Clerics meet in Nigeria: could the Anglican Church split?

Conservative Anglican leaders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America gathered in Nigeria on Wednesday as part of a four-day meeting that could reshape the future of one of the world’s largest Christian communions over the recent appointment of the first female leader of the Anglican Church.

The conference, organized by the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON), will debate proposals that could formalize a rift with parts of the Anglican world over same-sex marriage and the role of LGBTQ+ clergy.

The meeting comes shortly after the Church of England installed Archbishop Sarah Mullally as the first woman to be archbishop of Canterbury. While some conservative Anglican leaders in other countries criticized her selection on the basis of gender, they mainly opposed her stance on LGBTQ+ issues.

Homosexuality remains taboo in many African countries, in some cases criminalized under colonial-era laws or newer legislation.

Uganda enacted legislation in 2023 prescribing the death penalty for some homosexual offenses.

“We would prefer that you describe GAFCON as a global orthodox Anglican fellowship or as the global Anglican communion, which does indeed represent the majority of practicing Anglicans,” stressed Venerable Canon Justin Murff, Canon for Global Affairs to the General Secretary of GAFCON.

“Using schism without qualification, I think, only serves to confuse the general population. And we explicitly reject this framing. We are the Anglican Communion reordered.”

This group — mostly from nations of the Global South, representing some of Anglicanism’s largest church provinces — is a conservative coalition that operates outside of the official, London-based Anglican Communion, though most of GAFCON churches also remain members of the communion.

The Anglican family traces its roots to the Reformation-era founding of the Church of England, with its mix of Protestant theology and Catholic-like ritual and sacraments. It spread throughout the world alongside British colonialism and missionary efforts, followed by large-scale evangelistic successes under local leadership, particularly in Africa.

The Anglican Communion Office estimates a membership of about 85 million people across 165 countries, including more than 40 autonomous provinces.

The Anglican Communion is moving toward a decentralization plan of its own, making it “less Canterbury-centric,” according to a summary of the proposals, recognizing that a majority of Anglicans now live in the Global South, far from England.