Related Research Articles
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. 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 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. As of 2016 it gives its membership as "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."
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 Church of the Province of West Africa is a province of the Anglican Communion, covering 17 dioceses in eight countries of West Africa, specifically in Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Ghana is the country with most dioceses, now numbering 11.
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 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.
The Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) is a province of the Anglican Communion, and it is composed by 41 dioceses. The current Primate and Archbishop of Kenya is Jackson Ole Sapit. The Anglican Church of Kenya claims 5 million total members. According to a study published in the Journal of Anglican Studies and by Cambridge University Press, the ACK claims 5 million adherents, with no official definition of membership, with nearly 2 million officially affiliated members, and 310,000 active baptised members. The church became part of the Province of East Africa in 1960, but Kenya and Tanzania were divided into separate provinces in 1970.
The Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) is a province of the Anglican Communion based in Dodoma. It consists of 28 dioceses headed by their respective bishops. It seceded from the Province of East Africa in 1970, which it shared with Kenya. The current primate and archbishop is Maimbo Mndolwa, enthroned on 20 May 2018.
The Anglican Diocese of Accra is a diocese of the Church of the Province of West Africa, a member church of the Anglican Communion. It was founded in 1909 by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The cathedral of the diocese is Holy Trinity Cathedral in Accra, Ghana.
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 974 congregations and 122,450 members in 2021. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
Thabo Cecil Makgoba KStJ is the South African Anglican archbishop of Cape Town. He had served before as bishop of Grahamstown.
The Diocese of Gambia and Guinea was founded in 1935 and had been renamed the Diocese of Gambia and The Rio Pongas by 1940. Today it is simply styled the Diocese of Gambia, is one of 17 dioceses in the Church of the Province of West Africa, and comprises The Gambia, Senegal, and the Cape Verde Islands. In 1985, French-speaking Guinea was split off from it to form the Anglican Diocese of Guinea.
Solomon Tilewa Ethelbert Willie Johnson was a Gambian Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Gambia and the Rio Pongas and archbishop of the Church of the Province of West Africa. He was married and had a son and two daughters.
Daniel Yinkah Sarfo is a Ghanaian Anglican bishop. He has been a metropolitan archbishop since September 2012, and was Archbishop Primate of the Church of the Province of West Africa (CPWA), since 13 March 2014 until 3 March 2019.
Daniel Sylvanus Mensah Torto is a Ghanaian Anglican bishop. He has been the Anglican Bishop of Accra, in the Church of the Province of West Africa, since 2012.
Maimbo William Mndolwa is a Tanzanian Anglican bishop. He is the Bishop of the Diocese of Tanga and was elected Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania on 15 February 2018, with his enthronement taking place on 20 May 2018. He is married to Frida.
Alexander Nii Oto Dodoo, is a Ghanaian pharmacist and academic. He is a clinical pharmacologist and a professor at the Centre for Tropical Clinical Pharmacology, University of Ghana Medical School. He is also the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Advocacy and Training in Pharmacovigilance. He has been serving as the Director-General of Ghana Standards Authority since 2017.
Jonathan Bau-Bau Bonaparte Hart is a Liberian Episcopalian bishop. He has been Archbishop and Primate of the Church of the Province of West Africa since 3 March 2019.
Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith is a Ghanaian Anglican Bishop. He is the current Bishop of Asante Mampong and was elected Archbishop of the Church of the Province of West Africa in June 2022, in succession to Archbishop Jonathan Hart of Liberia.
