Anglican leaders from across the Global South condemned the July 30 election of the Rt. Rev. Cherry Vann, a partnered lesbian, as Archbishop of Wales, describing it as a sign of the end times, an “abandonment of the faith once delivered to the saints,” and “another painful nail in the coffin of Anglican orthodoxy.”
“What is at stake in the election of Bishop Vann as Archbishop of Wales are: salvation of the souls of men, Biblical ethics, identity of Anglicans globally, impairment of our credibility to do missions and evangelism and salvaging the very soul of the Anglican orthodoxy,” said Archbishop Henry Ndukuba, primate of the Church of Nigeria, in an August 3 statement.
“We have come to the point where a clarion call must be sounded: ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’ Like the early Church Apologists and Martyrs of old, faithful church believers must reject heretics and apostates from our midst, strive to redeem our holy scriptures, defend our historic creeds, uphold our Articles of Faith and Catechism, and expel the ‘wolves amongst our sheep,’” he added.
He said the Church in Wales’ decision was a sign that “certainly, we are in the end time,” and described it as part of a collaborative strategy by “enemies of the Christian faith,” who are “employing a combination of instruments of secularism, communism, Islam, paganism, liberal theology, syncretism, and biblical revisionism to perpetrate the decline of Christianity in many parts of the world.”
Ndukuba said that Vann’s election reminded him of the “sad tenure” of the Episcopal Church’s former Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who “under whose tenure faithful Anglicans in the United States of America suffered severe persecution and opposition.”
He also expressed hope that the Church of England “will not follow in [the Church in Wales’] steps.” The Church of England has permitted clergy to enter celibate same-sex partnerships since 2005 and authorized liturgies for the blessing of same-sex marriages in 2023.
In response to the 2005 decision, the Church of Nigeria amended its constitution to remove a reference to Anglican identity in terms of “communion with the See of Canterbury.” It has been a champion of Anglican realignment and has refused to participate in nearly all gatherings of the Instruments of Communion (the Lambeth Conference, Primates’ Meeting, and the Anglican Consultative Council) since then.
Ndukuba said that the Church of Nigeria realigns itself “with Anglican remnants scattered in troubled dioceses all over the world, under the umbrella of faithful Anglican Christian bodies like GAFCON.”
Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, chairman of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), issued a similar condemnation of the Welsh church’s decision on August 2. His statement focused on the Anglican Communion Office’s recognition of the Church in Wales’ decision.
“By celebrating this election and [Vann’s] immoral same-sex relationship, the Canterbury Communion has again bowed to worldly pressure that subverts God’s good word.”
“We must stand again against the relentless pressure of Anglican revisionists who blatantly impose their immorality upon Christ’s precious church,” he added.
Mbanda referred to the Anglican Network in Europe, a fellowship of three diocese that GAFCON founded in 2020 “as a home for those who wish to remain authentically Anglican, but whose conscience demands they leave Canterbury.” There are five network-affiliated congregations in Wales, according to the network’s website.
“Gafcon again opens our arms as a safe refuge for the faithful in the Church in Wales who in good conscience must now leave,” he said.
Archbishop Samy Fawzy Shehata, primate of the Anglican Province of Alexandria and deputy chair of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) Primates’ Council, called Vann’s election “a violation of Biblical teaching and of catholic order” in an August 2 statement.
“This step by the Church in Wales makes it extremely difficult to find a faithful and lasting resolution to the divisions within the Anglican Communion. While many of us are diligently working to discern a way forward in this painful dilemma, continued actions of this nature hinder reconciliation, deepen the fractures, and risk rendering our efforts fruitless,” he said.
The expression of frustration is significant because Shehata is a member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order, which has been working for the last several years on proposals for “good disagreement” in the Communion. These include the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, a series of significant revisions to the Anglican Communion’s definition and structure that were developed at meetings Shehata hosted in Cairo and released last December.
The condemnations of Vann’s election were welcomed by many local bishops and church leaders in the Global South.
“God, nor the Bible, has not changed, so we are not changing on this matter of LGBTQ,” said Bishop Nneoyi Egbe of the Diocese of Calabar in his August 2 address to the diocesan synod.
“We do not condemn them; in fact, we welcome them; but we tell them clearly what the Bible said,” Elbe added. “If they are willing to receive it and repent, that is ok, we love them. But our position as a church is that we don’t condone or tolerate LGBTQ in any way; marriage, according to God’s plan, is between a man and a woman, nothing else.”
K.C. Nwajei is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria.
