Who decides membership in the Anglican Communion? Not the Secretary General of the ACC!

Sep 23, 2017 by Jill

by Canon Phil Ashey, AAC:

“It is simply not true to say that ACNA is part of the Anglican Communion,” he [Idowu-Fearon] said. “To be part of the Communion, a province needs to be in communion with the See of Canterbury and to be a member of the Instruments of the Communion. ACNA is not in communion with the See of Canterbury—and has not sought membership of the Instruments.” Idowu-Fearon added that “There is a long-standing process by which a province is adopted as a province of the Communion… ACNA has not gone through this process.” (from Anglican Journal)

The Secretary General’s statement that The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is not a province of the Anglican Communion is misleading at best. It ignores the very process of recognition of the Anglican Church in North America by some GAFCON provinces as early as July 2009. It ignores the public and published recognition of Archbishop Foley Beach as “a fellow Primate of the Anglican Communion” by those Primates of the Anglican Communion who installed him as the second Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America on October 9, 2014. The Secretary General ignores the recognition of the Anglican Church in North America as a “partner province” of the Global South by the Primates of the Global South in their October 2016 Communique.

In other words, the process of recognition of the Anglican Church in North America as a member Church within the Anglican Communion is already a 10-year process initiated by Primates of the Anglican Communion, representing Churches of the Anglican Communion, and in keeping with their “long-standing” procedural authority to do so. It’s certainly in the Secretary General’s interest in his Report to take pride in his achievement in helping to form a new ‘province” of the Anglican Communion in Sudan. But that does not give him the right to take pride in misstating who decides membership in the Anglican Communion—especially by usurping the rightful authority of the Primates to do so while they are in the middle of an already ongoing process of recognition.

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