Stephanie Taylor |
Adapted from ACNS
Archive treasures from the start of the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) in 1968 will be restored and developed to help build and inform the future of the Communion and its mission.
The archives of the ACO and the Instruments of Communion include details of the 1968 Lambeth Conference from the inception of the Anglican Consultative Council. Other papers relate to provincial correspondence; ecumenical reports; and collections on mission, women’s ordination, marriage and the family, conflict, refugees and migration, AIDS, and the United Nations.
“For some, archives may be seen as dusty old repositories of box upon box, file upon file, of old papers; something to be forgotten about, or worse, thrown away,” said Stephanie Taylor, information and knowledge manager at the ACO. “Archives tell the story of who we are, why we are here, and what we want to achieve. They are crucial to our sense of identity and a huge strategic resource for mission, outreach, and renewal.”
Tim Powell, senior adviser for religious archives at United Kingdom’s National Archives, has stressed the historical and theological value of the archives: “They will be one of the most important sources for understanding the development of Anglicanism — and Christianity generally — worldwide from the later 20th century. They will be particularly important for understanding theological developments in the church and ecumenical relationships.”
