The Global South and GAFCON primate have accepted the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury to attend the January primates’ gathering.
In a statement released on 18 Oct 2015 at the close of their Cairo meeting, the conservative coalition of Anglican leaders said: “We studied the letter of invitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the upcoming Primates meeting. We have agreed to attend the meeting, and welcome the invitation for the Primates to suggest the items of the agenda. We appreciate this very helpful approach, one that gives us a sense of ownership and responsibility to our meeting. We agreed on the agenda items which we will request.”
Sources familiar with the deliberations tell Anglican Ink the first agenda item proposed by the Global South and GAFCON primates will be a Communion-wide response to the recent actions of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada in changing the received doctrine and discipline of the church on issues surrounding homosexualty.
In their communique the Cairo group wrote: “We grieved one more time at the unilateral decisions taken by the last General Convention of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the USA to redefine marriage and to accept same-sex marriages (Resolutions A036 and A054). We see these latest resolutions as a clear departure from not only the accepted traditional teaching of the Anglican Communion, but also from that of the one Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church, which upholds the scriptural view of marriage between one man and one woman. (Lambeth Resolution 1:10, 1998.)”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby attended the final day of the gathering, which had originally been scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the sixth Global South to South conference in Tunisia. When the Tunisian government asked the chairman of the Global South group, the Archbishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Most Rev. Mouneer Anis, to cancel the gathering following suspected ISIS terror attacks near the conference site, Dr. Anis moved the meeting to Cairo.
Joining Archbishop Welby and Dr. Anis at the meeting held at All Saints Cathedral were:
The Most Rev. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America
The Most Rev. Henri Isingoma, Archbishop of the Congo
The Rt. Rev. Stephen Kazimba, Bishop of Mityana, representing Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda
The Most Rev. Ezekiel Kondo, Archbishop of Khartoum representing Archbishop Daniel Deng of Sudan and South Sudan
The Most Rev. Bolly Lapok, Archbishop of Southeast Asia
The Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Archbishop of Burundi
The Most Rev. Onesphore Rwaje, Archbishop of Rwanda
The Most Rev. Stephen Than Myint Oo, Archbishop of Myanmar
The Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala, Archbishop of Kenya
Joining the primates in their deliberations were: The Most Rev. John Chew, retired Archbishop of Southeast Asia and member of the Global South Steering Committee, the Rt. Rev. Azad Marshall, Bishop in Iran, and the Rt. Rev. Bill Atwood, Bishop of the International Diocese of the ACNA.
