Anglican realignment


The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion.
Two of the major events that contributed to the movement were the 2002 decision of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada to authorise a rite of blessing for same-sex unions, and the nomination of two openly gay priests in 2003 to become bishops. Jeffrey John, an openly gay priest with a long-time partner, was appointed to be the next Bishop of Reading in the Church of England and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church ratified the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay non-celibate man, as Bishop of New Hampshire. Jeffrey John ultimately declined the appointment due to pressure.
The current realignment movement differs from previous ones in that some Anglicans are seeking to establish different ecclesiastical arrangements within the Anglican Communion rather than separating themselves from it; and other Anglicans that had previously separated are being gathered into the new realignment structures along with those who were never Anglican/Episcopalian before. Some Anglican provinces, particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, West Africa, and South America, are seeking to accommodate them. A number of parishes that are part of the realignment have severed ties with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada and associated themselves with bishops from these other national Anglican provinces.
The conventions of four dioceses of the Episcopal Church voted in 2007 and 2008 to leave that church and to join the Anglican Church of South America. Twelve other jurisdictions, serving an estimated 100,000 persons at that time, formed on December 3–4, 2008 a Confessing Anglican body, the Anglican Church in North America. The ACNA is seeking official recognition as a province within the Anglican Communion. The Church of Nigeria declared itself in communion with the new church in March 2009 and the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans formally recognized the new church in April 2009. In June 2009, the Anglican Church of Uganda also declared itself in full communion with the ACNA, and the Anglican Church of Sudan followed suit in December 2011.
In October 2025, GAFCON Chairman Laurent Mbanda, the Primate of Rwanda, announced that the GAFCON communion will officially be renamed the Global Anglican Communion and will select a new primus inter pares instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He also asserted that GAFCON is not leaving the Anglican Communion but rather is the Anglican Communion. The election will take place at the next GAFCON, due to take place in March 2026 in Abuja, Nigeria, hosted by the Church of Nigeria. Mbanda said that in the wake of the appointment of Sarah Mullally as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the resulting controversy it poses amongst evangelical Anglicans, that "this may be the most significant gathering of faithful Anglicans since 2008." "The statement outlining that plan was signed by one person, Rwanda Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, who serves as chair of GAFCON’s primate council."
As of 2025, GAFCON claims to represent upwards of 85% of the world's practicing Anglicans. Peer-reviewed research from 2015 and 2016, published in the Journal of Anglican Studies by Cambridge University Press, indicates that the GAFCON-aligned provinces represent closer to 45% of practicing Anglicans and just over 54% of all Anglicans. Excluding the United churches in South Asia, the World Christian Database, published in 2021 and produced by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, estimated that the Anglican Communion had 97,399,000 members in 2020 with 63,556,000 in Africa, 24,400,000 in Europe, 4,565,000 in Oceania, 2,689,000 in Northern America, 1,230,000 in Asia, and 959,000 in Latin America.

Overview

The movement that involves secession from local dioceses or provinces and yet seeks to remain within the Anglican Communion has been criticised by opponents who claim that, under historic Anglican polity, such a move is not possible. The concept of alternative episcopal oversight first arose a generation ago with the debate over the ordination of women. At that time, the movement manifested itself as an effort to accommodate conservative parishes and dioceses that did not want to accept the authority of women consecrated as bishops or bishops who ordained women, by providing pastoral oversight from a bishop who shared their conservative theology. The most thoroughly developed example of this involved the appointment of provincial episcopal visitors in the Church of England, beginning in 1994, who attend to the pastoral needs of parishes and clergy who do not recognise that holy orders can or should be conferred on women. The movement continues today primarily because of a very similar controversy regarding gay and lesbian members of the church, particularly the church's role in same-sex marriage and the ordination of homosexual clergy.
Per guidelines passed by the Anglican Consultative Council, a diocese and a province have geographical boundaries and no other diocese or province can exercise jurisdiction within those boundaries.
If the Anglican realignment movement succeeds, some dioceses will be defined by a common theological perspective: thus, a geographically distinct area may have multiple Anglican dioceses recognized by the Anglican Communion. As of October 2025, this proposal is one of many currently under consideration in the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, a project aimed at renewing and reforming the Instruments of Communion.

History

Since 1785, there have been disputes within the Episcopal Church that have led to departures of clergy and congregations. An early and notable example is King's Chapel, a historic church in Boston that was Anglican when founded in 1686. A century later, in 1785, a clergyman with Unitarian ideas took his congregation and formed an independent Unitarian church. To this day, King's Chapel believes itself to be both a Unitarian church and an extramural Anglican church as it uniquely uses the Book of Common Prayer According to the Use in King's Chapel in its worship.
In Canada, the first rupture with the incipient national church came in 1871, with the departure of the dean of the Diocese of British Columbia, Edward Cridge, and many of the congregation of Christ Church Cathedral over the issue of ritualism. Cridge and his followers founded a church under the auspices of the US-based Reformed Episcopal Church and continued to use the Book of Common Prayer.
For the most part, extramural Anglican churches are linked by the common use of forms of the Book of Common Prayer in worship. Like the example of King's Chapel, some use unique or historical versions. Over the years, various parallel Anglican denominations have broken with Anglican Communion churches over many, sometimes transient, issues.
Initial developments for the Anglican realignment started through the progressive tendencies of the Lambeth Conference. Beginning with the Lambeth Conferences, international Anglicanism has wrestled with matters of doctrine, polity, and liturgy in order to achieve consensus, or at least tolerance, between diverse viewpoints. Throughout the twentieth century, this led to Lambeth resolutions allowing for contraception and divorce, denouncing capital punishment, and recognising the autonomy of provinces in the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood. Despite the determination of the 1897 conference that communion provinces were autonomous and that no other province had jurisdiction within another, some provinces have sought to associate with others. Although Lambeth had not indicated support for the ordination of women to the priesthood at the time, some provinces began ordaining women to this order before Lambeth reconsidered the matter in 1978, just as some provinces have begun consecrating women bishops although there is likewise no international consensus.
The ordination of women priests in the United States in 1976 led to the founding of the Continuing Anglican Movement in 1977. Its Affirmation of St. Louis declared the ordination of women to be a matter of schism and to have caused a break with apostolic succession. The "Anglican Continuum", therefore, saw itself as perpetuating the line of valid ordination considered essential to Anglicanism. In 1992, the Episcopal Missionary Church was established after its leaders first attempted to reform ECUSA from within. It is usually considered to have joined the Continuing Anglican Movement. Unlike the Anglican realignment movement, the churches of the Anglican Continuum do not seek to be accepted into the Anglican Communion.
Further developments within Anglicanism led the province of Rwanda, along with the province of Southeast Asia, to form the Anglican Mission in America as a mission jurisdiction.

Timeline

2000