The Church of England is the established Christian church in England. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its adherents are called Anglicans.
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.
The Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn is one of the 23 dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia. The diocese has 60 parishes covering most of south-east New South Wales, the eastern Riverina and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It stretches from Marulan in the north, from Batemans Bay to Eden on the south coast across to Holbrook in the south-west, north to Wagga Wagga, Temora, Young and Goulburn.
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 Diocese of Melbourne is the metropolitan diocese of the Province of Victoria in the Anglican Church of Australia. The diocese was founded from the Diocese of Australia by letters patent of 25 June 1847 and includes the cities of Melbourne and Geelong and also some more rural areas. The cathedral church is St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne. The current Archbishop of Melbourne since 2006 is Philip Freier, who was translated from the Anglican Diocese of The Northern Territory, and who was the Anglican Primate of Australia from 2014 to 2020.
The Anglican Diocese of North West Australia is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, founded in 1910. It is situated in the northern part of the state of Western Australia. As part of the Province of Western Australia, it covers those parts of the state north of Perth including Geraldton, Karratha and Broome and is geographically the largest Anglican diocese in Australia and the largest land-based diocese in the world. The diocese has 18 parishes and three Mission to Seafarers’ ministries; the cathedral church of the diocese is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Geraldton.
The Anglican Diocese of Tasmania includes the entire Tasmanian state of Australia and is an extraprovincial diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia.
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.
Peter Robert Brain is a retired bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. He was Bishop of Armidale from 2000 until April 2012.
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 977 congregations and 124,999 members in 2022. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
Peter Chiswell was a bishop of the Anglican Church of Australia. He was the Bishop of Armidale, in northern New South Wales, from 1976 to 1999.
Raymond George Smith is a retired Australian Anglican bishop. He served as an assistant bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, as the first Bishop of South Western Sydney from 1 November 1993 to 31 December 2001.
Kevin Bond Allen is an American Anglican bishop. Since 2011, he has served as the first bishop of the Diocese of Cascadia in the Anglican Church in North America. Earlier in his career, as an Episcopal priest, he was a key figure in the Anglican realignment in the Pacific Northwest.
Richard Alexander Lewers is an Australian bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia, who served as the Bishop of Armidale from 29 May 2012 to 30 January 2021.
Clarence Edgar Bester is a South African-born Australian bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. He has served as the 11th Bishop of Wangaratta since February 2020.
Peter John Grice is an Australian Anglican bishop and former lawyer who has served as the 13th Bishop of Rockhampton since 27 February 2021. He previously served as Dean of Geraldton in the Diocese of North West Australia between 2015 and 2020.
Darrell Maurice Parker is an Australian Anglican bishop who has served as Bishop of North West Australia since 15 February 2023.
Gerard Joseph Hanna is the bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wagga Wagga. He was previously a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Armidale. He was consecrated by Archbishop Francis Carroll at Joyes Hall, Wagga Wagga, on 15 May 2002.
