Global Anglicans announce break in communion from Church of England

The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) has announced it is rejecting the Church of England’s leadership, and is reordering the Anglican Communion.

In a statement, the Most Revd Dr Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda and Chairman of the Gafcon Primates’ Council, explained that in 2008, GAFCON first gathered to “respond to the abandonment of the Scriptures by some of the most senior leaders of the Anglican Communion, and to seek their repentance”.

He said “in the absence of such repentance”, GAFCON primates have now taken steps to “reform the Anglican Communion”, and announced that GAFCON is now “leading the Global Anglican Communion”, adding: “As has been the case from the very beginning, we have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion.”

‘Failed to uphold doctrine’

In its plan to reorder the Anglican Communion, GAFCON declared there will be “only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, ‘translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading'”.

Earlier this month, Dame Sarah Mullally was nominated to become the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in the CofE’s almost 500-year history. But GAFCON, which represents 85 per cent of the world’s 85 million Anglicans, has rejected her authority, saying she has “repeatedly promoted unbiblical and revisionist teachings regarding marriage and sexual morality”.

In its statement this week, it clearly rejected “the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion”.

We have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion. Most Revd Dr Laurent Mbanda, Chairman of the Gafcon Primates’ Council

It continued: “Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks”, and should amend their constitutions “to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England”.

The GAFCON statement also explained: “We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority”.

‘Please pray’

It encouraged faithful Anglicans to join them, explaining that: “To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.”

A Chairman is to be elected as ‘first among equals’ over a new Council of Primates as the Global Anglical Communion “continues ‘to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3)”.

Revd Mbanda concluded: “Please pray that we will lead our Communion in prayerful submission to the Holy Spirit as we hear the voice of Jesus in his wondrous Scriptures, to the glory of God.”