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). 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.
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. Welby is the 105th person to hold the position, as part of a line of succession going back to the "Apostle to the English", Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent to the island by the church in Rome and arrived in 597. Welby succeeded Rowan Williams.
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.
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 Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion.
The Lords Spiritual are the bishops of the Church of England who sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. Up to 26 of the 42 diocesan bishops and archbishops of the Church of England serve as Lords Spiritual. The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, and the Anglican churches in Wales and in Northern Ireland, which are no longer established churches, are not represented. The Lords Spiritual are distinct from the Lords Temporal, their secular counterparts who also sit in the House of Lords.
The history of the Anglican Communion may be attributed mainly to the worldwide spread of British culture associated with the British Empire. Among other things the Church of England spread around the world and, gradually developing autonomy in each region of the world, became the communion as it exists today.
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.
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.
Christopher John Hill, is a retired British Anglican bishop. From 1996 to 2004, he was the Bishop of Stafford, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Lichfield. From 2004 to 2013, he was the Bishop of Guildford, the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Guildford. In addition, he served as the Clerk of the Closet in the Ecclesiastical Household of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom from 2005 to 2014.
The Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church, also translated as Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain, or IERE is the church of the Anglican Communion in Spain. It was founded in 1880 and since 1980 has been an extra-provincial church under the metropolitan authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Its cathedral is the Anglican Cathedral of the Redeemer in Madrid.
The Malabar Independent Syrian Church (MISC), also known as the Thozhiyur Church, is a Christian church centred in Kerala, India. It is one of the churches of the Saint Thomas Christian community, which traces its origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.
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.
Stephen George Platten, is a retired Anglican prelate, the last to serve as diocesan Bishop of Wakefield in the Church of England.
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.
Gregory Kenneth Cameron is a Welsh Anglican bishop. He is Bishop of the Diocese of St Asaph in Wales, having been elected on 5 January 2009 and confirmed as bishop on 16 March 2009.
The Bishop of Berwick is an episcopal title used by the suffragan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Newcastle in the Province of York, England.
Leon Chechemian (1848–1920) was an Armenian Christian cleric. In 1897, he was a founder of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church, and that church's first primus. He is also considered an episcopus vagans.
Joanne Caladine Bailey Wells is a British Anglican bishop, theologian, and academic. Since January 2023, she has served at the Anglican Communion Office in London as "Bishop for Episcopal Ministry". Previously, she was a lecturer in the Old Testament and biblical theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and then associate professor of Bible and Ministry at Duke Divinity School, Duke University, North Carolina; From 2013 until 2016, she had served as Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury; she was then Bishop of Dorking, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Guildford, 2016–2023.
