The historic ecumenical meeting between Pope Leo and King Charles in the Sistine Chapel on Thursday was a symbolic display of unity between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.
At the same time, division is threatening the worldwide Anglican Communion following the election of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury – the titular head of the Communion – earlier this month.
On October 3rd it was announced that Church of England Bishop of London Sarah Mullally had been elected to Canterbury.
In response, the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) group of traditional Anglicans announced a break with Canterbury and said: “We have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion.”
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This has been rejected by the two Church of Ireland archbishops, who have reasserted their loyalty to Canterbury. However, at least three of the 11 Church of Ireland bishops are sympathetic to Gafcon’s conservative stance on issues to do with gender and sexuality.
Gafcon, it is claimed, has a membership of between a third and a half of an estimated 100 million Anglicans worldwide.
It was founded in 2008, originally to oppose same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ+ people, when it described itself as “a global family of authentic Anglicans standing together to retain and restore the Bible to the heart of the Anglican Communion”.
The group’s first meeting in 2008 followed on the 2003 appointment of openly gay man, the late Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire in the US Episcopal (Anglican) Church.
In protest, about a third of world Anglican leaders, including from Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda, as well as bishops from North America and Australasia, boycotted the 2008 Lambeth Conference in England, which usually takes place once a decade.
On the election of Archbishop Mullally to Canterbury earlier this month, Gafcon issued a statement, saying “the majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy”.
It also noted that Bishop Mullally had “voted in favour of introducing blessings of same-sex marriage into the Church of England”.
They “summoned global orthodox Anglican bishops to Abuja, Nigeria, from 3 to 6 March, 2026, for the G26 Bishops Assembly”.
In a further statement last week, it declared “we are now the Global Anglican Communion” and “shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury”.
It encouraged other Anglicans “to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England”.
In response, in a statement this week the two Church of Ireland archbishops, Primate of All Ireland Archbishop John McDowell and Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough Michael Jackson, said that the Anglican Communion to which the Church of Ireland belongs is headed by Archbishop Mullally.
They noted that “the Church of Ireland recognises no body other than the one described in the preceding paragraphs [of their statement] as the Anglican Communion”. In those “preceding paragraphs” the Archbishops spelled out the current structures of the Anglican Communion, asserting: “This is the Anglican Communion to which the Church of Ireland belongs.”
In April 2022 a Gafcon gathering in Belfast was attended by Church of Ireland Bishop of Connor George Davison, Bishop David McClay of Down and Dromore diocese, and Bishop Ferran Glenfield of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh diocese.
Commenting to the Church of Ireland Gazette this week, Bishop McClay said, “Gafcon is not leaving the Anglican Communion, Gafcon is the Anglican Communion, and those aligned in any way to Gafcon have not departed from historic Anglicanism as others have in recent decades.”
Bishop Glenfied told the same publication, “There is a realignment happening in the Anglican Communion. The centre of gravity is moving south from Canterbury.”
It was “a case of wait and see”, he said.
