay movement within the Anglican Communion.
Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon is a Nigerian Anglican bishop. Since 2015, he has been Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council. He was previously the Bishop of Kaduna diocese and the Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna in the Church of Nigeria.
Nceba Bethlehem Nopece is a South African Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Port Elizabeth in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa from 2001 to 2018. He is a theological conservative, the leading name of the Anglican realignment in his church and also the chairman of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in South Africa, launched in 2009.
The Anglican Church in Brazil is an evangelical Anglican denomination in Brazil. It is not a member of the Anglican Communion but it is recognized as such by the Global Anglican Future Conference.
References
- ↑ "Lambeth Conference 1998: Resolution 1.10 Human Sexuality" . Retrieved 3 July 2008.
- ↑ "The Cambridge Accord". Worldwide Faith News archives. 7 October 1999. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
- ↑ "David Hope's triumph of faith". The Yorkshire Post . November 11, 2004. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
- ↑ "Changing Attitude's list of UK signatories and bishops who declined". ChangingAttitude.org. Archived from the original on October 23, 2001. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
