THE 2024 report Nairobi-Cairo Proposals (NCPs), from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO), would, if implemented, have seismic consequences for the Anglican Communion. Some emphases of the NCPs are welcome: the equality and autonomy of the Churches (“Provinces”) of the Anglican Communion, and the wider sharing of chairing positions. But the Commission’s key proposals are deeply troubling.
The NCPs contain factual errors, both historical and constitutional; and they exhibit an animus against the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury which is uncharitable. The Communion is currently fractured and dysfunctional, but, if the NCPs were accepted, the Communion would not be a “communion” at all, as ecclesial communion has been universally understood: namely, as a eucharistic communion with an interchangeable ordained ministry.
IASCUFO’s mandate
IN 2023, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) requested IASCUFO to look at the “structure and decision-making” of the Communion, “to help address our differences in the Anglican Communion” (ACC-18, Resolution 3(a)) and to consider: “To what extent are the [four] Instruments fit for purpose? To what extent might some (or all) of the Instruments be reconfigured to serve the Communion of today and the future?” (3.3). The Instruments of Communion are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting, and the ACC.
None of the four Instruments, however, can take decisions for the Communion, or for any member Church — none except the ACC, with regard to membership and finance. The Archbishop of Canterbury lacks any power to direct the Anglican Communion or its member Churches. The Archbishop cannot intervene in the affairs of any member Church, unless asked by that Church for advice or other help. Decision-making in the Communion is a pseudo-problem, a rhetorical fiction. The Instruments of Communion work by study, consultation, debate, persuasion, and consensus.
‘Historic connection’
THE core proposal is to demote the see of Canterbury and to promote the Primates instead. One goes down, and the other comes up. The NCPs want to delete “in communion with the See of Canterbury” in the benchmark Lambeth Conference 1930 Resolution 49, and insert in its place “a historic connection with the See of Canterbury”, thus removing the reference to “communion” and to the unity of episcopal sees.
This follows from the claim that baptism, not holy communion, should be a sufficient future basis for the Communion, and that “Communion” in the term “Anglican Communion” should be understood as at least baptismal communion. Baptism is the ground of communion, but it comes to fulfilment in holy communion, and that is how “communion” in the Anglican context has been understood hitherto.
The change would exclude any Church that wished, in the future, to seek membership of the Communion, but lacked a “historic connection” with the see of Canterbury. If this wording had been in place 150 years ago, it would have excluded the Scottish Episcopal Church, which derives from the Scottish Reformation, not from the Church of England, and the Episcopal Church in the United States, which derives its episcopate from the Scottish Episcopal Church. Neither the Scottish Episcopal Church nor the US Episcopal Church has a “historic link” with the see of Canterbury. But the change might open the door to membership of some breakaway “Anglican” Churches.
The NCPs aim to increase the authority of the Primates’ Meeting, and especially of its Standing Committee, through the election of a Primate to serve a six-year term, in place of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The recent “Supplement” proposes instead a Primates’ Council that would embody the primacy. Both the original proposal and the modified version are linked to the further proposal that the Lambeth Conference should move around the globe. The logistical and administrative challenges of these two linked ideas are obvious, not least uncertainty about the large resources needed to mount a Lambeth Conference.
Any form of primacy needs to be recognisable and “findable”. Rome is the locus of the papacy, and Constantinople is the locus of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Anglican primacy is located at Canterbury, and so is recognisable and findable. A floating Primates’ Council, which exercises the functions of primacy but has no home, no base, does not do it.
See of Canterbury
THE report casts the Church of England and the see of Canterbury as the primary causes of disunity in the Anglican Communion. The part played by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Communion has recently become too personalised, claiming to have a “leadership” role. The Archbishop of Canterbury does not have “leadership” in the Communion. Such pretensions have (unintended) echoes of colonialism. Leadership cannot be claimed: it can only be awarded; it is never owned, and can be exercised only where it is invited.
It is already clear that Archbishop Mullally will adopt a different tone and position: as servant, encourager, adviser, and pastor, collaborating with the Anglican episcopate. That stance should answer some concerns of the NCPs and endear the role to the Communion.
Invalid argument
THE statements and actions of the Global Anglican Futures Conference (Gafcon) and the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) are not evaluated in the NCPs. Their validity is taken at face value; they are meekly accepted as the agenda. But there is no biblical, theological, or historical justification for separation on the grounds that one disapproves of certain actions of a Church, even actions deemed to be scandalous. The appeal to the example of the Reformers is invalid.
‘Communion’ devalued
THE NCPs frequently use the term “communion”, but not as it has been understood in the universal Church and in the Communion hitherto — as not only baptismal, but eucharistic, expressed by the mutual participation of Anglican bishops in episcopal ordinations, by the interchangeability of Holy Orders, and by the Lambeth Conference’s symbolically starting with a eucharist presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom all bishops of the Communion are expected to be “in communion”.
The term koinonia (fellowship, communion, sharing) is used by St Paul to describe eucharistic participation (1 Corinthians 10.16-17). The terms communio in the Roman Catholic Church and sobornost in the Orthodox tradition also imply eucharistic communion and episcopal collegiality.
Consequences
THE proposal that baptism should be sufficient for “communion” rests on a confused cross-over from Anglican relations with Churches with which Anglicans are not in ecclesial communion to Churches with which they are in ecclesial communion. The relationship between the Churches of the Anglican Communion would then be no different in kind from the relationship between the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain through the Anglican-Methodist Covenant (2003), or between the Church of England and the EKD (Protestant Churches of Germany) through the Meissen Agreement (1991).
Nor would it differ essentially from the relationship that pertains between the member Churches of the World Council of Churches, which are not required to recognise the ecclesial credentials of other member Churches. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) is premised on the goal of “full organic unity” and “the restoration of complete communion in faith and sacramental life”. ARCIC would be finished, as would the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Orthodox Churches.
Will it work?
I DOUBT whether the changes would result in a willingness by the representatives of Churches in the global South to participate again in the Instruments of Communion with those who hold views, and have performed sacramental actions, that they deplore. The Communion would remain divided and in turmoil.
The reduced part played by the see of Canterbury, the enhanced position of the Primates, and the reductionist nature of “communion” will not overcome the divisions over sexuality and gender. The recent “Abuja Affirmation” of Gafcon (News, 13 March) insists that Gafcon Churches will not participate in the Instruments of Communion. IASCUFO has moved the goalposts to help “its” side to score, but, if the players are not on the field, that tactic will not work.
The Revd Dr Paul Avis is an Honorary Professor in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, and Editor-in-Chief of Ecclesiology.
