IASCUFO’s Mandate – ‘Decision-Making’

The Lambeth Conference 2022, in one of its ‘Calls’, requested a review of the four Instruments of Communion.Footnote ³ Accordingly, in 2023 the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) requested IASCUFO to take a fresh look at the ‘structure and decision-making’ of the Anglican Communion ‘to help address our differences in the Anglican Communion’ (ACC-18, Resolution 3(a)) and, in the course of their work, to consider the following: ‘To what extent are the [four] Instruments fit for purpose? To what extent might some (or all) of the Instruments be reconfigured to serve the Communion of today and the future?’ (§3.3).

However, we might wonder whether this resolution of the ACC was worded in the best way. The remit given to IASCUFO referred to ‘structure and decision-making’ and pointed to a focus on the four ‘Instruments’. But the NCPs go beyond this remit; the changes that they advocate impinge on the identity and the ecclesiological constitution of the Anglican Communion. The NCPs seem to be pushing the boundaries beyond what was asked for.

The reference to ‘decision-making’ in the ACC resolution seems misconceived. None of the four Instruments of Communion has the authority to take decisions for the Anglican Communion as a whole or for any member church (‘province’) within it.

1. (a) Historically, the Lambeth Conference has passed resolutions, which have the status of recommendations to the member churches for consideration through their own structures and processes of governance. The resolutions have the moral and pastoral authority of the bishops collectively, but they are not binding or mandatory for any member church. The 2008 Lambeth Conference used Indaba for listening to one another, the fruits of which were summarised in Lambeth Indaba: Reflections from the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The 2022 Lambeth Conference used the term ‘Calls’. Both Indaba and Calls have a softer tone than ‘Resolutions’ and even more clearly imply voluntary compliance.

2. (b) The Primates Meeting was set up at the suggestion of Archbishop Donald Coggan in 1978 for ‘leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation’ – in other words, prayerful conferring. Contrary to some recent assumptions, it has no power to direct the Anglican Communion or to require any action of or in the Anglican Communion.Footnote ⁴

3. (c) The Archbishop of Canterbury likewise has no power to direct the Anglican Communion or to issue instructions. Nor can the Archbishop intervene in the affairs of any member church unless asked by that church for advice or other help. The Archbishop of Canterbury does not have general executive authority even within the Church of England, except in very special cases, let alone within the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury invites (with the advice of a planning group) the bishops of the Anglican Communion to the Lambeth Conference and, by inviting and hosting, in fact convenes the Conference. Neither the presidency role of another primate, as envisaged by the 2024 NCPs, nor the Primates’ Council, as proposed in the Supplement, could have any decision-making or executive powers over member churches or the Anglican Communion as a whole unless those were awarded after due process by the member churches. The Archbishop of Canterbury is described as, for some, ‘a hoped-for court of appeal’ (p. 28), and the constitutions of certain churches make provision for a reference or request to be made to the Archbishop for advice or moderation, but the fact remains that the Archbishop of Canterbury has no such authority or role unless requested to provide it by a member church.Footnote ⁵

4. (d) The ACC is the only one of the four Instruments of Communion that has any executive powers of decision, but these are confined to carrying out specific designated functions, especially concerning finance and membership of the Communion. Otherwise, the ACC serves as a sort of clearing house for matters that concern the whole Anglican Communion. So I question whether the ACC has the constitutional power to take any decision, either for or against the NCPs. Having requested IASCUFO to prepare advice, the most that the ACC can do is to refer that advice (the NCPs, Supplement and FAQs), provided it is sufficiently convinced of its value to do so, to all the member churches of the Anglican Communion for study and eventual response to the ACC. I cannot see that the ACC has the power to do more than that, though it could of course decline to refer the material to the member churches (provinces).

The NCPs make much of ‘decision-making’ in the Anglican Communion, and that was part of their remit. The Global South groupings consistently complain about the failure of the instruments to deal with the problems of the Communion to bring it into line, as they would see it; that is part of their standard rhetoric.Footnote ⁶ But this gambit is a rhetorical fiction; it lacks reality both constitutionally and in practice. The instruments are advisory. They cannot take decisions on behalf of the Communion; they cannot exercise discipline over the member churches. The member churches are the only bodies that can take such decisions as are envisaged and then only for themselves. The Anglican Communion is an interdependent fellowship (koinonia) of self-governing churches, equal in status, authority and mutual esteem, and that is the beauty of it. It works together through its Instruments of Communion by study, consultation, deliberation, debate, persuasion and consensus. If consensus cannot be attained, the status quo must remain.Footnote ⁷

Principal Proposals of NCPs

The effect of the two main, related, structural changes of the NCPs is to downgrade the role of the See of Canterbury within the identity, ecclesiology and shared life of the Anglican Communion and correspondingly to elevate the role of the primates in its place. One goes down and the other comes up. Accordingly, the NCPs propose to rephrase the historic, classical statement of the identity of the Anglican Communion in the Lambeth Conference 1930 Resolution 49:

The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted dioceses, provinces or regional churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, which have the following characteristics in common:

1. a. they uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order as they are generally set forth in the Book of Common Prayer as authorised in their several churches;

2. b. they are particular or national churches and, as such, promote within each of their territories a national expression of Christian faith, life and worship; and

3. 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.

Behind Resolution 49 stands Resolution 48, which is also significant for our enquiry:

As well as a ‘common faith’, the Anglican Communion, as an expression of the Catholic Church of the creeds, upholds a ‘common order’, that is, an order that is common to all. However, that is also currently undermined where sacramental episcopal collegiality is withheld. But Lambeth Conference 1930 Resolution 48 is not discussed in the NCPs.

A. The NCPs recommend several changes to this description, the most significant being a change from ‘communion with the See of Canterbury’ to ‘historic connection with the See of Canterbury’. This change is reaffirmed in the Supplement. There are several problems with this proposed change:

1. (i) It eliminates the reference to eucharistic communion and episcopal collegiality – which is certainly what was meant by the 1930 Lambeth Conference in Resolutions 48 and 49 – from the ecclesiological make-up of the Anglican Communion (see more below).

2. (ii) This proposed change is entailed in the general thrust of the NCPs, which promote the idea that a mutually recognised baptism, rather than Holy Communion/Eucharist, is an adequate minimal basis to secure the cohesion of the Anglican Communion in the future and that it is acceptable for ‘communion’ in the context of the Anglican Communion to be understood as baptismal communion where eucharistic communion is not acceptable for some. Is this approach satisfactory? Baptism in the context of faith unites us with Christ in his death and resurrection (Rom. 6.1–14) and incorporates us into the Church as his body (1 Cor. 12–27). Baptism certainly creates communion, both between those baptised and the Holy Trinity and between all the baptised. We might say that baptism is the ground of communion, the beginning of the journey of Christian initiation which concludes with communicating participation in the Eucharist (Holy Communion). Baptism comes to fulfilment in Holy Communion/Eucharist, and that is precisely how ‘communion’ in the Anglican context has been understood hitherto. Eucharistic communion should be the bedrock, not be a mere hope or aspiration, as it seems to be for the NCPs.

3. (iii) A change of the historic wording ‘in communion with the See of Canterbury’ to ‘a historic connection with the See of Canterbury’ would be to exchange a very specific criterion for a vague and non-specific criterion which could mean much or little, and I suspect it would be contentious in practice to apply. Presumably, it would exclude any church that wished in the future to seek membership of the Anglican Communion but lacked an historic connection with the See of Canterbury from joining, which seems an unnecessary restriction. If this wording had been in place sixty years ago, it would probably have excluded from the Anglican Communion the Iglesia Española Reformada Episcopal (Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain, which had re-received the historic episcopate from the Church of Ireland and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America in 1954) and the Igreja Lusitana Católica Apostólica Evangélica (Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church of Portugal, which owes its episcopacy to PECUSA), who were welcomed into membership of the Communion in 1980.Footnote ⁹ On the other hand, the ‘historic connection’ criterion might open the door for breakaway ‘Anglican’ churches to apply for membership (though the ACC’s constitutional process for considering any such application would still pertain).

B. The NCPs (Advent 2024) aim to increase the weight of the Primates’ Meeting and especially of its Standing Committee, calling for the election of one of the primates to serve for six years in place of the Archbishop of Canterbury as president of the ACC, representing the Communion to the world and convening the Lambeth Conference. However, the Supplement (March 2026) proposes instead a Primates’ Council that would be responsible for those tasks. Both the original proposal and the modified version in the Supplement are linked to the further proposal that the Lambeth Conference should move around the globe. The practical difficulties of these two linked ideas are evident: (i) likely rivalry and electioneering for the position of president or for a place on the small Primates’ Council; (ii) uncertainty about finding the substantial financial and administrative resources to mount and host a Lambeth Conference in some areas of the world when the main funders of the Anglican Communion have been sidelined. We might wonder how a corporate presidency, held by the Primates’ Council, which is what seems to be advocated in the Supplement, would work in practice? Such an oligarchy – especially one composed solely or mainly of men – would not prove acceptable to many Anglicans.

C. Lambeth Conference 1930 Resolution 49 affirms, as one of the defining features of the Anglican Communion, that it has no ‘central legislative and executive authority’. That statement defines the historical and present character of the Anglican Communion, where ‘legislative and executive authority’ resides only in the member churches. But the NCPs advocate the deletion of these words in the proposed redraft of that resolution (see its Appendix). Why do this, if not to pave the way for greater centralisation of the Anglican Communion and some kind of executive authority greater than that of the individual member churches in the future? That seems to be implied in the regime that Global South groupings set for themselves and advocate for the Anglican Communion – internal ‘decision-making’ and ‘discipline’. The NCPs were free to advance that change, but it would need to be a lot clearer what the Communion would be buying into if such a proposal were to proceed. The fastest way to dissolve the Anglican Communion would be for any of the Instruments to attempt to exercise decision-making and disciplinary powers over the member churches without their consent.

Synodality and Primacy

The NCPs advocate a stronger synodical dimension for the Anglican Communion in the future. The nature of that synodality is not spelt out. But as things stand, the Lambeth Conference, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury after consultation, is an example of a synodical (or conciliar) event that does not legislate or issue decrees – just like the Second Vatican Council in 1962–1965, convened by the Pope, and the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church in 2016, convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch. At these conciliar and synodical events, the bishops gave teaching and issued guidance and challenges to the church and the world, but neither of them engaged in legislation or issued canons. Increased synodical participation does not necessarily entail any enhanced claim to authority. In the Anglican Communion, authority lies by definition with the autonomous member churches.Footnote ¹⁰ It seems inconsistent for the NCPs to affirm the autonomy of the member churches and at the same time to suggest powers to exercise discipline over them.

The marginalisation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the elevation of the primates seem intended to shape this future form of synodality. But the proposed removal of the Archbishop of Canterbury from their convening role in regard to the Lambeth Conference and the proposed deletion of the role of president of the ACC from its Constitution are without sufficient reason. The Anglican Communion should maintain that ecumenically recognised balance of primacy and synodality which has been symbolised up to the present by the Archbishop of Canterbury as genuinely primus/prima inter pares, being also the convener of the Lambeth Conference and the president of the ACC. Synodality or conciliarity is a beautiful and holy thing.Footnote ¹¹ But the removal of primacy/presidency, in the traditional Anglican form, is not the way to achieve authentic synodality, because it unbalances the widely accepted synodical ecology which requires synodality and primacy to be held together in balance, as we see in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. For example, the Alexandria statement of the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue says:

Furthermore, any form of primacy, however constrained, needs to be recognisable and findable. It needs to have ‘a local habitation and a name’ if it is not to be ‘an airy nothing’.Footnote ¹³ Rome is the locus of the papacy, and Constantinople the locus of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Their primacy is identifiable and so also is their synodality. Their faithful know where to look. Anglican primacy (different as it is particularly from that of Rome, though not so different from that of Constantinople) is located at Canterbury and so is recognisable and findable; it has its local habitation and its name. A floating Primates Council, which exercises the functions of primacy/presidency but has no particular home in the world, does not do it.

IASCUFO’s Assessment of the Present Situation

While the NCPs seek to address problems within the Anglican Communion of impaired or ‘broken’ communion between churches and in relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the situation is actually more serious and more dire than as described in the report. Some strong voices in the Global South (and some in other spheres) continue to denounce Western churches for ordaining women to the priesthood and the episcopate. They glory in their patriarchal and androcentric gender structure. More strongly, some do not regard those who advocate the acceptance of same-sex relations as Christians at all and deny salvation to them. For example, The Truth Shall Set You Free: Global Anglicans in the 21^st Century, edited by Charles Raven (The Latimer Trust, 2013), threatens the wrath of God and eternal punishment on Western Anglicans.Footnote ¹⁴ This shocking aspect is not mentioned in the NCPs, but it wrecks any hope of comprehensive mutual participation and consultation across the Communion in the future. Even the sort of attenuated relationships advocated in the NCPs cannot stand without mutual recognition of one another as Christians and the willingness to sit down together at the same table, which clearly does not exist in some cases (and I don’t even mean ‘the Lord’s Table’). In 2020, IASCUFO produced the paper ‘God’s Sovereignty and Our Salvation’Footnote ¹⁵ which addressed this problem from key biblical and theological perspectives, warning that it is not for any individual to pass judgement on the faith or salvation of another. Neither is it the prerogative of one particular church to pass such judgement on another church.

A key New Testament statement of communion is, ‘Our communion (koinonia) is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1.3). Do those who condemn the Western member churches and refuse to join with them in communion at the Lord’s Table and in serving the Communion through the Instruments deny this reality to those churches? If we are in communion with God the Holy Trinity through faith and the sacraments, we ought to be in communion with each other.

The Role of the See of Canterbury Within the Anglican Communion

The report casts the Church of England and the See of Canterbury as the primary causes of the problems of disunity within the Anglican Communion. This perspective is invidious. It should not be forgotten that, during the period of decolonisation in the mid-twentieth century, it was an Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, who facilitated the setting up of indigenous Anglican Churches in Africa and drafted constitutions to give them a flying start.

The difficulties that some within the Communion find with the See of Canterbury are partly due to the tendency of the previous incumbent to seek a higher profile and a more pivotal role within the Anglican Communion than his predecessors did and more than is warranted by the constitutions, conventions and traditions of Anglicanism. During recent years, the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury within the Communion became excessively personalised; a ‘leadership’ position was being claimed. In reality, the Archbishop of Canterbury does not have ‘leadership’ in the Anglican Communion and is not ‘a leader’ within it. As the NCPs themselves rightly imply, any such pretensions are quite out of place and have (albeit unintended) echoes of colonialism. Leadership cannot be assumed, nor can it be claimed. Leadership can only be awarded by others; it is never owned by an individual and can only be exercised where it is invited.Footnote ¹⁶

The Archbishop of Canterbury is a diocesan bishop, primate and metropolitan of the Church of England, who, by tradition and convention, as primus/prima inter pares, has convened the Lambeth Conference and, in more recent times, the ACC and the Primates Meeting and served as president in them, though not necessarily chairing their meetings, a role which should be amply shared, as the NCPs advocate. The See of Canterbury has also been widely recognised as a focus of unity and continuity for the Anglican Communion. As the NCPs themselves insist, the Archbishop of Canterbury has no executive role or authority within the Anglican Communion (except a role, together with others, in some appointments that serve the Anglican Communion). It is certain that the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, will adopt a different tone, stance and role – as servant, supporter, encourager, adviser and pastor, working alongside fellow bishops collaboratively – which will draw the sting of some of the concerns reflected in the NCPs and serve to commend and even endear the role to the majority of the Anglican Communion.

The NCPs Fail to Challenge Unjustified Separation

The statements and actions of some churches of the Global South, concerning being in (eucharistic) communion and being out of (eucharistic) communion, are not examined or evaluated in the NCPs. The validity and acceptability of such separation are simply taken at face value; they are meekly accepted as the unquestioned starting point and agenda. The refusal of some to participate in the Instruments of the Anglican Communion or to share Holy Communion together is not challenged, and there is no attempt to justify it biblically or theologically.

I find it difficult to locate a solid biblical, theological or historical justification for separation on the grounds invoked by these bodies. I cannot see a clear basis in Scripture, Christian theology or even the Reformation (see below) that justifies separation on the grounds that one strongly disapproves of certain statements or actions of a church, even actions and statements that are thought to be scandalous. We see this clearly in St Paul’s attitude to the glaring doctrinal errors and/or moral abuses of the churches of Galatia and Corinth. Paul treats these communities as Christians (‘called to be saints’) and remains in communion with them, while at the same time seeking to remedy their faults. Paul does not anathematise them or withdraw his ministry from them; he continues to pastor them.

There are instances where the community is urged temporarily to shun an individual (2 Thess. 3.4–6; 1 Cor. 5.9–11; 11.29–32; Matt. 18.15–17). But our context in this discussion is not the community’s attitude to an erring individual but the communion of church with church. In Galatians. 1.8, Paul anathematises the group that preaches ‘another gospel’ by teaching salvation by works of the law and so implicitly denying the saving work of Christ (we may infer similar contexts in 2 Cor. 11.4–5 and 13–15; Phil. 3.2–4). But Paul does not condemn the whole church in Galatia, even though it is being swayed by false teaching.Footnote ¹⁷

However, the errors at stake in the condemnations found in 1 John, leading to withdrawal of fellowship from those ‘who deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh’ (1 John 2.22–23; 4.2–4), amount to a denial of the divinity and humanity of Christ (Christology, later codified by a series of ecumenical councils as the credal doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation). The dividing line seems to be the denial of the person and work of Jesus Christ, the heart of the gospel, which raises the issue to another level. I trust that the good news of Jesus Christ is not at issue between Global South groupings and the rest of the Anglican Communion, for all are baptised Christian believers.

I do not know of any major Christian theologian through the ages – Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Jewel, Hooker or Barth, to mention but a few – who have supported separation on the grounds that a church has gone wrong in doctrine or morals. The consensus of the classical Anglican divines of past centuries is that separation is justified only when we are being forced to participate ourselves in matters that are against our conscience. All these great teachers have unanimously condemned such separation and breaking of eucharistic communion as we are faced with now in the Anglican Communion; they categorised it as schism – unwarranted separation.Footnote ¹⁸ All of the writers mentioned above followed the biblical imperative that our prime responsibility towards our fellow Christians is to remain in eucharistic communion with them, even when we believe that they are seriously mistaken.Footnote ¹⁹

It is not correct to claim, as the NCPs do, in support of current sacramental separation, that King Henry VIII of England broke with Rome in the 1530s because he believed that Rome was heretical and riddled with abuses. For Henry VIII, it was purely a power struggle with the papacy over his desire to gain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon for dynastic reasons and an opportunity for the enrichment of the throne and the state. Henry remained a traditional Catholic, and, although he was not invariably consistent, he did not significantly change the doctrine or liturgy of the English Church after the break with the papacy (those changes came with his son and successor Edward VI). To the extent that Henry made changes, he was influenced by the reform agenda of Erasmus of Rotterdam and other Catholic humanist scholars and bishops. Erasmian reform did not, of course, advocate separation from Rome.Footnote ²⁰

Neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin personally initiated their separation from the Roman Catholic Church; it was forced upon them. Luther remained within the Catholic Church from the publication of his Ninety-five Theses on 31 October 1517 until he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X on 3 January 1521 and so excluded. Calvin fled for his life from Paris to hospitable Switzerland when the authorities clamped down on student protests. John Jewel justified the separation of the English Church from Rome in his voluminous polemical writings, beginning with his Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ (1562), precisely after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) had anathematised (damned) those who held key Reformation doctrines such as justification by faith and when England was seriously threatened with invasion by foreign powers backed by the Pope.

Distancing moves by Anglican churches should be questioned, on the basis of Scripture, history and Christian theology, not feebly acquiesced in, as the NCPs do.Footnote ²¹ The NCPs are prepared to give up the most precious attribute of the Anglican Communion – the highest expression of our communion with God and fellow Christians, celebrated and affirmed in the one Eucharist – to tempt back into the fold those whose separation was not justified in the first place.

A Reductionist Meaning of ‘Communion’

The NCPs frequently use the term ‘communion’, but it is not expounded in depth, except to say that it is multi-layered, a matter of degree and grounded in baptism (all correct). But that is simply – though importantly – the baseline of how communion (koinonia, communio and sobornost) has been understood in the universal church, in the ecumenical movement and in the Anglican Communion, not the whole of it and not the sacramental superstructure. The communion of the ‘Anglican Communion’ has clearly been understood hitherto as not only baptismal but also eucharistic and episcopal, effected and expressed by an interchangeable eucharistic presidency, the mutual participation of Anglican bishops in episcopal ordinations (consecrations), by the general interchangeability of holy orders and by the Lambeth Conference symbolically starting with a celebration of the Eucharist presided by the Archbishop of Canterbury with whom all bishops of the Anglican Communion are expected to be ‘in communion’. While that historical pattern is not challenged by the NCPs, they do not endorse it for the future, except as an aspiration.

The NCPs invoke the concept of ‘the highest degree of communion possible’. This is, of course, an admirable and worthy aim. The expression became familiar within the Anglican Communion thanks to the Eames Reports of the late 1980s. It belongs with the concept of degrees of communion and, therefore, imperfect communion. We owe these notions to the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio), where – significantly for our context – these concepts do not refer to churches and bishops within a single world communion, namely the Roman Catholic Church, but to the possibilities of relations, through ecumenical dialogue, with churches not currently in communion with the Holy See.Footnote ²² So ‘Eames’ adapted the notion of degrees of communion to suit the challenge of those times when a situation of ‘impaired communion’ had arisen within the Anglican Communion whereby some member churches of the Anglican Communion were unable to accept women in the episcopate, either because they were opposed in principle to women’s ordination or because, like the Church of England, they had not yet made provision in their Canons for it. ‘Eames’ also insisted – again significantly for our context – that no church should declare itself ‘out of communion’ with any other church of the Anglican Communion, but that lesson has not been learned by some.

The relationships of full visible communion (ecclesial communion) that the whole Anglican Communion has with the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, the Philippine Independent Church (Iglesia Filipina Independiente), the Mar Thoma Church of South India, the (ecumenically) United Churches of South India and North India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are all premised on eucharistic and episcopal communion. The relationship between the British and Irish Anglican Churches and the Lutheran Churches of Northern Europe (excluding the Latvian Church in Latvia) through the Porvoo Agreement has the same basis. The Episcopal Church has entered into a similar relationship of eucharistic and episcopal communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Moravian Church in North America, the Church of Sweden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. The Anglican Church in Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have a similar agreement for eucharistic and episcopal communion.

If Anglican churches in these full communion relationships were formally permitted by changes to the identity of the Anglican Communion, as advocated by the NCPs, to have a lower degree of communion with their sister churches within the Anglican Communion than with some churches outside of the Anglican Communion, it would result in an unworkable state of ecclesiological incoherence, which would be glaringly obvious to ecumenical partners, not least the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, and undermine their confidence in the Anglican Communion and the See of Canterbury as partners to be taken seriously, as they have until now.

In the Greek New Testament, the term koinonia has various layers of meaning (sharing in common, fellowship and communion), one of which is used by St Paul to describe eucharistic participation (1 Cor. 10.16–17). The terms communio in the Roman Catholic Church and sobornost in the Orthodox tradition also imply eucharistic communion and episcopal collegiality. As Anglicans, we cannot pretend that we will still have a ‘Communion’ if those elements of sacramental communion and episcopal collegiality have been downgraded in importance as non-essential in principle for membership of the Anglican Communion. ‘Eames’ was dealing with a situation of impaired communion of limited scope and one that has since diminished as more Anglican churches, together with some churches in communion, have moved to ordain women to the episcopate.

Consequences for Anglican Ecumenism

Communion (koinonia) is indeed a matter of degree, but the degree of communion proposed in the report as an acceptable minimum – which falls short of the eucharistic-episcopal communion that has historically pertained in the Anglican Communion – is comparable to the kind or degree of communion which has been recognised in those ecumenical agreements involving Anglican churches that fall short of eucharistic or ecclesial communion. This aspect of the paper’s argument rests on an intentional but misguided cross-over from Anglican ecumenical dialogue with churches with whom the Anglican Communion is not in ecclesial communion to churches with whom it is in ecclesial communion. It seems retrograde to allow the relationships of Anglican churches worldwide to be lowered to the level of relationship of partial and incomplete communion that Anglican churches have with those ecumenical partners with whom they are not yet in full or ecclesial communion. The bottom line of relationships between the churches of the Anglican Communion would then be no different essentially from the relationships between the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain through the Anglican-Methodist Covenant (2003) or between the Church of England and the EKD (Protestant Churches of Germany) through the Meissen Agreement (1991). Nor would it differ in kind from the relationship that pertains between member churches of the World Council of Churches because they are not required to formally recognise the ecclesial credentials (including ministry and sacraments) of any other member church.Footnote ²³ The primates’ teaching document The Gift, Call and Challenge of Communion (2022) is a sound guide to the nature of our communion in the Anglican Communion, but IASCUFO has departed from it, just as it has ignored previous recent documents from IASCUFO that are relevant to the question.

To change the basis of the Anglican Communion as historically set out by the 1930 Lambeth Conference Resolutions 48 and 49 to the extent that Anglican churches were no longer required to be in sacramental communion with the See of Canterbury and thus in communion with one another through their communion with Canterbury (so mediately as well as directly) in order to be member churches of the Anglican Communion would critically undermine ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and other major world communions, especially the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. The work of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) is premised explicitly on the goal of ‘full organic unity’ (Preface to the Final Report, 1982) and ‘the restoration of complete communion in faith and sacramental life’ (‘Common Declaration of by Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury [Donald Coggan]’, 1977) or (more recently) ‘full visible communion’ between the two world communions. ARCIC would be shipwrecked, as would the International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue and the Anglican–Oriental Orthodox International Commission (AOOIC).Footnote ²⁴

Process of Consideration Not Worked Out

The process of consideration and then possible implementation of the NCPs is not worked out in the report. There is almost certainly more to it than the bland assertion that churches that wish to remain ‘in communion with the See of Canterbury’ or a similar formula (though that is the most correct of the various forms of words that have been used in the past) would be free to do so (§79) or the mere statement that the constitution of the ACC gives it the power to change its own structures and processes. The ACC consists of lay, clerical and episcopal representatives of the member churches. Any changes to the Constitution require a comprehensive and cumbersome process involving all the churches and also a majority of two-thirds in favour.Footnote ²⁵ The ACC’s Constitution sets out its roles: the key verbs are advise, assist, facilitate, encourage, review and share information. Taking decisions on behalf of the churches of the Anglican Communion is no part of its designated functions.

The Constitution of the ACC defines the member churches as ‘in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury’ (Constitution, Article 2.1). Of course, everyone knows that ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’ refers to an office, not to any individual occupant of that office, and it is unhelpful when it is personalised. The expression ‘The See of Canterbury’ points more explicitly to institutional unity and historical continuity and so is to be preferred. The early Church tended to recognise Sees rather than bishops. Sees stand for continuity and unity.

It seems probable that, if the NCPs were to be referred to the member churches (provinces) of the Anglican Communion by the ACC (though there is no certainty of that happening), those churches would insist on considering the NCPs at a high synodical level of governance, especially where the NCPs are in tension with their own trust deeds. They may wish to approve one recommendation and reject others. If the NCPs were to undergo such a process, presumably every redrafted clause would need to go back to each church of the Anglican Communion. The process would carry on indefinitely with no end in sight, which is not an acceptable prospect.

In addition, a number of Anglican churches have the connection to the Church of England or the See of Canterbury written into their constitutions, their legal framework.Footnote ²⁶ This complication might well result in a permanently structurally differentiated Anglican Communion, with some churches remaining, as a legal requirement, in communion with the See of Canterbury and others not. Whereas what we have now is a fluid, possibly temporary, situation where some member churches are in a relationship of impaired communion both with the See of Canterbury and with other member churches. So the Anglican Communion would still be divided into two parts – and no better off.

What Difference Will the Proposals Make?

It seems doubtful whether the structural changes proposed for the Anglican Communion would result in most of the leaders and other representatives of Global South churches being willing to sit down at the same table, namely to participate in the Instruments of Communion, with those (the so-called ‘liberals’) who hold views and have performed actions that they deplore. The proposed marginalisation of the See of Canterbury and the enhancement of the primates seem unlikely to persuade certain parties to participate, as a matter of policy, in the Instruments if they do not already do so. The changes that are proposed, which will effect a reduced role for the See of Canterbury and an enhanced role for the primates, together with a reductionist version of the ‘communion’ between Anglican churches – based on a common baptism rather than a common Eucharist and a common ordained ministry – will not in themselves overcome the bitter divisions over sexuality and gender to enable people to come together in fellowship to work for the common good of the Anglican Communion. IASCUFO may have moved the goalposts, but if the players are not on the field, that tactic will not work.

The recent ‘Abuja Affirmation’ of the ‘Global Anglican Communion’ (GAC, aka GAFCON), under the name of the Archbishop of Rwanda, Dr Laurent Mbanda, insists that the churches within GAFCON will not participate in any of the Instruments of the Anglican Communion – not the Lambeth Conference, nor the Primates Meeting, nor even the ACC. The new Global Anglican Council, significantly mirroring in its structure aspects of the ACC, will govern the ‘Global Anglican Communion’, which seems to be intended as a replacement for the Anglican Communion as we know it. It seems highly doubtful whether an enhanced role for the primates and the demotion of the See of Canterbury will be a sufficient incentive for these churches (in practice, their leaders) to rejoin the Instruments of Communion.Footnote ²⁷ The NCPs would have been undermined by some of the very people they were ostensibly intended to help.

But would the NCPs make a difference to the participation of the more moderate Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA)? They must, of course, speak for themselves. But it seems to me that the NCPs would make little difference to the relationship between GSFA and the rest of the Communion and its Instruments. The GSFA sees itself as a grouping of churches that remain within the Anglican Communion.Footnote ²⁸ It does not look for an alternative Anglican Communion. Its membership overlaps (or overlapped) with that of GAFCON but (as far as one can tell in a rather confused situation) not so much or possibly not at all with the new successor to GAFCON, the Global Anglican Communion (GAC).Footnote ²⁹ Leaders and other representatives of GSFA churches tend to participate to some extent in the Instruments and commissions of the Communion, though not all tend to receive Holy Communion at such gatherings. They accused the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Justin Welby at the time) of breaking communion.Footnote ³⁰ The NCPs want the Global South churches to remain within the Communion. The NCPs encourage participation, but they do not discourage non-communicating at the Eucharist. They say nothing explicit about incursions by GSFA churches into other provinces which they find wanting – this is a worrying omission. They seem to endorse the current situation, but by laying the emphasis on baptismal communion, they imply that the current situation can be justified and simply needs to be recognised and accepted while we hope for better things in the future. So what difference will the NCPs make if accepted? What will have changed? Nothing for the GSFA, it seems, because the NCPs seem to mirror substantially the GSFA’s practice and to validate it. But much would change for the Anglican Communion as a concept, an ideal and a fellowship (koinonia) and for its place and standing alongside major ecumenical partner communions.