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Is the Anglican Communion Heading For A Fall

Is the Anglican Communion Heading For A Fall?
Fr. Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
https://anglicanway.org/is-the-anglican-communion-heading-for-a-fall/

Humpty Dumpty might not seem the most obvious figure with which to open reflection upon the notions of communion and ecclesiology, and still less the See of Canterbury. Nonetheless, whatever obscurities may surround the origins of this great character of children’s literature and folklore, there is one thing upon which the sources are agreed, namely that after he ‘sat on the wall’ and ‘had a great fall’, the lamentable result was that – as the earliest text puts it

Four-score Men and Four-score more, Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.^[1]

The irreversible consequences of his fall were even easier to envisage once he was portrayed as an egg – in the manner of Lewis Carroll’s, Through the Looking- Glass of 1871, since an egg once broken so very obviously cannot be mended.

Is there a parallel fall in store for the world-wide Anglican Communion and will it be similarly irreparable? A seemingly ineluctable process of fragmentation does now seem to be underway and, if this fall from earlier unity is as deep as the current splits portend, it is highly doubtful just when the fulness of Communion could ever be restored. Since even when repair is attempted, the fear must be that the Anglican Communion will end up echoing, at a sadly deeper level, the ironic lines of John Betjeman – about the mere fabric of a church – that,

The Church’s Restoration In eighteen-eighty-three Has left for contemplation Not what there used to be.

A Painful Path to Global Separation, or, Not Quite?

These pages have now carried three articles in successive editions setting out views as to how and why the rupture of the Anglican Communion is happening, two by Archbishop Emeritus Mouneer Anis and, in this edition, one by Samy Fawzi Shehata the present Archbishop of the Province of Alexandria. Both archbishops have been leading figures in the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) which brings together over half of the Provinces which have hitherto comprised the Anglican Communion, and which includes the member Provinces of the quite separate and previously more radical GAFCON group. (A full listing of member and non-member provinces of the GSFA is given below in Appendix I)

But the most important fact is that the GSFA member provinces include by far and away the majority of Anglicans world-wide. It is this fact which has given such gravity to the Ash Wednesday Statement on the Church of England’s Decision Regarding the Blessing of Same Sex Unions, issued on February 2023, by the Global South Primates under the chairmanship of Archbishop Justin Badi of South Sudan).

The Statement declared that in consequence of its decision, ‘the Church of England has departed from the historic faith passed down from the Apostles…(contravening her own Canon A5^[2]’, secondly, ‘she has disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic “Mother” Church.’ and thirdly, that, ‘The GSFA is no longer able to recognise the present Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt. Hon. & Most Revd. Justin Welby, as the “first among equals” Leader of the global Communion.’

The Statement went on to add that, ‘With the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury forfeiting their leadership role of the global Communion, GSFA Primates will expeditiously meet, consult and work with other orthodox Primates in the Anglican Church…to reset the Communion on its biblical foundation’. And it was explained further that, ‘Given this action by the Church of England’s General Synod, we believe it is no longer possible to continue in the way the Communion is. We do not accept the view that we can still “walk together” with the revisionist provinces….’

Nonetheless, the Statement concluded, ‘We will not walk away from the Communion’ and that. ‘What has happened in the Church of England has only served to strengthen our resolve to work together to re-set the Communion, and to ensure that the re-set Communion is marked by reform and renewal….Only then will we be able to live out our witness as part of God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.’

It is not without a certain irony, given the ‘early adopter’ position of The Episcopal Church on the same-sex matters at hand, that the words of the Ash Wednesday Statement rather call to mind those of Thomas Pain (no friend of Christianity though he was) about American independence, namely that,

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now.

…. Let’s unite …. and win our independence. WHEREFORE, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line

This time around, however, there is the irony that it is forces of historic tradition who are protesting and drawing lines. Yet, for all the ringing declarations and rhetoric about severing ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England – which would indeed seem to be ‘drawing a line’ – there is still too, the resolve within the GSFA Statement that, ‘We will not walk away from the Communion’ but rather plan instead to ‘reset the Communion’ a turn of phrase that suggests a vision for the future that is rather short of total rupture.

All this raises not merely practical questions for Anglicanism worldwide, but deep theological ones about the prevailing understanding of the Church and the nature of Communion, both in its meaning as a spiritual state as well as a polity, that must lie behind both the Statement and such future paths of fragmentation as it may portend.

It is clear that a great deal of further work and reflection is likely to unfold over the coming months and years as the Global South Fellowship along with GAFCON on the one hand, and the existing structures of the legacy Anglican Communion on the other,^[3] grapple with these issues, as divisions in the historic Anglican Communion continue to deepen and look to take on more structural forms.

The notes that follow below are merely offered by way of opening up certain aspects of the issues in discussion, starting with whether, or in what sense, Anglicanism really does have one central ecclesial ‘hub’ so to speak, in Canterbury, from which all radiates that is authentically Anglican – like the spokes of a wheel – and that familiar symbol of the Compass Rose. Or is the simplicity of this thinking inadequate to the realities of its actual history and thought?

The following words of John Gauden, writing in 1659, on the one hand, point with a certain congratulatory complacency to the claimed splendour of moderation and good sense to be found in the Anglicanism as set out by the famous Richard Hooker – and yet on the other hand, by invoking so complex a thinker – as we shall see – Gauden actually opens the way to a vision of Anglican thought and polity that is more subtle than he himself seems to have been aware – so convinced was he of Anglicanism’s manifest genius, as he wrote:

Mr. Richard Hooker (one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed) hath . . . abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England, asserting it by calm, clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture, to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely, deformed or intolerable, which her (then) enemies declaimed, and now have proclaimed; whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw, and in his Epistle foretold, would be very fierce and cruell, if once they got power answerable to their prejudices, superstitions and passions against the Church of England; which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence, than was either lawfull, convenient, or necessary in the variation of times and occasions. (John Gauden: Ecclesiae Anglicanae Suspiria. The Tears, Sighs, Complaints, and Prayers of the Church of England, London, 1659, p. 83.)

If that does not make one rejoice in being that paragon of good sense that it is to be Anglican what could? Yet what this passage says nothing about is the structural capacity of Anglicanism to ensure its continuity of identity across time on the one hand and around the world as it later spread on the other. And it is these challenges that have over recent decades become so pressing as to pose the existential challenge that they now do.

Looked at historically, there is an interesting paradox in that it looks increasingly as though the Global South Provinces of the Anglican Communion now stand to Canterbury much as Canterbury once did to Rome. Once again, as at the time of the Reformation, while the initial goal may be seek to reform rather than separation, a hard-to-reverse separation risks being the likely eventual outcome nonetheless.

In visual terms it is deeply ironic that the armorial bearings of the Archbishops of Canterbury show most prominently the pallium^[4] which is traditionally given by a Roman pontiff to metropolitan archbishops (which is to say Primates) under his jurisdiction. Yet Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was the last Archbishop of Canterbury actually to wear one – though that point itself reflected the care taken by Henry VIII to ensure that the Papal Bulls approving Cranmer’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury were duly received, before his consecration on 30th March, 1533 (something aided by Cranmer’s deliberately slow return to England from the continent where he had been engaged in gathering support in the ‘great matter’ of Henry’s desired annulment). Cranmer decided upon this tardiness ‘thinking that [the king] would be forgetful of [him] in the mean time’.^[5]

This point gives visual expression to one of the challenges here, which is whether, as the Global South statement seems to imply, the Archbishop and See of Canterbury can now be set aside as effectively, if painfully, by other Anglican provinces, as the Bishop of Rome and the Pallium were by the Church of England before? This in turn prompts the question, just what for Anglicans are the defining ties that bind? What indeed is it that makes a person or a church Anglican? And what would have to be the case for that identity to be lost?

These large questions are not new and have had much ink expended upon them, yet they will be newly wrestled with, as the various parties and groups engaged upon the future of the Communion think them through once more, and take concrete steps towards what is likely to be a structurally fractured Anglican Communion for many years ahead. So what will be defining for an identity as Anglican?

Just What is So Special About Canterbury?

Even a brief consideration of why the See of Canterbury must We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. …. Let’s unite …. and win our independence. WHEREFORE, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line This time around, however, there is the irony that it is forces of historic tradition who are protesting and drawing lines. Yet, for all the ringing declarations and rhetoric about severing ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England – which would indeed seem to be ‘drawing a line’ – there is still too, the resolve within the GSFA Statement that, ‘We will not walk away from the Communion’ but rather plan instead to ‘reset the Communion’ a turn of phrase that suggests a vision for the future that is rather short of total rupture. All this raises not merely practical questions for Anglicanism worldwide, but deep theological ones about the prevailing understanding of the Church and the nature of Communion, both in its meaning as a spiritual state as well as a polity, that must lie behind both the Statement and such future paths of fragmentation as it may portend. It is clear that a great deal of further work and reflection is likely to unfold over the coming months and years as the Global South Fellowship along with GAFCON on the one hand, and the existing structures of the legacy Anglican Communion on the other,3 grapple with these issues, as divisions in the historic Anglican Communion continue to deepen and look to take on more structural forms. The notes that follow below are merely offered by way of opening up certain aspects of the issues in discussion, starting with whether, or in what sense, Anglicanism really does have one central ecclesial ‘hub’ so to speak, in Canterbury, from which all radiates that is authentically Anglican – like the spokes of a wheel – and that familiar symbol of the Compass Rose. Or is the simplicity of this thinking inadequate to the realities of its actual history and thought? The following words of John Gauden, writing in 1659, on the one hand, point with a certain congratulatory complacency to the claimed splendour of moderation and good sense to be found in the Anglicanism as set out by the famous Richard Hooker – and yet on the other hand, by invoking so complex a thinker – as we shall see – Gauden actually opens the way to a vision of Anglican thought and polity that is more subtle than he himself seems to have been aware – so convinced was he of Anglicanism’s manifest genius, as he wrote: Mr. Richard Hooker (one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed) hath . . . abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England, asserting it by calm, clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture, to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely, deformed or intolerable, which her (then) enemies declaimed, and now have proclaimed; whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw, and in his Epistle foretold, would be very fierce and cruell, if once they got power answerable to their prejudices, superstitions and passions against the Church of England; which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence, than was either lawfull, convenient, or necessary in the variation of have some level of special status can be illustrative of the complex issues in play.At one level it is merely a matter of history that the See has a factual historic claim to primacy going back to its foundation in 597 by the mission of St Augustine of Canterbury sent by Gregory the Great from Rome. But is there not something deeper by way of theological and spiritual, or even metaphysical, significance attached to the See by virtue of which it has unique standing for Anglicanism?

Historically, a connection with the See of Canterbury has clearly been important, but just how important now becomes a key question. Is it essential, or merely an historical matter that can now be discarded? For a high view, Roman Catholic approaches to the status of the See of Rome can offer something of a model. Roman apologists have long argued that St Augustine of Hippo, to name but one Doctor of the Church (even if all sides tend to claim him as their own in this terrain) can be understood to set out and illustrate just why the See of Rome enjoyed the ultimate form of primacy – of which that of Canterbury for Anglicanism might therefore be a kind of echo. (Needless to say such a view of what Augustine thought upon this, as indeed the wider Roman contention, were hotly contested during the Reformation by Martin Luther and other Reformers, but that is separate point.)

The Roman claim would be that the power of ruling the Church was not vested in all bishops equally (or at least metropolitan bishops), such that each one exercised his power without the intervention of, or responsibility to, others. Such a conception would exclude the power of jurisdiction of any one bishop over the others, and thus ultimately, any monarchic form of government in the constitution of the Church. This makes clear that the possibility of primacy requires something more.

To this end, attention might first turn to the Apostles, since the Apostles could be seen as the co-adjutors, as it were, under Christ, in the work of the foundation and expansion of the Church, and therefore to have occupied a particular place in the overall scheme of ecclesiology. Then the Roman argument was that, in addition, among the Apostles in Scripture, particular attention is granted to Saint Peter who is termed in divers places the ‘first’ Apostle, thus prompting the question of first in what sense?

This particular turn of phrase could mean, that he was so honored merely by reason of being the first in the chronological order of calling to the apostleship (as for example Saint Peter is called the first Apostle in contrast to the St Paul who was the last Apostle to be called).

But instead, it was further argued in the Roman view, that Peter was ‘first and principal in the order of the Apostles’ (in ordine Apostolorum) in such a way that St. Peter’s being first ‘in ordine’ indicates not by mere chronology, but rather by a primacy and supremacy over his colleagues, the other Apostles.

Such an elevation might have come to St. Peter from Christ on account of natural disposition and capacity on one level, but the Roman claim was stronger than this and even – as arguably St Augustine of Hippo argues, that it was also by virtue of a special ‘grace’ that St Peter was elevated to his singular position: ‘By nature he was one man, by grace one Christian, by more abundant grace one and the same first Apostle.’ Even leaving aside whether grace is here being understood as an unmerited gift by virtue of divine disposition, or the potestas of a power conferred, the key point is that it involves the particular intervention of God which thus was argued set Peter in a special place.

Indeed, in such a conception, the Petrine prerogative of primacy among the Apostles was not restricted only to his person, but rather extended also to his office and specifically the Roman cathedra which it is claimed he occupied. And there is a passage in which Saint Peter and Saint Cyprian are compared by St Augustine of Hippo, who then essentially argues that while Saint Peter and Saint Cyprian may be held as equal with regard to their martyrdom, and of equal glory on this account, nonetheless, Saint Peter’s prerogative over the Apostles was still above this and indeed any mere episcopacy.^[6] Just as these persons – Saint Cyprian and Saint Peter differ in the station abundantiore gratia, tam excellenti gratia, so do also their respective sees differ by the ‘grace’ that is attached to them permanently (distat cathedrarum gratia) due to their occupants – a particular ‘grace’, and in the case of Rome the prerogative to preach and teach majore gratia.

Hence, the argument runs we should conclude that the special and peculiar grace inherent in the cathedra Romana is present, not simply because it is an apostolic see, but because it is the see of St Pete – and this can be argued even before we get to Saint Augustine’s remarks on the two much emphasized (and controverted) scriptural passages where Saint Peter is the central figure, in the Gospel of St. Matthew 16, 18 and St. John 21, 17) replete with that ‘rock’ of the church reference (though, again, there was historically debate as to whether it was he, or rather his faith, that comprised the rock as Luther contended).

In any event, it can readily be seen that a like form of reasoning could be used in favour of a lesser, but nonetheless parallel, status and even grace, as pertaining to the metropolitical see and cathedra of Canterbury. For it could be argued that Canterbury was in ordine

• chronologically first, as founded by (the other) St Augustine sent by St Gregory, and
• first also by virtue of primacy, as recognised by other bishops in England.

Moreover, subsequent history has made clear that in practice all bishops, in what eventually became a primacy covering all Anglicans (not just those in England) were Anglican bishops in some constitutive sense through being recognised by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While it might seem in one sense rather mundane, the power of this has been seen in action since the time Archbishop Longley declined to invite Bishop Colenso to the Lambeth Conference of 1865. For it is the Archbishop of Canterbury who personally invites all the bishops of the Communion to the Lambeth Conference. The fact that Archbishop Rowan Williams chose not to invite some bishops to the Lambeth Conference of 2008, on the basis that they failed the test of being a focus of unity (Gene Robinson being one of them) was unquestionably seen as a significant diminution of their episcopal standing, and pointed to a real ‘ontology of recognition’ being exercised by Canterbury.

Archbishop or Council? Is it Canterbury or the Anglican Consultative Council that decides who is Anglican?

With all that said, however, there has in recent decades been a very different approach in play that has arguably undercut the standing of the See of Canterbury in this regard. This comes from the historically late development of the Anglican Consultative Council and its contention that it is for it to decide which Provinces and dioceses are part of the Anglican Communion. This would seem to be a rather modern kind of legalistically based understanding of Anglican recognition – that arguably also perhaps relates the stress the ACC secretariat has tended to place upon the ACC’s status as the ‘only legal entity’ among the ‘instruments of Communion’. This might be thought to reflect also a slowly growing move towards viewing the Communion through a Canon law based perspective. (This has long been the way the Roman Catholic Church has chosen to function administratively if not theologically – and these approaches do need to be kept distinct). But this particular move in regard to giving the ACC the power to recognise who is Anglican, at least by Province, does have quite profound implications, and in this particular case it seems to undermine role of the See of Canterbury as ultimate arbiter of who is Anglican.

Then again, if this kind of issue can be resolved administratively, by looking at the issues in manner of a corporation with mere membership procedures and rules, it would seem to make it easier for an alternative corporation to be set up with its own set of rules, at which point the focus of attention regarding recognition and continuity of identity would shift to who has the best claim to such things as an ‘incorporated’ corporate identity and such things as copyright and trade marks (which is exactly what has ended up happening in the USA where the historic denomination of TEC has effectively ending up keeping the use of name Episcopal to itself, while others who have left TEC, now typically use the word Anglican – as in the case of the Anglican Church of North America).

Viewed in this kind of way, the question becomes who has the right to determine who holds the ‘local franchise’ for the Anglican ‘chain’ in any given place, something which seems a far cry from grander and theological notions of ecclesiology. Then again, the parallel would suggest all too readily the possibility of having more than one Anglican brand in the manner of ‘Coke’ versus ‘Pepsi’!

Law & Canon Law: Important if Sometimes Neglected Aspects of Anglican Continuity and Identity

Here it is of interest to note the fact that there are important distinctions to be made between law regarding corporations and such like, and that of the world of Canon law specifically – even though, as will be seen shortly, civil and church law are far more connected in the UK than in places such as the USA.

But that said, there is a sense in which the claims of the ACC seem to rest upon a corporate kind of model whereby it has been set up as a legal entity which administrates questions of membership, in accord with the rules that the members of the organisation happen thus far to have agreed upon. This is a very different kind of concept to that of spiritual membership in a spiritual body such as the worldwide Church – considered as a theological entity, and the relationships between bishops which that entails.

In any event, it so happens that there has been a whole Canon Law track emerging within the ACC since 2002, when a network of Anglican Communion Legal Advisors was established by the Anglican Consultative Council at its meeting in Hong Kong. The following year, the Primates recognised that ‘the unwritten law common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion, and expressed as shared principles of canon law, may be understood to constitute a fifth instrument of unity in the Communion; and requested a statement of principles which may be added to and developed. The Anglican Communion Legal Advisors Network therefore next prepared a document entitled, The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion which identified the following common principles:

• Order in the Church
• The Anglican Communion
• Ecclesiastical Government
• Ministry
• Doctrine and Liturgy
• The Rites of the Church
• Church Property
• Ecumenical Relations

A second edition of the Principles was prepared by a further working group and ‘launched’ at the Lambeth Conference of 2022 – though what exact status this conferred is unclear, but according to ‘Principle 10’ of this document (with emphases here added):

1. The Anglican Communion is a fellowship of churches within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, characterised by their historic relationship of communion with the See of Canterbury.

2. The churches of the Anglican Communion are duly constituted national, regional, provincial churches and dioceses, and uphold and propagate the historic faith and order as typified in the Book of Common Prayer 1662 and its derivatives authorised in the several churches of the Communion.

3. The relationship of ecclesial communion within the Anglican Communion is based on the communion of a church with one or more of the following: (a) the See of Canterbury; (b) the Church of England; (c) all the churches of the Anglican Communion; (d) all churches in communion with the See of Canterbury; (e) all churches which profess the apostolic faith as received within the Anglican tradition.

In the eyes of The Principles, it is thus evident that being ‘in communion with’ the See of Canterbury is neither necessary nor sufficient in order for a church to be in ecclesial communion with the Anglican Communion itself, it is instead merely necessary that a given church be in communion with ‘one or more of’:

• the See of Canterbury;
• the Church of England;
• all the churches of the Anglican Communion;
• all churches in communion with the See of Canterbury;
• all churches which profess the apostolic faith as received within the Anglican tradition.

Since the situation of each individual bishop would, in the perspective of this document, be contingent upon good standing within the Province to which the bishop belongs, this would seem to entail also, that being in communion with the See of Canterbury is no more nor less important for each bishop than for the Province as a whole to which the bishop belongs.

With all this in mind, it is also worth noticing a rather revealing debate now underway as to how the headship of the Anglican Communion should be determined. Famously, Peter Akinola, Archbishop and former Primate of Nigeria once observed that, ‘One does not need to go through Canterbury to get to Heaven’ and there has accordingly, for some time, been a discussion in the Global South which has now led to actual proposals whereby the headship of the Anglican Communion should be separated from the Archbishopric of Canterbury. (As Archbishop Mouneer has proposed for example.)

Those seeking reform who have the least investment in the role of Canterbury as a theological wellspring of the Communion, are apt to suggest that it would therefore be fine to have the Provinces simply come together and elect one of their Primates to act as a kind of international president. By contrast, those informed by a more theological and even metaphysical view of the See of Canterbury, might prefer to suggest that the world-wide Provinces of the Communion should choose the Archbishop of Canterbury specifically and not merely the Church of England itself.

This latter approach would firmly recognise and preserve the unique status of the See in Anglicanism, but it would also require a fairly radical shift in the polity of the Church of England – though it has to be wondered if the Archbishop of York might not be an obvious office to have become, in reality, the functional rather than titular ‘Primate of England’ . This would open up the Chair of Augustine to the wider Communion in a really radical way.

Reflecting Further on the See of Canterbury and the Evolution of Canon Law

But at this point, it is worth considering briefly something of the history of the See of Canterbury from a canon law perspective, given that at the time when Henry VIII separated the Church of England from Rome this was an immediate area of crisis.

What is very striking is the degree to which continuity in many ways was sustained in this domain even when the ecclesio-political disruption during the Reformation was profound.

Here it is important to recall that English bishops had participated in the conciliar and legal procedures of the wider church as early as 314 at the Synod of Arles and that the canon law of the Western church was widely known and observed in Britain from early times. When St Augustine came to England from Rome, at the end of the sixth century, he would likely have brought not only key theological texts, but also such a collection of canon law as the Collectio Dionysiana. We also know that canon law was in circulation in England in the seventh century from Theodore of Tarsus who, in the Preamble to the Acts of the Council of Hertford (673), states that he produced the Book of Canons, and that the said Council adopted ten canons from this Liber Canonum. In addition, there was in England a body of decretals, generally referred to as the law of the Anglo-Saxon Church, which contained the canons enacted by local councils of Anglo-Saxon bishops presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, such as the said Council of Hertford and the Council of Cloveshoo in 747, as well as the two Legatine synods of 786, presided over by papal legates in the northern and southern church provinces of England respectively.

Thus, the Church in England from the earliest times built up its own body of English canon law, as local synods enacted canons that were locally applicable. Lanfranc eventually replaced the confused material of the pre-Conquest period with his own collection, based upon continental sources including the Forged Decretals of the pseudo Isidore of Seville (A Decretal being a written reply of a Pope to an enquiry, something later, and still, known as a rescript).

Though it is of interest to note that the system of separate ecclesiastical courts in medieval England was somewhat constrained by the fact of strong civil power, which also forbade the control of ecclesiastical patronage from Rome by the Statutes of Provisors in 1351 and 1390. None of the thirty-one chapters under the title De Jure Patronatus in the third book of the Decretals of Gregory IX were in force in England, because as early as the reign of Henry Il ecclesiastical patronage in England fell to the secular courts and was controlled by the rules of the secular English Common Law. This also meant that the ‘benefit of clergy’ immunities and privileges were much reduced in England as compared with the continent. Though on the other hand, ecclesiastical courts handled much of the administration of property and estates (and surprisingly this remained true up until the middle of the nineteenth century). All of this did help to generate a certain sense of English church ‘exceptionalism’ long before the breach entailed by the Henrician Reformation.

Then again, in England it became usual for the Common Law of the Church to be supplemented and interpreted by laws and constitutions adopted at the national and legatine synod levels under the overall purview of York and Canterbury – though it was all quite complex and potentially confusing. And eventually, two codifications were made. One by John of Ayton, a canon of Lincoln, between 1333 and 1348, which included the constitutions from the period of Cardinal Legate Otho in 1237 through to that of Cardinal Legate Oddobuono in 1268. The second, in 1430, was made by William Lyndwood, who came to be considered the greatest of the medieval English canonists. This work, the Provinciale of Lyndwood, brought together all the provincial constitutions of Canterbury from the time of Stephen Langton in 1222 down to those of Archbishop Henry Chichele in 1416.

However, it was the Corpus Juris Canonici, as published by Jean Chappuis and Vitalis de Thebes in 1500, that codified overall the common law, or jus commune, of the Western Church at that point, and it was this law that was in overall force in the English Church at the time of the Reformation.

Needless to say, the repudiation of the papal supremacy in England under Henry VIII raised a vexing conceptual problem, as to the source of authority in the Church of England. Many questions arose: – could the canon law, cut off from the Roman font, have any force in an England which now denied the power of the papacy on which the authority of the law had earlier seemed to be based?

Henry VIII addressed all this, by the superficially simple act of converting church law into the national law of England and declaring it to be binding since it derived its final authority from the king’s Majesty as the head of the Church of England. He then further argued that canon law had in fact never been operative in England merely by virtue of the Pope’s authority as such, but instead, simply because it had been freely accepted by the English kings and people (in the manner of a gift so to speak). On this account, the papal writ had never been imposed but rather had simply been voluntarily embraced and now, with equal simplicity, so far as Rome was concerned, that embrace had ended.

Both the Church of England’s Convocation and Parliament next formally requested a revision of the canon law, while each very conveniently maintained that until this could be accomplished the old canon law would remain in force – albeit now with additional force and status given that in the Church of England the former canon law had the full force now of comprising parliamentary statute. The Act for the Submission of the Clergy and Restraint of Appeals, which is often considered to comprise the legal beginning of the Church of England, authorized Henry VIII to appoint a commission of thirty-two persons to examine the Corpus Juris Canonici and the provincial constitutions, and to include such as were still found to be applicable into a new canon law for the Church of England. However, with day-today life and legal proceedings continuing as before without special difficulty, there was little energy for this task, so nothing actually happened until just before the accession of Henry’s daughter Queen Mary. She had however only one wish, which was to return the Church of England to Rome.

So it was not until 1571 and the emergence of the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, prepared by Foxe (the martyrologist) with the permission of Archbishop Parker, that anything approaching a new daft canon law emerged. And in this last instance, Queen Elizabeth I blocked Parliament from considering it, on the basis that she – as Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London, put it, ‘had a clear conception of the nature of the Church, and was careful never to interfere with its independence… and refused to allow Parliament to interfere. She maintained the authority of the Bishops and rated it higher than they did themselves.’

So where does all this leave the ties that bind Anglicans together? Are there lessons to draw from the American experience?

The story of the Church of England in America is an interesting one on several levels but here most especially because of what it has to say about what it takes to be Anglican and how this relates to the See of Canterbury.

What this history brings out ultimately I suggest is that, it is more about fidelity in worship and doctrine, as well as apostolicity and the episcopate (and indeed the importance of cooperation and interdependence between Provinces even if they are otherwise autonomous) than it is a direct relationship, continuous at all times, with See of Canterbury. And along the way, as will be seen, it is clear from history that the American Church was not averse to the occasional act of irregular consecration by foreign bishops – no matter how much it has been apt to deplore such irregularities later).

Also very striking is the long duration of the American Episcopal Church in an often intellectually hostile context. Hence, after being badly affected by the war of Independence the Episcopal Church found itself opposed by powerful forces of religious liberalism ranging from Deism and Unitarianism, through to Universalism, all of which might seem to promote religious toleration, but which also encouraged scepticism about the details of theological doctrine and practice. The controversies with orthodoxy that followed, resulted in defections and a lowering of enthusiasm in the wider culture for the for the detail of religious belief – a trend that has only deepened in more recent times. The King’s Chapel in Boston, for example, was lost to Anglicanism because the lay reader, one James Freeman, became a convert to Unitarianism and the congregation followed him. It is also striking that Deism achieved a significant influence on some of the American founders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and many other colonial leaders who were by background Anglican. This seems to have been especially true in Virginia where religious liberalism combined militant Baptists and Presbyterians to bring down the established Anglican church by 1784, – with a special resolution being adopted by the Virginia Convention in 1785 declaring roundly that ‘the canons of the Church of England have no obligation on the Protestant Episcopal Church within this commonwealth.’

But despite being remotely under the Bishop of London – who in the person of Edmund Gibson – in 1723 had obtained letters Patent confirming the existing pattern and presumption that he had jurisdiction over the American Church, throughout its early years, while manifestly Anglican, the Episcopal church in America lacked its own bishops and was required to send its ordinands all the way to England for ordination. This meant, as William White explained matters later:

Every congregation was independent of all exterior control either in England or America. There remained, however the principles inherited by them from the Mother Church in doctrine, in worship, and ecclesiastical constitution. These were the materials giving reason to the hope that there might be raised from them a religious communion resembling that from which we were descended, as nearly as local circumstances should permit.^[7]

A key element of the problems resulting, it was felt, was that whereas before Independence all Episcopalians were – however remotely – under one bishop, which meant that they shared more than simply a common liturgical and theological heritage, for they had an essential unity no matter what tensions there might as members of different states and parties etc. But after independence with the forced withdrawal of the Bishop of London they had no bishop at all. As the later Preface to the American Prayer Book put it: ‘when, in the course of Divine Providence these American States became independent with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily included.’

White feared that local circumstances might entail an enduring church without bishops, but as it turned out, Samuel Seabury, Jr., was elected by the clergy in Connecticut to serve as a bishop, and after much difficulty and delay, waiting in England for the English bishops to act, he was in the end (with no need therefore to swear any oath to the monarch) consecrated on November 14, 1784, by the Nonjuring bishops in Scotland. (Thus instancing a manifestly useful and subsequently applauded, instance of overseas bishops helping outside the area of their jurisdiction.)

Eventually however the English bishops found a way to proceed and so it was that William White himself, of Pennsylvania and Samuel Provoost of New York were duly in Lambeth Palace Chapel, consecrated by the English bishops on February 4, 1787.

In 1789, the first convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts, meeting in Salem, elected Edward Bass bishop of Massachusetts and Rhode Island but his parish rejected the election owing to the failure of lay delegate participation, but in 1796 in Boston, he was unanimously re-elected bishop, and was consecrated in Philadelphia on May 7, 1797.

So, in fact, the first of the line of bishops consecrated in America was to be Thomas Claggett of Maryland who was consecrated in 1792, by which point James Madison of Virginia had also been consecrated in England in 1790 (which meant that the traditional of having three bishop consecrators was carefully observed).

But already in 1789, a constitution, canons, and a Prayer Book, (patterned after their antecedents in the Church of England) had been adopted, and The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was formed.

One of the novel aspects from the point of view of the Church of England was the role given to the laity in electing bishops in America. Though it is worth noticing that so congenial was this evidently felt in general that even John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States, was elected first by his clergy in 1789, so that his appointment by the Pope only came afterwards.

But as Bishop John H. Hobart wrote in regard to this lay dimension in the Episcopal Church: ‘It is correct to speak of the divine institution of Episcopacy; but not as is done by some writers of the divine constitution of Episcopal government; which on many points is of human arrangement, and varies in different Episcopal Churches.’ (In his The United States of America, Compared with some European Countries, particularly England, New York 1825, p. 33)

Similarly it seems clear that a parallel holds in regard to the understanding of Anglican identity and the role of continuity of doctrine and worship, apostolicity and episcopacy wherein the fact of these continuities is essential while the exact details of transmission when it came to apostolicity and episcopacy may admit of some variation, such that an immediate connection to the See of Canterbury at all times is not absolutely necessary even though that See has been fundamental to Anglicanism overall in its history.

To quote Bishop White again, regarding the bonds between the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in America

When in consequence of a civil revolution, we had become severed from her, without its having of any bearing on the truth of our holy religion, we still professed to consent with her, in doctrine, in worship and in discipline… To consummate the obligation, we have applied to our venerable mother for the completion of the orders of our ministry; and the favour has been granted, in full faith of our continuance in the doctrines professed by her through many ages.

… Through the whole, the church of England has been kept in view, not in a dominant character, or as vested with any prerogative of control, but as correct in her institutions, and as comprehending whatever, from the circumstances of transmission and of uninterrupted profession, we shall, be always bound to sustain, in doctrine, in discipline and in worship (The Past and the Future, Philadelphia, 1834, p. 2)

Another witness to the Anglican principle of constitutional continuity was Bishop John Henry Hobart of New York, who wrote:

These principles, which pre-eminently entitle our Church to the character of an Apostolic Church, … are the principles, the declarations, the language of the venerable Church from which we derive our immediate origin; principles which, at the period of the reformation, she restored to primitive shape and form, and laid at the foundation of her polity; principles, in her attachment to which, a revolution that for a while subverted them, served more to confirm. They are principles, which no difficulties, not even the apprehension of being unable to carry them into effect, could induce our Church to relinquish; and for which her wishes, her prayers, her exertions were at last crowned with success. They are principles which she has deliberately and solemnly laid at the foundation of her polity, and which, if assailed or shaken, the whole edifice will be endangered. Against these fundamental principles, sanctioned by the wisdom, and preserved through the changes of ages, I fear not that any innovating hand will be lifted. (The Origin, the General Character, and the Present Situation of the Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, 1814, p. 21)

All of which makes it well to ponder afresh the challenges facing the unity currently of the historic Anglican Communion. Whatever the details of the new or reset institutional structures are that will emerge – be they from the legacy structures such as may yet emerge from ACC or those still emergent from the Global South Fellowship – continuity of faith and liturgy (and here the Prayer Book must find its place) along with the structural components of apostolicity and episcopacy will be essential. In the words of three last sources:

The Catholicity report solicited by Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher in 1945 and prepared by Michael Ramsay – assisted by a most distinguished company that included T.S. Eliot among others. This declared roundly that

It is by a principle of constancy in Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments and Apostolic Succession, that the Anglican Communion, for all the diversity within it, remains one. If this principle may be called, at the lowest, the historical condition of our unity in the Anglican Communion, we believe it to be at the highest the precondition of the task of theological synthesis to which the Anglican Communion is, in the Divine Providence, called. (From the Preface of Catholicity, A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West, being a Report presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, London 1947)

Or in the slightly more prosaic words of the introduction to volume of essays The Lambeth conference: Theology, History, Polity and Purpose, T&T Clark 2017)

The Anglican Communion will not last if it settles for merely pragmatic political ties and props in order to avoid falling apart. If it is to have a meaningful quality of communion, the Anglican Communion must cultivate an ecclesial character and quality expressible in a globally interchangeable ordained ministry, the exercise of episcopal collegiality, a common sacramental life and structures for consultation and discernment, arriving at a common mind on all essential matters. This includes, but is not limited to, recognizing in one another biblical fidelity and creedal orthodoxy. (Paul Avis and Bejamin Guyer)

From the Preface to the 1662 edition of The Book of Common Prayer which was written in more lapidary style by Robert Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, (whose youthful enthusiasm for Calvinism had diminished upon reading Hooker in the 1620’s):

It hath been the Wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the Mean between the two Extreams, of too much Stiffness in refusing, and of too much Easiness in admitting any variation from it. For, as on the one side common Experience sheweth, that where a change hath been made of things advisedly established (no evident necessity so requiring) sundry inconveniences have thereupon ensued; and those many times more, and greater than the evils, that were intended to be remedied by such change: So on the other side, the particular Forms of Divine Worship, and the Rites, and Ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature Indifferent, and alterable, and so acknowledged; it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and alterations should be made therein, as to those that are in place of Authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient. Accordingly we find, that in the Reigns of several Princes of blessed memory since the Reformation, the Church upon just and weighty considerations her thereunto moving, hath yielded to make such alterations in some particulars, as in their respective times were thought convenient: Yet so, as that the main Body and Essentials of it (as well in the chiefest materials, as in the frame and order thereof ) have still continued the same unto this day, and do yet stand firm and unshaken, notwithstanding all the vain and impetuous assaults made against it by such men as are given to change, and have always discovered a greater regard to their own private fancies and interests, than to that duty they owe to the publick…

Appendix I

The following Provinces of the existing Communion comprise the membership of the GSFA:

• The Anglican Church of Burundi
• The Church of the Province of Central Africa
• The Anglican Church of Kenya
• The Anglican Church of Melanesia
• The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
• The Church of Pakistan (United)
• The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea
• Eglise Anglicane du Rwanda (The Anglican Church of Rwanda)
• The Anglican Church of South America
• The Anglican Church of Southern Africa
• The Anglican Church of Tanzania
• The Church of the Province of West Africa
• The Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean

In addition, the following are member Provinces that have completed the process of subscribing formally to the GSFA ‘Covenantal Structure’ (promulgated in Cairo, 2019 and which is set out below as an appendix to these notes):

• The Episcopal / Anglican Province of Alexandria
• Church of Bangladesh
• Anglican Church in Brazil
• Iglesia Anglicana de Chile (The Anglican Church of Chile)
• Province de L’Eglise Anglicane Du Congo (Province of the Anglican Church of Congo)
• The Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma)
• Church of the Province of South East Asia
• Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan
• Province of the Episcopal Church of Sudan
• The Church of the Province of Uganda

The following Provinces of the Anglican Communion do not belong to the GSFA:

• The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia
• The Anglican Church of Australia
• The Church of Bangladesh
• Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil
• The Anglican Church of Canada
• Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America
• The Church of England
• Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui
• The Church of Ireland
• The Nippon Sei Ko Kai (The Anglican Church of Japan)
• The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & The Middle East
• The Anglican Church of Korea
• La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico
• Igreja Anglicana de Mocambique e Angola
• The Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma)
• The Church of North India (United)
• The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea
• The Episcopal Church in the Philippines
• The Scottish Episcopal Church
• The Church of South India (United)
• The Episcopal Church of the United States
• The Church in Wales
• The Church in the Province of the West Indies

Appendix II

(GSFA) Our Governmental Structure

Section 1 – Doctrinal Foundation: Fundamental Declarations

(with a short commentary)

1. O God, arise, help us, and deliver us for thy Name’s sake (The Litany, The Book of Common Prayer).

Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end (Collect for Good Friday, The Book of Common Prayer).

The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) is a fellowship, within the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted dioceses, provinces, or regional Churches in full communion with one another, which have the following characteristics in common:

a) the doctrine of their Churches is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, annexed to The Book of Common Prayer, and commonly known as the Ordinal;

b) they are particular or national Churches, and, as such, promote within each of their territories such Forms of Divine worship, and Rites and Ceremonies ‘as they shall think best to the setting forth of God’s honour and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition’ (Preface and On Ceremonies, The Book of Common Prayer);

c) they 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 (Cf. Lambeth Conference 1930, Resolution 49).

2. Te Deum laudamus:

We praise thee, O God: We acknowledge thee to be the Lord. The holy Church throughout all the world: doth acknowledge thee; the Father of an infinite majesty; Thine honourable, true, and only Son; Also the Holy Ghost the Comforter.

We praise God for redeeming us with the precious blood of his Son and making us to be numbered with his saints in glory everlasting. We confess that the manifold ways that the histories of our Churches, from different tribes, peoples and languages, find their true meaning in the apostolic history of the risen Lord, who commissions and sends his disciples into all the world to proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.

Our Churches have received through the Church of England what that Church received from the undivided Church and possesses in common with the whole Church of Christ. We are continually mindful of the greatness of that inheritance, which was borne out of fidelity to the Gospel and integrity of Christian life, even at the cost of suffering and martyrdom. We beseech God to inspire continually Christ’s Church militant here on earth: ‘with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: And grant, that all they who do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love’ (The Order of the Ministration of the Holy Communion, The Book of Common Prayer).

3. The Church has received from the Lord a twofold authority:

the authority in controversies of faith and to decree rites or ceremonies (Article 20, The Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer); that is, the authority to proclaim the Gospel, and the authority to maintain a common discipline to safeguard the unity, order and doctrinal coherence of our Churches as one people of God.

We commit our Churches together, as the Anglican Communion grows out of the English church establishment to become a fellowship of particular and national Churches, to develop conciliar structures for discerning, deciding on, and resolving matters of faith, order, morals and unity. This is of critical importance to ‘settle the peace of the Church, and allay distempers,’ – in the words of The Act of Uniformity, 1662 – and therefore bring clarity in the Gospel we proclaim and enable us to be more effective in bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world.

4. Sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide.

The Church is a creature of the divine Word, the self-communication of God who makes himself present as Saviour and establishes covenantal fellowship with humankind. The Church is constituted by grace alone to be a hearing Church, to be attentive to the Holy Scripture, God’s true word that sets forth his glory and human duty (The First Book of Homilies, Homily 1: ‘A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of the Holy Scripture’). The daily and sequential hearing and receiving of God’s holy Word in the Daily Offices, as The Book of Common Prayer stipulates, clearly testifies to this truth. The Anglican Communion is not simply a form of human culture or the outgrowth of natural human sociality. The Church is subject to the interrogative, interceptive and saving judgement of the Holy Scripture. It has its true form and visibility in so far as it receives by faith the grace of God through the life-giving presence of Word and Spirit.

5. Scriptura sacra locuta, res decisa est.

Sacred Scripture has spoken, the matter is decided. The authority of the Holy Scripture within the Church is a function of the Scripture’s authority over the Church. The Scripture is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense. The authority of the Scripture is its Spirit-bestowed capacity to quicken the Church to truthful speech and righteous action. We reject therefore the hermeneutical scepticism that commits the Church to a near-infinite deferral of decisions on matters of faith and morals.

6. Jesus Christ is head of the body, the Church

(Colossians 1.18). The ordered ministry, episcopal authority and territorial jurisdiction are not sociological, historical and cultural constructs. They testify to rather than constitute the apostolic character of the Church. They attest to Christ’s own formation of his people, giving them a social visibility – in the world and yet not of the world – to witness to his life-giving power, holiness and glory in the world. As such, episcopal jurisdiction is unintelligent and becomes an obstacle to the Gospel if it is detached from authentic discipleship and submission to the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

7. Give heed unto reading, exhortation and doctrine: with all faithful diligence banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word

(The Form of Ordaining or Consecrating of an Archbishop or Bishop, The Book of Common Prayer). We give thanks to God for the prophetic and costly discipleship of Anglicans who in their generations have stood firm for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints in their Churches that have ‘so altered, broken, and neglected’ the ‘godly and decent order of the ancient fathers’ (Concerning the Service of the Church, The Book of Common Prayer).

In our day, we thank God for those who have stood firm against teachings and practices that depart from the orthodox and historic Anglican heritage from our forebears; viz., ‘The doctrine of the Church … is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the Ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be grounded in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal’ (Canon A5, The Church of England). We affirm that Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference is the teaching on marriage and sexuality of the Anglican Communion.

8. That rulers may have grace, wisdom and understanding to execute justice and to maintain truth; and that the people may lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty

(The Preface, The Book of Common Prayer 1790, The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States).

We acknowledge government under and through just law is God’s will for the earthly protection of all people. Those who exercise political authority can rightly claim obedience and assistance from their citizens in upholding just law, whatever the constitutional forms that support them (Romans 13.1-7). Christians seek to promote generous sharing of material and spiritual goods in local communities, nations and the wider human communities in the world that are often fractured by prejudice and partisan division. The Church needs courage in defending public discussion on the moral and spiritual basis of societies against attempts to suppress or manipulate it (Anglican Catechism in Outline).

9. Benedictus.

And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people: for the remission of their sins, To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death; and to guide our feet into the ways of peace.

Together as a global fellowship, we embrace the calling of John the Baptist, under the impulse and direction of the Word and the Spirit, to grow in holiness, to make plain the way for the glorious coming of the Lord. We resolve to be more united with other parts of Christ’s Church to bring the saving knowledge of the true and living God to the world (John 17; Matthew 28.16-20).

Some Brief Comments

This text is apparently undergoing a process of revision so it would seem appropriate to make a few small observations upon it.

Looked at as a whole, this declaration is quite striking in the level of inner theological tension it contains, given the number of places in which affirmations are made which seem hard to hold together at the same time. This is evident from the outset and the fact that all such declarations and statements of faith are by their very nature implicit declarations of the insufficiency of Holy Scripture, after all, if this were not the case what need would there be for them?

Then again, they invite particular challenges for their warrant insofar as they seek to make assertions that go beyond the ‘teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church’ (1.1a) and specifically those of the Creeds established in the earliest centuries and Councils of the Church. This surely comprised the original faith that ‘was once for all delivered to the saints’ which the signatories understand themselves already to possess. Moreover, from a specifically Anglican perspective, such projects are further complicated by the historic Anglican emphasis – to which this document in places attests – on the substance of the faith as being already contained in the Book of Common Prayer and the historic Anglican formularies.

Accordingly, the actual effect of this declaration is, among other things, to show that all these sources are in fact found wanting, and to stand in need of the further declarations this document sets out to provide, just as the signatories also declare that they will ‘bring clarity in the Gospel’ (1.3) which is evidently not perspicuous of itself even if it is also, ‘to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense’ (1.5)

All this is declared despite section 1.1 a) and the fact that the following quotation is affirmed with approval, as it is also in section 1.7, that, ‘The doctrine of the Church … is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the Ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be grounded in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal’. So these declarations are not allowed to stand of themselves in fact. Immediately, this quotation is subverted in Section 1.7 and shown to be inadequate by the further declaration that, ‘We affirm that Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference is the teaching on marriage and sexuality of the Anglican Communion.’

Section 1.5 declares further that, ‘The authority of the Holy Scripture within the Church is a function of the Scripture’s authority over the Church’. This seems strikingly circular and again in tension both with any need for any declarations beyond those of the Scripture itself and with the understanding of the church as having the capacity to makes such affirmations.

With this in mind, it should be no surprise that in section 1.3 the signatory Provinces commit ‘to develop conciliar structures for discerning, deciding on, and resolving matters of faith, order, morals and unity’. This makes clear that these are all things that need still be established. Once again, this would seem to be in some profound tension with the earlier declaration of 1.1c that the signatories ‘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’, not to mention the felicity declared in 1.7 that are already in full possession, as Anglicans, of the ‘faith that was once for all delivered to the saints’.

Lastly, with regard to liturgy itself, it is very striking that despite the extensive references to the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 as a normative source, when it comes to the actual liturgy to be used in churches, the opening section of the document specifically states that the signatory provinces are a Fellowship with ‘the following characteristics in common’ namely that they, ‘promote within each of their territories such Forms of Divine worship, and Rites and Ceremonies “as they shall think best to the setting forth of God’s honour and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition”.’ This makes clear that they are precisely not committed to liturgy that is common between them, or derived from the common Anglican source of the Book of Common Prayer, instead they shall do ‘as they shall think best’ which is a proclamation of deep autonomy indeed!

In terms of the actual drafting, there are some smaller points of detail that arise.

There is an interesting change in voice at different points in the statement. For example, the opening paragraphs speak of the Global South Fellowship and ‘their’, churches, while at other points the preferred mode is to use, ‘we’ and ‘our’.

The paragraph opening quotations are from disconcertingly inconsistent sources. Thus the opening pattern invites an expectation that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, will be used throughout, but then variations are introduced beyond merely the Book of Homilies and Ordinal, such as the unattributed Latin phrases (1.4) Sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide and (1.5) Scriptura sacra locuta, res decisa est, which are used along with the 1662 BCP Latin Canticle titles: (1.2) Te deum laudamus and (1.9) Benedictus. Then in one place (1.8) a different Prayer Book is used altogether, (namely the The Preface of) The Book of Common Prayer 1790, of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.

In paragraph 1.6, a Bible verse from Colossians is used – albeit from an unidentified English translation – which is notable simply because the opening words ‘Jesus Christ’ though clearly implied do not open that verse in most translations, the usual pattern being ‘And he is’ or just, ‘he is the head….’, which given the heavy Sola scriptura emphasis might seem curious to some.

Two other sources are quoted but not used to open sections, namely a piece of British Legislation, the Act of Uniformity of 1662 (1.3) and Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference (1.7) – alongside the BCP quotation as contained in the Church of England’s Canon A5.

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