Primates Hold Key to New Province’s Recognition

From The Living Church:

Posted on: November 17, 2008

It is the primates, not the Archbishop of Canterbury, who are directly responsible for granting official status to a new Anglican Communion province. That responsibility is spelled out under section 3 of the constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

The constitution explains that a new province may be admitted “with the assent of two-thirds of the primates of the Anglican Communion.”

Assuming that at least two-thirds of the primates of the Anglican Communion do consent to the formation of another province in North America when they meet in February, it is likely that the matter would come before the ACC when it meets in Jamaica next May.

The ACC was formed following a resolution of the 1968 Lambeth Conference,which discerned the need for more frequent and more representative contact among the churches than was possible through a once-a-decade Lambeth Conference of bishops. It first met in Limuru, Kenya, in 1971.

Section 2 of the ACC constitution describes the reasons for the ACC in more details. These include but are not limited to:

· “To facilitate the co-operative work of the member churches of the Anglican Communion.

· “To share information about developments in one or more provinces of the Anglican Communion with the other parts of the Communion and to serve as needed as an instrument of common action.

· “To advise on inter-Anglican, provincial, and diocesan relationships, including the division of provinces, the formation of new provinces and of regional councils, and the problems of extra-provincial dioceses.

· “To develop as far as possible agreed Anglican policies in the world mission of the Church and to encourage national and regional churches to engage together in developing and implementing such policies by sharing their resources of manpower, money, and experience to the best advantage of all.

· “To keep before national and regional churches the importance of the fullest possible Anglican collaboration with other Christian churches.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury alone decides which bishops will be invited to attend the Lambeth Conference.