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 Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the 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 since the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788, the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
Peter Frederick Carnley is a retired Australian Anglican bishop and author. He was the Archbishop of Perth from 1981 to 2005 and Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia from 2000 until May 2005. He ordained the first women priests in Australia. In the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours list, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia. He is married to Ann Carnley. He also founded the school Peter Carnley Anglican Community School.
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 Anglican Diocese of Armidale is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia located in the state of New South Wales. As the Diocese of Grafton and Armidale, it was created by letters patent in 1863. When the Anglican Diocese of Grafton was split off in 1914, the remaining portion was renamed Armidale, retaining its legal continuity and its incumbent bishop.
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.
Keith Rayner is a retired Australian Anglican bishop and a former Anglican Primate of Australia. He served as Archbishop of Melbourne from 1990 to 1999, Archbishop of Adelaide from 1975 to 1990 and Bishop of Wangaratta from 1969 to 1975.
Kay Maree Goldsworthy is an Australian bishop of the Anglican Church of Australia. She is the current archbishop of Perth in the Province of Western Australia. Upon her installation as archbishop, on 10 February 2018, she became the first female archbishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. Previously, she served as diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Gippsland in the south-eastern Australian state of Victoria.
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.
John Frank Ford is a retired British Anglican bishop. From 2013 to 2019 he was the Bishop of The Murray in the Anglican Church of Australia. From 2005 to 2013, he was the Bishop of Plymouth, a suffragan see in the Diocese of Exeter, England.
Anthony William Robinson is a British Anglican bishop. Since 2015, he has been the area Bishop of Wakefield in the Diocese of Leeds. From 2002 to 2015, he served as Bishop of Pontefract in the Diocese of Wakefield.
Daniel Willis is an Australian clergyman, having spent most of his adult life in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. In 2012 Willis formed Leading Global Impact, an organisation dedicated to leadership development amongst top leaders who are thinking nationally or internationally. He was appointed CEO of Bible Society NSW and lead the organisation through significant change until July 2010. He was also appointed to the position of International Deputy Director for the South Pacific Region (Oceania) of the Lausanne Movement in 2004. Since moving to Sydney Sydney in 1972 he has had an extensive career both in business and ministry.
The ordination of women in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney is restricted to the diaconate. The diocese rejects the ordination of women as priests and bishops.
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.
The Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) was the name used by organisations in England and Australia that campaigned for the ordination of women as deacons, priests and bishops in the Anglican Communion.
Royston Clifford Wright was the Anglican Bishop of Monmouth from 1986 to 1991.
Reginald John Piper was an assistant bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney who served as the Bishop of Wollongong from 1993 to 2007.
Albert Arthur Chambers was the seventh bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield, serving from 1962 to 1972. He then retired in part because he opposed revising the Book of Common Prayer and ordaining women as priests, which would be expressly authorized by the General Convention in 1976.
Margaret Rodgers AM was a prominent deaconess and lay-person in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. Rodgers was Principal of Deaconess House, (1976–85), Research Officer for the Anglican General Synod (1985–93), chief executive officer of the Anglican Media Council (1994–2003), President of the New South Wales Council of Churches and Lay Canon of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney.
Dianne Dialecti "Di" Nicolios is a retired Australian Anglican priest. She was the first woman appointed Archdeacon for Women's Ministries in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. She held that position from January 1994 to May 2002. She was also one of the first group of 14 women to be ordained a deacon in 1989 in the Sydney diocese.
