The conservative Anglican network Gafcon’s announcement last week that the Gobal Anglican Communion is here and the traditional links to the Archbishop of Canterbury should be ignored has been interprested in different ways. So who is right?

Have Gafcon left the Anglican Communion?

The Episcopal News Service, run by the US based Episcopal Church, one of the more liberal or progressive Anglican churches, thinks it is clear. Their Headline is “GAFCON says its members will leave Anglican Communion to form rival network.” Reporter David Paulsen says, “The conservative Anglican network GAFCON, a mix of leaders from Anglican provinces and breakaway groups, released a statement Oct. 16 saying it would disengage from the Anglican Communion’s existing deliberative bodies and create a rival to the Anglican Communion with an unspecified number of provinces.”

But from it’s beginning on 2008 Gafcon has said that it is not leaving the Anglican Communion. Instead they want to re-order how it works. Gafcon’s statement puts it this way: “Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.”

An interesting analysis by Andrew McGown President of Berkely Divinity School at Yale University, a progressive Episcopal seminary, and not friendly to Gafcon, makes the point that Anglicans will have to choose. “[Gafcon’s statement] throws down the gauntlet to the relatively conservative Anglicans who have wanted to remain in communion with Canterbury as well as to deal with Gafcon, and attempts to make them choose. Some may be cowed into submitting to the new Gafcon structure, others will not.” He is right, and reinventing the structures and networks of the Anglican Communion has been the purpose of Gafcon from the begining. 

Was the Rwandan head of Gafcon just speaking for himself?

McGowan suggests that the Gafcon Statement which was signed by the chair of the Gafcon Primates (heads of Churches) Council, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, might have one man claiming to speak for the rest of Gafcon without warrant. “It is thus odd to read the Archbishop of Rwanda, the Most Rev’d Dr Laurent Mbanda, proclaiming new arrangements for the Anglican Communion–or rather the creation of a new entity called the “Global Anglican Communion” (doubtless GAC henceforth)–on behalf of a whole set of national Churches who, as far as we can tell, have not actually made their own decisions about this.”

But the statement, issued from Sydney came from a meeting of Gafcon Leaders. Gafcon represents the largest national church bodies in the Anglican communion and can claim to speak for much more than half the Anglicans in the world: (together with the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, an overlapping conservative body Gafcon and GSFA speak for 85% of the world’s Anglicans.)

“There’ve been informal consultations all week culminating in a statement that was so clear and so significant that there was a global primates meeting online at 11 o’clock last night Sydney time to ratify the decisions that were made,” Dominic Steel reported on the Pastor’s Heart podcast, in an interview with Mbanda.”

Steele suggested that a “full count” of the Gafcon Primates were involved, some by zoom. {UPDATE Dominic Steele has claffified that he does not know which of the primates were in nthe zoom, so perhaps not all.] That would include – as per the Gafcon list – Rwanda, Congo, South Sudan, Uganda, Nigeria, Myanmar, Kenya, Alexandria, Chile, plus the new provices of Brazil and North America as well as REACH South Africa.

Was this a reaction to Sarah Mullaly’s appointment as archbishop of Canterbury?

The Episcopal News Service described the timing of the Gafcon announcement this way. “Mbanda also did not specify the reason for timing this decision now, though his statement was issued two weeks after the Church of England announced that London Bishop Sarah Mullally would become the first female archbishop of Canterbury, a position that represents a ‘focus of unity’ for the 85-million-member Anglican Communion in recognition of the 42 provinces’ roots in the Church of England.” Other commenters such as Julia Baird in The Sydney Morning Herald were more definate in drawing a link. “Sarah, a former cancer nurse, now leads the church. No wonder men are cranky” was her heading, and she quotes leaders from the parts of Gafcon most apposed to women’s ordination such as Nigeria and Sydney. They definately denounced the Archbishop designate’s appointment.

But in addition to quoting Mark Thompson the Moore college Principal – who is certainly quotable in saying ““the Church of England’s leadership continued its tragic slide into irrelevance” Baird might have sought out Jen Hercott the deputy chair of Gafcon Australia – or in a demonstration of a variety of opinion even in a Gafcon stronghold in Africa, Bishop Emily Onyango of Kenya who welcomed Mullally breaking a stained glass ceiling. Bishop Onyango told the BBC that Mullally is a “a humble person [who] listens, which is what the Church needs. When you have a hardline stance and don’t listen to people, then there [are] a lot of problems. The new archbishop needs to address peace on the continent. Women and children are suffering, and she needs to work for peace and reconciliation.”
Kenya, a member province of Gafcon, values women’s ministry in part to the role of women in the East African revival. 

It is fair to say that large sections of Gafcon do not support Mullally’s appointment because she is a woman, but her election was not mentioned in the Gafcon statement, and the Sydney meeting and a planned major gathering of Gafcon planned for next year were organised well in advance of Mullally being selected. Beyond her gender Mullally can be seen as a supporter of progressive plans as a leader of the Living in Love and faith (LLF) process in the Church of England, which proposed marriage-like blessing services for gay couples and civil marriages for gay ministers although that process has been paused.

What is the practical effect locally?

Australian Anglicans, or at least their dioceses, will need to choose whether they support the traditional linkages with Canterbury or are part of the newly announced Global Anglican Communion. The first decision will be whether to respond to Gafcon’s call to send Bishops to a March 2-3, 2026 meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. Alternatively a traditional communion body, the the Anglican Consultative Council, will meet in Belfast, Northern Ireland from June 27- Sunday July 5, 2026 and the Australian delegates will have to decide whether to attend or not. Australian delegates will likely be at both meetings.

But none of this is likely to be felt in local churches. We will have an opportinity to find out more at meetings around Australia in November during a tour by the Gafcon general secretary Paul Donison. 

Would Sydney leave the Anglican Church of Australia?

If you were to take a time machine back to 1961 one would find prominent Sydney Anglican voices such as Broughton Knox advocating that Sydney NOT sign on to the new national church constution. Up till then we did not have a national anglican church. But Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher encouraged the constitution to be drafted to allow a high degree of diocesan automony and this won Sydney over.

It is increasingly less likely that Sydney would leave the Anglican Church of Australia, even if this were possible. This is because the national church has a sold evangelical majority. In any case, the Anglican Church constiution whch binds us to the doctrines in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer effectively blocks same sex marriage.

There is one clasue in the constitution worth noting: clause 6 which reads “This Church will remain and be in communion with the Church of England in England and with churches in communion therewith so long as communion is consistent with the Fundamental Declarations contained in this Constitution.”

The Fundamental Declarations consist of the faith set out in the Creeds, the Bible as supreme authority and “This Church will ever obey the commands of Christ, teach His doctrine, administer His sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, follow and uphold His discipline and preserve the three orders of bishops, priests and deacons in the sacred ministry.” So it is at least possible if the Church of England were to be seen to change its doctrine that the Anglican Church of Australia could decide not to be in communion with it.

In a Church Times article, Muriel Porter says “Changes to the ACA constitution require the approval of all five metropolitan diocesan synods, making it unlikely that the ACA’s position will change.” But if the church of England has changed it’s doctrine to be inconsistent with the fundamnetal declartions, no change in the documnet would be needed. 

In the meantime Sydney and other Australian dioceses can be part of Gafcon’s Global Anglican Communion even if the Province of Australia has not joined it. This is made clear in the Gafcon’s “The Future has arrived” announcement clause 6 and 7.

“6. Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.

7. 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.”

Sydney endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration in 2008