The Anglican Communion’s faith and order commission has detected a shift toward resolution of Anglicanism’s protracted divisions, and welcomed the Covenantal Structure developed by the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA).
It calls that structure “a potential source of renewal and fresh missional energy,” which the commission hopes can be “more fully recognized and received within [the Communion’s] wider life and mission.”
A communiqué released by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order (IASCUFO) after the close of its weeklong meetings in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, on December 12, also celebrated the recent release of the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, the result of two years of study and dialogue by the commission.
The proposals, which have been endorsed by the Communion’s Standing Committee, call for a new description of the Anglican Communion that decenters the phrase “communion with the See of Canterbury,” as well as elevating a senior primate to serve alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury as a second “face” for the Communion, with responsibility for chairing the other Instruments of Communion.
IASCUFO says it believes the proposals have “potential to help us find a way through our divisions and disagreements within the Communion.” It encourages all of the Communion’s churches to “cultivate generosity in the spirit of the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals.”
“As we wrestled with our divisions, we sensed that the Communion may be moving from a season of raw and antagonistic division to one of reckoning with what will likely be a long process of resolution,” IASCUFO added.
“We may now be able to face our theological differences and associated fractures more productively, as we seek responsible and creative ways to remain together, albeit to varying degrees. This will involve recognition of the hurt that has been caused, as well as concerted attempts to find healing for past and present wounds, and to rebuild trust.”
The communique said that “IASCUFO’s entire membership, which includes members of Churches of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), welcomes the GSFA’s commitment to stay within the Anglican Communion. We value its voluntary intensification of fellowship within the Communion as a potential source of renewal and fresh missional energy, the fruits of which may inspire others.”
IASCUFO added, “Despite our divisions, the Anglican Communion needs to find ways for the contribution of the GSFA to be more fully recognized and received within its wider life and mission. We resolved that IASCUFO should reach out to the leadership of the GSFA to explore the relevance of The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals to our most immediate challenges.”
Five of IASCUFO’s 18 members are from churches that have become full members of GSFA by adopting its covenantal structure (Alexandria, Chile, Congo, and South East Asia), including all three of the primates serving on the body. Three more members are from churches that have been associated with GSFA in recent years but have not yet taken up the process of becoming full members (Burundi, Kenya).
IASCUFO said that it had also discussed issues created in regions where Anglican provinces have overlapping jurisdictions and strategized about ways to include as many provinces as possible in the Communion’s life and work, even when provinces “question, for various reasons, its current structures.”
“Overlapping jurisdictions sometimes function co-operatively and constructively, as we see in numerous ecumenical examples, but in other cases they concentrate conflict in an unhelpful way. Distinguishing between more and less helpful arrangements remains crucial, as does identifying ‘bearable anomalies’ that may serve as provisional steps toward a hoped-for recovery of full communion in God’s good time,” they wrote.
The commission also considered the process by which churches become full members of the Communion, discussed The Bishop of Rome, an important study document released last summer by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and reviewed progress in the Communion’s dialogues with numerous Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches.
It welcomed as a new member the Rev. Dane Neufeld of the Anglican Church of Canada. Neufeld, the chair of Communion Partners Canada, replaces the Rt. Rev. Joey Royal, former suffragan bishop in the Diocese of the Arctic.
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and also writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.