The breakup of the Anglican Communion into nationalist churches “whose autonomy is unqualified an... Archbishop Williams: Com

The breakup of the Anglican Communion into nationalist churches “whose autonomy is unqualified and which relate only in some sort of loose and informal federation” is unrealistic, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who addressed the Church of England's General Synod July 7.

“I can envisage – though I don't in the least want to see – a situation in which there may be more divisions than at present within the churches that claim an Anglican heritage,” said the Most Rev. Rowan Williams. “But I want there to be some rationale for this other than pure localism or arbitrary and ad hoc definitions of who and what is acceptable. The real agenda – and it bears on other matters we have to discuss at this synod – is what our doctrine of the Church really is in relation to the whole deposit of our faith.

There is already evidence that “mischievous forces” are using the debate over sexuality as a pretext for “divisive action whose roots are in other conflicts, according to Archbishop Williams who mentioned the Church in Sudan by name. In that instance a “very aggressive” breakaway faction has sought government permission to seize property by advancing the “ludicrous assertion” that the Episcopal Church of the Sudan is not orthodox in its teaching on sexual ethics. Churches in “disadvantaged or conflict-ridden settings cannot afford such distractions, Archbishop Williams said adding that the list of vulnerable churches is not limited to Africa.

“Many provinces are internally fragile; we cannot assume that what will naturally happen is a neat pattern of local consensus. There are already international alliances, formal and informal, between provinces and between groups within different provinces. There are lines of possible fracture that have nothing to do with provincial boundaries. The disappearance of an international structure – as again, I have observed in recent months – leaves us with the possibility of much less than a federation, indeed of competing and fragmenting ecclesial bodies in many contexts across the world.

Without canonical force behind the historic links to the See of Canterbury, Archbishop Williams believes that the development of a voluntary covenant is the best way forward.

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