Gafcon restructures Anglican governance, signaling break from historic communion

The restructuring formalizes a rift that has widened over decades as Gafcon’s constituent churches have opposed same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly LGBTQ+ clergy in Anglican churches across Europe and North America, with some national churches already having withdrawn from Anglican Communion gatherings altogether.

Conservative Anglican leaders meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, have disbanded their existing governing body and replaced it with a new council that expands voting rights beyond senior bishops, formalizing a deepening break from the roughly 400-year-old Anglican Communion.

The Global Anglican Future Conference, known as Gafcon, dissolved its Primates Council and established a Global Anglican Council at a gathering that drew 436 delegates from 48 countries and more than 180 dioceses. The new body includes primates, advisers, and guarantors drawn from bishops, clergy, and lay members — each with full voting privileges — Gafcon general secretary The Right Reverend Paul Donison said in a statement.

“While the Chairman of the Council will be a Primate, he will not be primus inter pares (first amongst equals),” Donison said. “Believing that the current Instruments of Communion no longer meet the needs of the majority of Anglicans around the world, the Global Anglican Communion is to be led by a conciliar structure.”

Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda was unanimously elected as chair of the new council. In remarks broadcast on the Advent Cable Network Nigeria, the televangelism arm of the Church of Nigeria, Mbanda said leaders within Gafcon must “reject those instruments that have not worked for us in the past.”

Background on the split

Gafcon’s constituent churches have long opposed same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly LGBTQ+ clergy in Anglican churches across Europe and North America, including the Episcopal Church in the United States. Those divisions have widened sharply over recent decades, with some national churches withdrawing from Anglican Communion gatherings, according to the Associated Press.

Among the existing instruments of Anglican leadership is the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Sarah Mullally — the church’s spiritual head and the first woman to hold the position. Mullally has faced opposition in her role, the AP reported.

Last year, Mbanda had called for a break from the historic communion as currently structured, declaring that “the Anglican Communion will be reordered.”