From the House of Bishops – October 2025
Greetings to our beloved in Christ.
The House of Bishops is aware of various concerns expressed by members across the Province in the wake of recent developments within the Anglican Communion. The first has to do with the appointment of Dame Sarah Mullaly, Bishop of London, to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The second relates to a statement from the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), issued on October 16, a fellowship which was officially formed in 2008, and made up of some Dioceses and Provinces of the Anglican Communion denouncing the recent appointment of Sarah Mullaly as the first female Archbishop of the Church of England and spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, and has decided to no longer recognize the See of Canterbury as Primus inter Paris, that is, the position which symbolizes unity within the global Anglican Communion, and advanced the claim that it now represents the Global Anglican Communion that will be renewed on biblical orthodoxy and the Bible as the foundation of the Anglican Communion.
While the appointment of a female as the Archbishop of Canterbury marks a historical departure from the tradition that has prevailed over centuries, it is not unlike the historic break with tradition with the ordination of women to the diaconate and the priesthood. Today, after much biblical and theological reflection, it is the consensus across most of the Communion that women are called to the office of Bishop, and is the case with the provisions of the Canons of our Province which allow for women to be elected to the office of Bishop. It is to be noted that there are women who have already been elected as an Archbishop in various nations and provinces across the Communion.
There is however a history to the emergence of GAFCON and the position which it has now taken in relation to the Communion. At the Lambeth Conference of Bishops held in 1998, the issue of human sexuality and same-sex relationships was of major concern, conflict and the threat to division. The Conference in response passed a resolution known as Lambeth 1:10 and which called upon the leadership of churches across the Communion to pursue and promote a path of listening and dialogue in order to arrive at a position to which they could give common consent. However, before the next Lambeth Conference could convene in 2008, the Episcopal Church took preemptive action and ordained the Rev. Gene Robinson, who was involved in a same sex union as a Bishop. This was followed soon afterward by the Canadian Church’s authorization of the blessing of same-sex unions. In anticipation of the debate at Lambeth Conference 2008, a number of bishops from Africa and other parts of the world, came together to form GAFCON and to agree on a common approach to the issues. The anticipated debates did not take place as the Conference was designed in a way that would facilitate participants listening to each other from across nationalities, cultures and religious orientation and give expression to their views and not be dominated by those who could control the microphone. In the absence of a position of consensus, several parts of the Communion, including the Church of England proceeded to enact positions which others found objectionable, but which were in fact expressive of the civil law of the nation.
For GAFCON, there were several things that were objectionable in the development of the Anglican Communion. One is the long-standing issue of the ordination of practicing homosexuals, which goes back to Gene Robinson in the United States. Second, and more recently, the election and enthronement of a practicing homosexual as Archbishop of Wales in the United Kingdom. The third is the issue of the ordination of women. But the issue that broke the camel’s back for them is the appointment of Sara Mullaly as the Archbishop of Canterbury, given her support for the ordination of persons of the same gender, and marriage of persons of the same gender. GAFCON opposes these developments and sees them as against orthodox teachings, the teachings of scripture, a point noted in their statement of October 16, 2025, and an affront to Anglicans worldwide who do not share these sentiments.
The Statement from GAFCON claims the allegiance of approximately 18 of the 45 Provinces of the Anglican Communion, while naming itself the Global Anglican Communion. While this statement represents the obvious sentiments of a number of Archbishops and Bishops, given the nature and structure of Anglican polity, with its Canons and Synodical government, it is rather doubtful that any such drastic change can be made in the wake of recent developments within the Communion and a release by The Most Revd Dr Laurent Mbanda, Chairman, Gafcon Primates’ Council and Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda.
The Anglican Communion is held together in unity by four Instruments of Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. Having proposed the rejection of all of these Instruments, what then is the basis for authority and legitimacy in claiming to have become the Global Anglican Communion? Indeed, while this Statement purports to be coming from the Primate’s Council of Gafcon, it is to be noted that one of the Instruments of Communion which they have rejected is the Primates Meeting and which does not have authoritative and legislative authority, as it does not include bishops, priests, deacons, and laity, and is therefore not democratic in its composition.
In recent years there has been a process of discernment pursued at various levels of the Communion regarding how the Communion may be restructured in a way that allows for the symbolic leadership of the Communion by someone other than the Archbishop of Canterbury being designated as the primus inter paris. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, played a seminal role in leading this discussion. Accordingly, during his incumbency, a Commission of the Anglican Communion, the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO), established to advise the Communion on matters of faith, order and ecumenical affairs, was asked to consider and provide a report on how this issue may be addressed. In fulfillment of this assignment, the Commission has written a paper entitled “The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals: Renewing the Instruments of the Anglican Communion.” The Report is slated for discussion at the upcoming Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), at its meeting in Ireland in June 2026. Beyond a mere restructuring of the institutional character of the Communion, the paper seeks to promote a conciliar spirit that can embrace the diverse perspectives within the Communion as a gesture towards reconciliation for the sake of witnessing to the unity for which Jesus prayed (John 17:21).
Throughout the evolution of the Anglican Communion since the 19th century it was evident that holding together these independent churches was always going to be a challenge. The Anglican Communion today is made up of over 80 million members in 165 countries. With tensions high in the Communion after the 1998 Lambeth Conference, especially in relation to the ordination of women, human sexuality and same-gender relationships, steps were taken by the Anglican Communion, with significant leadership by the former, and now recently deceased Primate of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez, to establish an Anglican Covenant, having been preceded by the Winsor Report which highlighted the difficulty of asking independent national and local churches, governed by their own laws, and related to their local context and cultures to be accountable to a central authority, something that is not characteristic of Anglicanism. The Covenant was proposed as one way in which to arrive at a common position which could strengthen the level of accountability to each other. The Covenant was finally rejected by various parts of the Communion, primarily because of the section which sought to address Accountability and Discipline.
Regrettably, the Communion is facing another major challenge and the threat of a significant division and has taken this into national and international public space. We should avoid attempts to make light of the positions taken by the different parties to this threat as these position are informed by biblical and theological reflection, and the conscience of each. Differences, however, should not be the basis for division within the Church. Our Lord made clear that there would be divisions, and so he prayed for his disciples and their later converts that “they all may be one”. The oneness or unity for which Jesus prayed is one element which has brought much dissension and pain to the life of the Church. The unity for which Jesus prayed in his Farewell discourse does not reside in people just loving each other and doing and saying nice things to each other. So, verses 21-23 read as follows:
21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
The unity is not the achievement or projection of our highest ideals but is derived from the nature of the Godhead. The unity of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is one in which each is a distinct Person but sharing in a common unity of the Godhead. This points to a unity which is wholesome and in contrast to those expressions of unity or oneness that are based on conformity to the wishes of others and suppression of selfhood.
To view the current situation in the Communion as a domestic matter within the membership is indeed a compromise of the Mission of the Church. Indeed, in two verses in John 17 (Jesus’ Farewell Discourse) Jesus prays that there will be unity among the body of disciples and expressed his desire and intention in this way – “so that the world may believe that thou has sent me” (verse 21&22). So, even the very qualities of unity and oneness which we so relish are not for us to merely relish and celebrate. They are not qualities of the life of the community which merely keep us connected to each other in the Church, but a vital part of our witness and testimony to the world that this oneness and unity are but gifts of the gracious God. The unity is the testimony about God at work in the life of persons. And if as a Communion we cannot journey together in spite of differences, then we are in no position to say to the world, its leaders and peoples, that there must be unity and reconciliation where differences exist, and which constitute the very premise on which the democratic system of governance rests, and under which many nations are governed.
Perhaps at this time we need to assert and hold up before the Communion a statement from the Covenant which our late Archbishop Drexel Gomez was instrumental in formulating, but which was placed in file 13, namely Section Three: Our Unity and Common Life:
Each Church, with its bishops in synod, orders and regulates its own affairs and its local responsibility for mission through its own system of government and law and is therefore described as living “in communion with autonomy and accountability”[1]. Trusting in the Holy Spirit, who calls and enables us to dwell in a shared life of common worship and prayer for one another, in mutual affection, commitment and service, we seek to affirm our common life through those Instruments of Communion by which our Churches are enabled to be conformed together to the mind of Christ. Churches of the Anglican Communion are bound together “not by a central legislative and executive authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference”[2] and of the other instruments of Communion.
[1] A Letter from Alexandria, the Primates, March 2009
[2] Lambeth Conference 1930
