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 Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the Roman Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. As of 2016, the Anglican Church of Australia had more than 3 million nominal members and 437,880 active baptised members. For much of Australian history the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
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.
The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is a province of the Anglican Communion serving New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands. Since 1992 the church has consisted of three tikanga or cultural streams: Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia. The church's constitution says that, among other things, it is required to "maintain the right of every person to choose any particular cultural expression of the faith". As a result, the church's General Synod has agreed upon the development of the three-person primacy based on this three tikanga system. It has three primates (leaders), each representing a tikanga, who share authority.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of which twenty-one are located in South Africa, and one each in Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Saint Helena. In South Africa, there are between 3 and 4 million Anglicans out of an estimated population of 45 million.
The Anglican Church of Mexico, originally known as Church of Jesus is the Anglican province in Mexico and includes five dioceses. The interim primate is Enrique Treviño, Bishop of Cuernavaca. Although born in Mexico and not being the result of any foreign missionary effort, the shield of the denomination uses the colors representing Mexico as well as those of the United States-based Episcopal Church recognizing its historical connection with the US church since obtaining the apostolic succession from that church.
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) is a group of Anglican churches in Canada and the United States established in 2005 under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, a province of the Anglican Communion. It was a founding diocese of the Anglican Church in North America in June 2009. It comprises 73 parishes in nine Canadian provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and two American states, Massachusetts and Vermont. The Canadian provinces with more parishes are British Columbia, with 24, and Ontario, with 26. Their first Moderator Bishop was Don Harvey, from 2009 to 2014, when he was succeeded by Charlie Masters.
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 Diocese of The Arctic is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert's Land of the Anglican Church of Canada. It is by far the largest of the thirty dioceses in Canada, comprising almost 4,000,000 km2 (1,500,000 sq mi), or one-third the land mass of the country. As the name indicates, the diocese encompasses the Arctic region of Canada including the entirety of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the Nunavik region of northern Quebec. The see city is Iqaluit, Nunavut, and the diocese's nearly 25,000 Anglicans are served by 46 parishes. The administrative offices of the diocese are located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
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 Anglican Church in Central America is a province of the Anglican Communion, covering five sees in Central America.
The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh is a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. It has parishes in the several counties of Western Pennsylvania. In addition, the diocese has oversight of several Anglican parishes that are not located within its geographical boundaries. The diocese has one or more parishes in the US states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. Illinois and California are home to over 10 parishes each. The diocese also has a parish in Mexico.
The ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) clergy who are open about their sexuality or gender identity; are sexually active if lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or are in committed same-sex relationships is a debated practice within some contemporary Christian denominations.
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.
A personal ordinariate for former Anglicans, shortened as personal ordinariate or Anglican ordinariate, is a canonical structure within the Catholic Church established in order to enable "groups of Anglicans" to join the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their liturgical and spiritual patrimony.
Terrence Owen Buckle was a Canadian Anglican bishop. He was Archbishop of Yukon from 1995 to 2010 and Metropolitan of British Columbia and Yukon from 2005 until 2010, in the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is a personal ordinariate in the Latin Church of the Catholic Church for priests and laypeople from an Anglican background, that enables them to retain elements of their Anglican patrimony after entering the Catholic Church. Its territory extends over the United States and Canada. The personal ordinariate is immediately exempt to the Holy See. Former Methodists and former members of communions of "Anglican heritage" such as the United Church of Canada are also included. The liturgy of the ordinariates, known as the Anglican Use, is a form of the Roman Rite with the introduction of traditional Anglican elements.
Philip John North is a bishop in the Church of England. Since February 2015, he has been Bishop of Burnley, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Blackburn. He was previously team rector of the parish of Old St Pancras.
Steven A. Breedlove is an American prelate of the Anglican Church in North America. He was elected as the first Presider Bishop of PEARUSA, a missionary district that was formerly part of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, in 2012. In 2016, Breedlove became the first diocesan bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Christ Our Hope.
The Anglican Communion sexual abuse cases are a series of allegations, investigations, trials, and convictions of child sexual abuse crimes committed by clergy, nuns, and lay members of the Anglican Communion.
