DIVISIONS among Anglicans, while not new, “require urgent attention and repair”, the secretary-general of the Anglican Consultative Council, the Rt Revd Anthony Poggo, has said.
He was responding to the chairman of Gafcon’s Primates Council, the Archbishop of Rwanda, Dr Laurent Mbanda, who declared in a statement on Thursday that the group was “now the Global Anglican Communion”.
Dr Mbanda wrote that the group was unable to “advocate a revisionist agenda”, and would therefore “reject the so-called Instruments of Communion” — that is, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates’ Meeting.
It came two weeks after Dr Mbanda received with “sorrow” news of the nomination of the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, given both her gender and her position on the provision of stand-alone services of prayers and blessings for same-sex couples.
Bishop Poggo, in a pastoral letter of “encouragement” to the Communion, published on Friday, wrote: “Every Anglican, and indeed every Christian, should seriously seek to discern a future of faithfulness according to God’s own calling and enabling of our confession and obedience.”
He drew on St John’s Gospel, in which “Jesus calls his disciples to unity in the truth and identifies himself as the means and the end of both. Divisions among Anglicans, and many other divisions in the Body of Christ, are sadly well known. . . These divisions require urgent attention and repair, by means of every instrument available to us.”
Bishop Poggo acknowledged that the Church was “ever reforming, which means that no institution, meeting, network or association of Christians is static”. He referred to the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals for structural reform of the Anglican Communion (News, 6 December 2024), which had been put forward by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) last year.
The body, which has an advisory position in the Communion, and is formed of 18 members, proposed that the agreed description of the Communion be revised so that constituent Churches had a “historic connection” with the see of Canterbury instead of being “in communion” with it; that a rotating presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) be introduced; and that the Primates’ Standing Committee be given an “enhanced role” in convening the Primates’ Meetings and the Lambeth Conference.
The report is due to be debated at the next meeting of the ACC in 2026, to be hosted in Northern Ireland. If introduced, the proposals would reduce the Archbishop of Canterbury’s procedural influence in the Communion.
Bishop Poggo wrote: “I share the hope of the commission that all Anglicans, and the whole Church of God, may still seek and find agreement in the Faith. I also agree that we must summon up patience and love when members of the Body need to walk at a distance from one another in order better to seek and serve the truth and unity of our shared vocation (1 Cor 11:19).
“Theological uniformity cannot be demanded or expected without the hard work of discernment over time. Doctrinal, geographical or regional groupings of churches (for example GSFA, CCEA, GAFCON, and others) can help us reform and renew our life together.”
He continued: “At every level of the Church (local, regional, and global), we cannot ‘neglect to meet together’, as it says in Hebrews 10:25, whenever possible.” As all Anglican Churches were ordered by canon law, constitutions, and synodical structures, “All Anglican churches are likewise invited to shape the Instruments of Communion, which rightly evolve over time.”
Bishop Poggo concluded by urging these Churches “to send their representatives to the 19th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council next year in Belfast, so everyone can participate in the decision-making. Those who are present are the ones who shape the outcomes and resolutions of meetings.”
Member Churches of the Anglican Communion have also issued responses to the Gafcon statement.
The Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd John McDowell, and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Michael Jackson, issued a joint statement on Monday. In it, they “clarified” that “From the beginning, the Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the convening of the Lambeth Conference were expressions of Anglican unity and identity.”
While not a “perfect organisation”, this was, they said, “the Anglican Communion to which the Church of Ireland belongs. . . the Church of Ireland plays a full part in the Commissions, Committees and Networks of the Anglican Communion and in this way lives out this particular aspect of our discipleship of Jesus Christ.”
The statement continued: “There are many organisations and movements within the Anglican Communion who wish to reform aspects of the Communion and how it works. The Communion has always welcomed and accommodated debate and diversity of this nature. However, the Church of Ireland recognises no body other than the one described in the preceding paragraphs as the Anglican Communion.”
The Primate of Canada, the Most Revd Shane Parker, also reaffirmed the four Instruments of Communion of which the Anglican Church of Canada was a part, and “the historic Anglican appeal to Scripture, Reason, and Tradition”.
“The practical and theological question before us is this: Can communion with the Risen Christ contain conflict, so that conflict and disagreement lose their power to divide? We believe the answer to this question is a resounding ‘YES’ because this has been borne out many times in Anglican experience and intuition from the Reformation to the present time.”
He concluded that his Church looked forward to participating in the next Primates’ Meeting, ACC, and Lambeth Conference. “We rejoice in the appointment of Bishop Sarah Mullally as the next Archbishop of Canterbury and will warmly welcome her to Canada after she is installed in 2026.”
