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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 Church of Ireland is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second-largest Christian church on the island after the Roman Catholic Church. Like other Anglican churches, it has retained elements of pre-Reformation practice, notably its episcopal polity, while rejecting the primacy of the pope.
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."
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.
Jeffrey Philip Hywel John is a Church of England priest, who served as the Dean of St Albans from 2004 until 2021. He made headlines in 2003 when he was the first person to have openly been in a same-sex relationship to be nominated as a Church of England bishop. Owing to the consequent controversy he stepped down. In the years since, he has reportedly been considered for at least seven diocesan bishoprics across England, Wales and the Isle of Man.
The blessing or wedding of same-sex marriages and same-sex unions is an issue about which leaders of Christian churches are in ongoing disagreement. Traditionally, Christianity teaches that homosexual acts are sinful and that holy matrimony can only exist between two persons of different sexes. These disagreements are primarily centred on the interpretation of various scripture passages related to homosexuality, sacred tradition, and in some churches on varying understandings of homosexuality in terms of psychology, genetics and other scientific data. While numerous church bodies have widely varying practices and teachings, individual Christians of every major tradition are involved in practical (orthopraxy) discussions about how to respond to the issue.
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. In South Africa, there are between 3 and 4 million Anglicans out of an estimated population of 45 million.
Michael Charles Scott-Joynt was an English bishop and a Prelate of the Order of the Garter. He was appointed Bishop of Winchester, one of the five senior bishoprics in the Church of England, in 1995. He had previously served as Bishop of Stafford in the Diocese of Lichfield from 1987 and before that as a canon residentiary at St Albans Cathedral. On 10 October 2010, it was announced that Scott-Joynt intended to retire, which he did in May 2011.
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 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.
Justin Portal Welby is a British Anglican bishop who, since 2013, has been the 105th archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England. Welby was previously the vicar of Southam in Warwickshire, and later served as Dean of Liverpool and Bishop of Durham. As Archbishop of Canterbury he is the Primate of All England and the symbolic head primus inter pares of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Alan Thomas Lawrence Wilson was a British Anglican bishop. He served as the area Bishop of Buckingham in the Diocese of Oxford from October 2003 until his death in February 2024.
Paul Gavin Williams is a Church of England bishop. Since May 2015, he has been the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham; from 2009 to 2015, he was the Bishop of Kensington, an area bishop in the Diocese of London.
The ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) clergy who are open about their sexuality or gender identity; are sexually active if lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or are in committed same-sex relationships is a debated practice within some contemporary Christian denominations.
Martin Clive Warner is an Anglican bishop in England. He is currently the Bishop of Chichester.
Gavin Andrew Collins is a British Anglican bishop. He has been Bishop of Dorchester, an area bishop in the Diocese of Oxford, since 14 April 2021. From 2011 to 2021, he had been Archdeacon of The Meon in the Diocese of Portsmouth in Hampshire.
Rachel Treweek is an English Anglican bishop who sits in the House of Lords as a Lord Spiritual.
Karen Marisa Gorham, is a British Church of England bishop. Since February 2016, she has been the Bishop of Sherborne, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Salisbury; and she was Acting Bishop of Salisbury from 2021 to 2022. From 2007 to 2016, she was the Archdeacon of Buckingham in the Diocese of Oxford.
Elizabeth Jane Holden Lane is a British Anglican bishop and Lord Spiritual. Since February 2019, she has served as Bishop of Derby in the Church of England, the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Derby. From January 2015 to 2019, she was the Bishop of Stockport, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Chester. She was the first woman to be appointed as a bishop by the Church of England, after its general synod voted in July 2014 to allow women to become bishops. Her consecration took place on 26 January 2015 at York Minster.
Gulnar Eleanor "Guli" Francis-Dehqani is an Iranian-born British Anglican bishop who has been Bishop of Chelmsford since 2021. She served as the first Bishop of Loughborough, the suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Leicester from 2017 to 2021.
References
- ↑ Davies, Madeleine (31 October 2018). "Oxford bishops offer interim LGBT guidance and support". Church Times .
- ↑ "'Churches are still the heartbeat of our community': Vicar set to retire after 18 years". Bucks Free Press . 12 March 2021.
- ↑ Bingham, John (18 September 2016). "Church liberals' anger over 'traditionalist dominated' bishops' gay marriage panel". The Daily Telegraph .
- ↑ Stanford, Peter (19 November 2012). "Women bishops: judgment day, at last". The Daily Telegraph .
- ↑ "Women bishops: Welby urges synod to vote in favour". BBC News . 19 November 2012.
- ↑ Burns, John F. (21 November 2012). "Church of England Rejects Appointing Female Bishops". The New York Times .
- ↑ "Call for new Bishop of Oxford to be a woman". BBC News . 2 November 2014.
- ↑ Duffy, Nick (13 April 2019). "Church of England pressed to end ban on same-sex marriage". PinkNews .
- ↑ Gledhill, Ruth (12 June 2014). "Senior CofE priest: Why I am pro assisted dying". Christian Today .
- ↑ Macintyre, James (4 January 2018). "Senior Anglican priest slams opposition to assisted dying as 'pure fatalism and superstition'". Christian Today .
- ↑ Bingham, John (12 July 2014). "Church of England calls for review on assisted dying". The Daily Telegraph .
... Canon Rosie Harper, one of the few Church of England clergy openly to support assisted dying ...
- ↑ Sherwood, Harriet (21 May 2020). "Synod member attacks Church of England's 'self-obsession' in pandemic". The Guardian .
- ↑ "Israel-Gaza: Bucks faith leaders unite against violence". BBC News . 26 October 2023.