Introduction
The Holy Spirit tells St Peter of the men looking for him in Joppa that he should ‘accompany them without hesitation, because I have sent them’.Footnote 1 In this ‘accompanying’ we might hear an echo of the roots of the Greek word σύνοδος, literally ‘journeying together’ – and Acts 10 is the beginning of the journey in which the Church discerns God’s will for the inclusion of the Gentiles, a journey that reaches its narrative conclusion five chapters later at the Council of Jerusalem – itself a synod, and indeed the prototype of synods.
In the Anglican Communion, the four instruments of communion – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates’ Meeting, the Lambeth Conference, and the Anglican Consultative Council – have a ‘universal’Footnote 2 role but are not termed synods. The reluctance to name them ‘synods’, despite their obvious similarity to synods, lies in the Anglican association of ‘synodical’ with ‘governance’ – and the four instruments do not exercise powers of governance over the churches of the Anglican Communion.Footnote 3 Nevertheless, I will argue in this paper that the instruments do manifest synodality, that is, a journeying together in the Spirit. I begin with an historical excursus, explaining why there is no universal jurisdiction in the Anglican Communion. I then describe the four instruments in terms of synodality. I conclude with some examples of how the instruments of communion have enabled synodality at the universal level, and suggest where Anglicans might fruitfully learn from others in the spirit of receptive ecumenism.
Historical background
In the sixteenth century, the Church of England rejected the universal jurisdiction of the Holy See. Article 37 of the 39 Articles of Religion states:
The King’s Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction.
The same Article understands the Royal Supremacy to be a scriptural doctrine:
We give … to our Princes … that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers.
However, the churches of the Anglican Communion do not all share the doctrine of the royal supremacy. Instead, the churches of the Communion have united around a premise which is most clearly stated in Principle 12.1 of the Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion:Footnote 4
Each church is autonomous in respect of its freedom of self-government.
It can be seen at once that this principle is radically different from the doctrine of the royal supremacy.
Historically, the principle of provincial autonomy developed in Anglican churches in British colonies and former colonies as it was recognised that, there, the church was not by law established.Footnote 5 In 1801, PECUSA (the Anglican church in the USA now known as TEC), reflecting the fact that they now lived in a republic, revised Article 37 to state:
The Power of the Civil Magistrate extendeth to all men, as well Clergy as Laity, in all things temporal; but hath no authority in things purely spiritual. And we hold it to be the duty of all men who are professors of the Gospel, to pay respectful obedience to the Civil Authority, regularly and legitimately constituted.Footnote 6
Thus revised, the Article asserts that the civil magistrate does not have spiritual authority. Where, then, was spiritual authority to be found? The same question was asked in the colonial Anglican churches that were not spiritually governed by the Crown. When it was desired, for example, to create a new diocese, how could this be achieved? William Broughton (first Bishop of Australia) found an inherent spiritual power in the Provincial Synod (‘the Provincial Synod possesses [an] inherent power of sub-dividing dioceses’Footnote 7 ) and George Augustus Selwyn (first Bishop of New Zealand), great reviver of synods, appealed to patristic precedent.Footnote 8
In 1930, the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops approved the association of dioceses and provinces into ‘national’ churches, although the word ‘national’ fell out of favour in the post-war period.Footnote 9 As nations gained independence, it seemed appropriate that ecclesiastical structures should no longer reflect a colonial legacy. For this reason, the principle of autonomy became attached to the national church, just as sovereignty was to a nation. By the late twentieth century, therefore, it was no longer the (metropolitical) province that exercised an inherent power justified from patristic sources – now it was each member church of the Anglican Communion (often co-terminous with a nation) that was understood to be autonomous, even the Church of England.Footnote 10
The principle of member church autonomy is now taken almost as axiomatic.Footnote 11 From it are derived further principles that are common Anglican understandings of fundamental authority and thus, in a sense, successors to Article 37, such as:
11.2 Each church recognises that the churches of the Anglican Communion are bound together, not juridically by a central legislative, executive or judicial authority, but by mutual loyalty maintained through the instruments of Anglican unity as an expression of that communion.
12.5 No church is legally bound by a decision of any ecclesiastical body external to itself, unless that decision is authorised under or incorporated into its own law.
The instruments of communion
It is a common principle that:
11.5 The instruments of communion enjoy such binding authority within a church as may be prescribed by the law of that church.
In other words, the instruments possess no inherent universal jurisdiction and there is no pan-Anglican General Synod. We might therefore be tempted to conclude there is no synodality (an obviously cognate term) at the universal level. However, synodality is not confined to synods with jurisdiction or legislative and disciplinary powers. The second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission described synodality in the following way:
In each local church all the faithful are called to walk together in Christ. The term synodality (derived from σύνοδος meaning ‘common way’) indicates the manner in which believers and churches are held together in communion as they do this. It expresses their vocation as people of the Way (cf Acts 9.2) to live, work and journey together in Christ who is the Way…Footnote 12
and was explicit that the instruments of communion were in fact ‘instruments of synodality’:
In the Anglican Communion as a whole the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference and the Archbishop of Canterbury serve as instruments of synodality.Footnote 13
I now briefly describe each of the four instruments, and suggest how each exhibits the synodal style.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
The Anglican Communion is a family of churches in Communion with the See of Canterbury.Footnote 14 We could therefore describe the Archbishop as the ecclesiastical keystone of the Communion. From each member church’s bilateral relationship of communion with the See of Canterbury arises the multi-lateral relationship which we call the Anglican Communion. Some of the many effects of this are described in Principle 14, which begins:
14.1 Each church in the Anglican Communion welcomes members of all other churches in the Communion to share in the spiritual benefits available in the host church.
The office of the Archbishop of Canterbury therefore enables members of Anglican churches to see one another as members of the same Communion. Through our common relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury, we walk together as Anglicans. This may seem a somewhat nebulous concept, but it is made concrete for the traveller welcomed to receive Holy Communion in an Anglican church far from home, or in the small and struggling parish in a place where Christians may be few or enduring persecution, yet are conscious of belonging to a wider, global Anglican family.
Aside from a very few exceptions in some churches,Footnote 15 the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises only moral or persuasive (and not jurisdictional) authority at the universal level.
The Lambeth Conference
The Lambeth Conference takes place approximately every 10 years, and all serving bishops of the Anglican Communion are usually invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who convenes it. Participation in the Lambeth Conference has always been predicated on the understanding that it has no juridical authority.Footnote 16 When Archbishop Longley convened the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, he stated that the conference was not a general synod for the Anglican Communion and that ‘no decision [shall be] come to that shall affect generally the interests of the Church, but that we shall meet for brotherly counsel and encouragement’.Footnote 17 The term synod was seen to imply jurisdiction (in the way that, for example, the Church of England’s General Synod can legislate for its dioceses) and was therefore rejected.Footnote 18
The Lambeth Conference itself has stated that Member Churches:
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.Footnote 19
Despite not being understood as a synod, the Conference manifests synodality through the synodal method of common counsel.
Sometimes the Lambeth Conference has made non-juridical resolutions,Footnote 20 which are considered by the member churches, and if each so desires, may be acted upon. For example, a 1930 resolution of the Lambeth Conference respecting the churches of the Union of Utrecht led the way to an Act of Convocation in the Church of England in 1932 establishing inter-communion between those churches.Footnote 21
The 2022 Lambeth Conference issued ‘calls’ instead of resolutions, which were seen as more appropriate than formal resolutions.Footnote 22 The three phases of that Conference were described as ‘Listening Together’ (bishops’ pre-Conference meetings online), ‘Walking Together’ (the meeting in Canterbury), and ‘Witnessing Together’ (implementing the calls). It is clear that themes of synodality are present in this structure.
The Primates’ Meeting
The first Primates’ Meeting was convened by Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan in 1978, and was intended for ‘leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation’.Footnote 23 The purpose of the meetings is to ‘give leadership and support’, ‘provide guidance’ and also ‘address pressing issues affecting the life of the Communion’. Footnote 24 The meetings take place every 1–2 years, and are they thus placed to be able to respond to ‘pressing issues’ more swiftly than is the Lambeth Conference.
Alexander Ross has argued that in the post-war period the rising importance of national churches’ autonomy was reinforced by developments in which the Primates’ Meeting exercised increasing Communion-wide (albeit moral and non-coercive) authority.Footnote 25 In the early church, the designation of a see as primatial had been mainly an honorary title. From the twentieth century, however, Anglican primates were increasingly seen as personifying the sovereignty of the national church.Footnote 26 When the primates gather, therefore, this can be seen as symbolising and embodying the journeying-together of the Anglican churches.
The 1998 Lambeth Conference resolved that the Primates’ Meeting should include among its responsibilities ‘intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces’.Footnote 27 This resolution is in tension with the autonomy of the member churches, and it remains the case that the Primates’ Meeting is not able to intervene in the internal affairs of a member church unless invited to do so by that church.
The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC)
The ACC was created following a 1968 resolution of the Lambeth Conference. Like the other instruments, it is not a synod for the Anglican Communion, but unlike them it incorporates the involvement of the laity and clergy alongside bishops:
The Anglican Consultative Council was to give a voice to lay people who were now fully participating in the governance of their provinces across the world; although the Council, like the Lambeth Conference, has always disavowed any intention to develop a more formal synodical status.Footnote 28
The ACC is a limited company registered in the UK, and its Articles of Association of the ACC provide that:
The Council’s objects (‘the Objects’) are specifically restricted to the following: to advance the Christian religion and in particular to promote the unity and purposes of the Churches of the Anglican Communion in mission, evangelism, ecumenical relations, communication, administration and finance. Footnote 29
The ACC’s membership is primarily composed of representatives nominated by each member church, along with others (such as the Archbishop of Canterbury who is President ex officio). We do find something close to a jurisdiction (at least as regards membership), in that the ACC Standing Committee (with the Primates exercising a veto) can remove member churches from the Council.Footnote 30 The ACC meets approximately every three years, although many committees and networksFootnote 31 function between meetings. The meetings are an opportunity to address shared problems and discern God’s will together. The powers of the ACCFootnote 32 enable it to facilitate, advise, encourage, and ‘develop as far as possible agreed Anglican policies in the world mission of the Church’.Footnote 33 The work of the ACC very explicitly focuses on enabling participation in the mission of the church through the path of walking together. The ACC therefore, not least in its involvement of the laity, is an essential component of Anglican synodality at the universal level.
Synodality in practice
Having examined each of the instruments in turn, I conclude with some examples that may illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the Anglican approach to synodality at the universal level.
Synodical government was revived in New Zealand and Australia in the nineteenth century, and it was chiefly through bishops’ common counsel (effected by the Lambeth Conference in particular) that these models were shared among Anglican churches. The inclusion of the laity in synodical government similarly spread in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. No central dictat imposed synodical government, or lay involvement, but there was a general discernment, taken up by the bishops of each church in turn, that this was the direction in which God was calling them. Today, both of these aspects of Anglican polity are universal, and are principles of Anglican canon law (qv principles 15.6 and 15.9).
The formation of The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion can itself be seen as the fruits of the synodal style. The principles were discerned in dialogue between canonists from across the churches, and their authority derives from a common discernment among Anglican churches that they represent the commonalities in our canon law. They show with a greater clarity how Anglicans – despite the diversity of cultures – are already journeying together on common paths.
Yet there are also clear deficiencies in the Anglican model. Sometimes, common counsel has not led to agreement or development along similar lines. At the present time we see churches of the Communion diverging on matters of human sexuality and the doctrine of marriage. Whereas most Anglicans have been happy to live with difference in other areas of doctrine (such as the differences we have seen between Article 37 in England and in the USA), on the question of human sexuality, some Anglicans have felt the differences have become too great for ‘walking together’ to continue. Principle 12.7 states:
Each autonomous church has the greatest possible liberty to order its life and affairs, taking into consideration appropriateness to its people in their geographical, cultural and historical context, and compatibility with its belonging to and interdependence with the church universal.Footnote 34
Thus, member church autonomy ought to be exercised in a way that acknowledges what is owed to the church universalFootnote 35 – however, there is no procedural method by which this can be guaranteed by any body at the universal level. The instruments of communion do not have the power to conclude these debates or issue a definitive ruling. Whereas St Peter’s journey begun in Acts 10 may be seen to reach its destination in the conclusive decision of the Synod of Jerusalem in Acts 15, the Anglican Communion has no means of reaching a conclusive synodical decision on the divisive questions of the day.
Contemplating these issues in 1998, the second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission proposed that the solution for Anglicans could be found in the universal primacy as a gift to be shared. They wrote that:
such a primacy could be offered and received even before our churches are in full communion. Both Roman Catholics and Anglicans look to this ministry being exercised in collegiality and synodality … This sort of primacy will already assist the Church on earth to be the authentic catholic koinonia in which unity does not curtail diversity, and diversity does not endanger but enhances unity.Footnote 36
while acknowledging that this development was predicated on the assumption:
that Anglicans be open to and desire a recovery and re-reception under certain clear conditions of the exercise of universal primacy by the Bishop of Rome.Footnote 37
Although many welcomed this finding, the reception to The Gift of Authority in 1998 was not universally positive among Anglicans.Footnote 38 Yet the difficulties in the Anglican Communion have only increased in the quarter-century since its publication. The third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission has returned to these themes and finds that:
Our common reading of the New Testament and post-apostolic period leads Catholics and Anglicans to agree that episcope, synodality, and primacy are enduring and necessary, and are gifts of God for the unity and mission of the Church.Footnote 39
The Commission asksFootnote 40 that these matters continue to be discussed among our churches in the mode of receptive ecclesial learning and in the style of synodality – to which work this paper is prayerfully offered as a small contribution.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on a paper delivered to the Twenty-Third Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers, ‘Canon Law and Synodality’, meeting at the Pontifical University of St Thomas of Aquinas, The Angelicum, Rome, 24–27 September 2024. A version of this article was originally published in edition 206 of the Newsletter of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland and is published here with the permission of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
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