Drexel Gomez | |
---|---|
Archbishop Emeritus of the Church in the Province of the West Indies & Bishop of Nassau & The Bahamas, & The Turks & Caicos Islands, Primate Emeritus of the West Indies | |
Church | Church in the Province of the West Indies |
See | Nassau |
In office | 1997–2009 |
Previous post(s) | Bishop of Barbados (1992-1997) |
Orders | |
Ordination | 1959 |
Consecration | 1972 |
Personal details | |
Born | |
Denomination | Anglicanism |
Drexel Wellington Gomez (born 24 January 1937) is a Bahamian Anglican bishop.
Gomez was born on the Berry Islands in the Bahamas. He graduated from St Chad's College, Durham University, in 1959. He was enthroned and consecrated as Lord Bishop of Barbados in the Cathedral Church of St. Michael on 25 June 1972 [1] and then in 1997 was elected the Bishop of the Diocese of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Gomez was elected Archbishop and Primate of the Province of the West Indies in 1996. His full title became His Grace the Most Reverend Drexel Wellington Gomez, Lord Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of the West Indies & Bishop of the Diocese Of Nassau & The Bahamas (Including the Turks & Caicos Islands).
Along with Archbishop Peter Akinola, Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Gomez was a leading opponent of the ordination of non-celibate gay people as Anglican clergy, an issue that escalated into a crisis for the Anglican Communion following the consecration of an openly non-celibate gay priest, Gene Robinson, as the Bishop of New Hampshire in the United States in 2003.
In October 2003, Gomez was appointed to the Lambeth Commission on Communion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The commission produced the Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion (also known as The Windsor Report and the Eames Report), published in October 2004.
In August 2007, Gomez was the main preacher at a service at which several Anglican archbishops consecrated two American priests as bishops despite the opposition of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Gomez accused the American church of "aggressive revisionist theology" and teaching lies. [2]
Gomez retired as bishop and archbishop in 2009.
The Church of Nigeria is the Anglican church in Nigeria. It is the second-largest province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptised membership, after the Church of England. In 2016 it stated that its membership was “over 18 million", out of a total Nigerian population of 190 million. It is "effectively the largest province in the Communion." As measured by active membership, the Church of Nigeria has nearly 2 million active baptised members. According to a study published by Cambridge University Press in the Journal of Anglican Studies, there are between 4.94 and 11.74 million Anglicans in Nigeria. The Church of Nigeria is the largest Anglican province on the continent of Africa, accounting for 41.7% of Anglicans in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is "probably the first [largest within the Anglican Communion] in terms of active members."
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." In 2017, clergy within the Church of England indicated their inclination towards supporting same-sex marriage by dismissing a bishops' report that explicitly asserted the exclusivity of church weddings to unions between a man and a woman. At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition. In 2023, the Church of England announced that it would authorise "prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and for God's blessing for same-sex couples."
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.
The majority of the population of the Turks and Caicos Islands are Christian. They include Protestant 72.8%, Baptists 35.8%, Church of God 11.7%, Roman Catholics 11.4%, Anglicans 10%, Methodists 9.3%, Seventh-Day Adventists 6%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.8%, and Other 14%
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.
The Anglican Church of Mexico, originally known as Church of Jesus is the Anglican province in Mexico and includes five dioceses. Although Mexican in origin and not the result of any foreign missionary effort, the Church uses the colors representing Mexico as well as those of the United States-based Episcopal Church in its heraldic insignia or shield, recognizing a historical connection with that US church which began with obtaining the apostolic succession.
The Church of Uganda (C/U) is a member province of the Anglican Communion. Currently there are 37 dioceses which make up the Church of Uganda, each headed by a bishop.
The Anglican Consultative Council (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.
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 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 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 Church in the Province of the West Indies is one of 40 member provinces in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church comprises eight dioceses spread out over much of the West Indies area. The present position of Archbishop and Primate of the West Indies is held by the current bishop of Jamaica, Howard Gregory. Gregory was elected as the thirteenth Archbishop of the Province by clergy and laity attending the 40th Synod of the CPWI at the Cascadia Hotel, in Port of Spain, Trinidad in May 2019, succeeding John Holder who retired in 2018. Drexel Gomez was the primate before Bishop Holder until 2009. The church is also part of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches.
The Archbishop of the West Indies is the Anglican primate of the Province of the West Indies, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is a communion of conservative Anglican churches that formed in 2008 in response to ongoing theological disputes in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Conservative Anglicans met in 2008 at the Global Anglican Future Conference, creating the Jerusalem Declaration and establishing the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), which was rebranded as GAFCON in 2017.
Sir George Cuthbert Manning Woodroffe KBE was an Anglican Archbishop of the Province of the West Indies. He was a long serving Anglican Bishop of the Windward Islands from 1969 until 1986. For the last six years of that period, he served as Archbishop, Primate of the Anglican Church, Province of the West Indies.
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