The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Formally founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571) and The Books of Homilies. 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.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος epískopos meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Anglican churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages. Many Methodist denominations have a form of episcopal polity known as connexionalism.
Full communion is a communion or relationship of full agreement among different Christian denominations or Christian individuals that share certain essential principles of Christian theology. Views vary among denominations on exactly what constitutes full communion, but typically when two or more denominations are in full communion it enables services and celebrations, such as the Eucharist, to be shared among congregants or clergy of any of them with the full approval of each.
The Free Church of England (FCE) is an Episcopal Church based in England. The church was founded when a number of congregations separated from the established Church of England in the middle of the 19th century.
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 Diocese of Sydney is a diocese in Sydney, within the Province of New South Wales of the Anglican Church of Australia. The majority of the diocese is evangelical and low church in tradition.
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 Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church is a Christian denomination in Portugal. The denomination is a member church of the Anglican Communion.
The Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH-SA), known until 2013 as the Church of England in South Africa (CESA), is a Christian denomination in South Africa. It was constituted in 1938 as a federation of churches. It appointed its first bishop in 1955. It is an Anglican church and it relates closely to the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, to which it is similar in that it sees itself as a bastion of the Reformation and particularly of reformed doctrine.
The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) is an Anglican Church. It was founded in 1873 in New York City by George David Cummins, a former bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC), officially the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (ICCEC), is a Christian denomination established in 1992. The ICCEC is a part of the Convergence Movement. Within North America, most of the Charismatic Episcopal Church's congregations and missions are located within the Northern, Southeastern, Midwest, and Western United States; it also has a presence in Texas, and in Western Canada.
The Convergence Movement, also known as the Ancient-Future Faith, whose foundation is primarily attributed to Robert E. Webber in 1985, is an ecumenical movement. Developed as an effort among evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal, and liturgical Christians and denominations blending their forms of worship, the movement has been defined for its predominant use of the Anglican tradition's Book of Common Prayer; use from additional liturgical sources common to Lutheranism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism have also been employed.
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 Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC) is a Christian convergence communion established in 1995 within the United States of America. With a large international presence in five provinces and seven U.S. dioceses, most of its churches and missions are spread throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-West regions, and South Carolina; Florida and California; and India. The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches is currently led by Bishop Quintin Moore as presiding bishop of the CEEC.
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 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.
St. Vincent's Cathedral is an Anglican church in Bedford, Texas. It is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. The cathedral played a major part in the Anglican realignment by hosting the inaugural assembly in 2009 where the Anglican Church in North America was constituted.
The Continuing Evangelical Episcopal Communion is a Christian denomination in the Convergence Movement, established in 2019. Separating from the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, the Continuing Evangelical Episcopal Communion is led by Bishop Primus John Sathiyakumar of the Province of India.
Darel Chase is an African-American religious leader, associated with several Christian denominations in the Anglican realignment and Convergence Movement.
