EGYPT 1-5 February 2009 Anglican primates meet. Efforts to avoid fragmentation

When Anglican primates meet in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, they are likely to continue trying to prevent fragmentation of the 77-million worldwide Anglican Communion. Issues such as the ordination of women, same-sex relationships and scriptural interpretation divide the church. The most recent upset is over plans by conservatives in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican presence in the United States, to establish a separate-but-equal entity under the Anglican umbrella.

If the church's primates, its senior archbishops or bishops who preside over an Anglican province, accept the new US entity, the matter would go to the Anglican Consultative Council in May 2009. Rejection increases the risk of irrevocable fragmentation.

The primates have met regularly in consultation on theological, social, and international issues since 1979. Their meeting is one of the key bodies in the Anglican Communion. The other two are the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Consultative Council, the church's main policy-making body.

The Church of England, the world family of Anglican churches led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has so far resisted being split by the controversies. At a recent meeting in London, delegates refused to vote for a motion backing a declaration by the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), the conservatives' “alternative” to the official 2008 Anglicans' Lambeth Conference. The alternative gathering met in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008.

Dr. Williams took a more conciliatory line in his final address to the Lambeth Conference "Much in the GAFCON documents is consonant with much of what we have sought to say and do, and we need to look for the best ways of building bridges here."

Long-time divisions over scriptural interpretation and gay rights had already divided the 2.1-million-member Episcopal Church by 2003 when it consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first bishop known to be in an openly gay relationship in more than four centuries of Anglican church history. Nov/08

RELATED READING:

CANA
http://www.canaconvocation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=32

GAFCON
http://www.gafcon.org/

Primates meeting set for February in Alexandria, Egypt (Episcopal Life 7 Nov 2008)
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_102229_ENG_HTM.htm

Conservative Anglicans face "punishment" for helping conservative rebels (Times 25 Nov 2008)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5232937.ece