By George Conger, Anglican Ink.
The most detailed first-person primatial account yet of GAFCON’s invitation-only G26 Bishops Conference in Abuja has come from the Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Re. Stephen Samuel Kaziimba Mugalu, who reported to his province on April 2 that he led a delegation of 52 representatives to the March gathering — providing the first on-the-record account by a sitting primate of what took place at the meeting.
Speaking in his Easter message, delivered at a service broadcast live on UBC TV, NBS TV, Church of Uganda Family TV, and Namirembe FM, Kazimba described the scale of the gathering. “The conference, hosted by the Anglican Church of Nigeria, brought together 347 Anglican bishops and 121 clergy and lay leaders from 27 provinces across the Global Anglican Movement,” he said. His own delegation comprised 41 bishops, six clergy, and five laity.
The G26 gathering, held March 3-6 in Abuja, was a specialised bishops conference — not a full GAFCON Assembly. GAFCON’s own communications in May 2025 described it as a “specialised conference” distinct from its five-yearly assemblies, noting that the next full assembly, GAFCON V, is scheduled for Athens in 2028. The March gathering was convened by Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, then Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council, who in December 2025 announced that invitations had been sent to 500 delegates across the global Anglican family.
Archbishop Kaziimba’s figures correspond exactly to those in the Abuja Affirmation, the communique issued on March 6 and signed by Archbishop Mbanda as Chairman of the newly constituted Global Anglican Council. The Affirmation opens: “Greetings from Abuja, Nigeria where 347 Anglican bishops and 121 lay and clerical Anglican leaders from 27 provinces met from 3-6 March 2026, generously hosted by our brothers and sisters in the Church of Nigeria.”
Kazimba described the principal institutional outcome of the conference. “The GAFCON Primates Council was transitioned into the newly established Global Anglican Council, which will bring together primates, advisors, and guarantors to provide the oversight and the recognition of provinces and dioceses within the emerging Global Anglican Communion,” he said. He named the new Council’s officers: Archbishop Mbanda of Rwanda as chair, Archbishop Miguel Uchoa of Brazil as deputy chair, and Bishop Paul Donison as General Secretary. Donison’s March 5 communique, issued the day before the Abuja Affirmation, confirmed those appointments and stated that the terms of all three “will conclude at the end of GAFCON V in Athens in 2028.”