Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion is a family of 47 churches with no legal existence and no governing body that can give any of them an order. Its membership in 2025 was estimated at somewhere between 85 and 110 million people. That makes it the third or fourth largest Christian communion in the world, behind the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
Its best-known figure, the Archbishop of Canterbury, holds no formal authority in any Anglican province outside the Church of England. Each member church writes its own laws and answers to its own primate. So what actually keeps such a family together? How did a national English church end up with members from Nigeria to Japan to the Falkland Islands? And what happens when members disagree so deeply that some declare their relationship with the mother church impaired, while insisting that they have not left?
Richard Hooker, Lancelot Andrewes and John Cosin were early Anglican theologians who interpreted and expanded the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. Their work still shapes the character of the communion, which is unusual in having no single founding thinker to point to.
The Presbyterian churches have the Westminster Confession as a summary of doctrine. Anglicans have nothing comparable. They have never been governed by a magisterium, by one founding theologian, or by a doctrinal statement standing outside the creeds. Instead they turn to the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and the books descended from it. This builds in a principle expressed in Latin as lex orandi, lex credendi, which means "the law of praying is the law of believing".
The seventeenth century forged that habit. Radical Protestants pulled one way, and Roman Catholics who recognised the primacy of the Pope pulled the other. The result was an association of churches that stayed deliberately loose on doctrinal detail. Yet it was firm about how far deviation could go, and the rubrics of successive prayer books drew those lines.
Inside those lines, Anglicans have never agreed on what the tradition is. The Evangelical, Central and Anglo-Catholic traditions all share the communion, and both Reformed and Arminian perspectives have been represented, the Reformed far more widely. Some adherents see a Reformed Protestantism that grew from the work of Thomas Cranmer. Others see a via media between Lutheranism and Calvinism, and others still a church that is both Catholic and Reformed.
The Church of England itself never claimed to be a new foundation. It regarded itself as a reformed continuation of the ancient Ecclesia Anglicana, a Latin name that simply means English church, and a label that would prove awkward once the faith left England.
In 1534, during the reign of Henry VIII, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church. It reunited briefly in 1555 under Mary I, then separated again in 1570 under Elizabeth I, the year the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated her. Until the twentieth century, the Church in Wales was counted as part of this church.
In Scotland, the Reformation of 1560 produced the Church of Scotland. The Scottish Episcopal Church began to form in 1582, in the reign of James VI, after disagreements over the role of bishops. For parts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was partly underground, because it was suspected of Jacobite sympathies.
Outside the British Isles, an early landmark is St Peter's Church in St. George's, Bermuda, established in 1612. The building itself had to be rebuilt several times over the following century. It is the oldest surviving Anglican church building outside the British Isles, and the oldest surviving non-Roman Catholic church in the New World. Bermuda stayed part of the Church of England until the Anglican Church of Bermuda was formed in 1978.
Even so, by the middle of the eighteenth century only three churches of today's communion existed. They were the Church of England, the closely linked Church of Ireland, and the Scottish Episcopal Church. Growth came partly through older mission organisations. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was founded in 1698, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1701, and the Church Missionary Society in 1799.
The American Revolution forced the first formal break. Parishes in the newly independent United States could not remain under a church whose supreme governor was the British monarch. They formed their own dioceses and a national body, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in a mostly amicable separation.
In the colonies that stayed linked to the crown, the Church of England began naming colonial bishops. Charles Inglis, Bishop of Nova Scotia, was appointed in 1787 with jurisdiction over all of British North America. A bishop of Calcutta followed in 1814, the first bishop sent to the West Indies in 1824, and Australia's first Anglican bishop in 1836. By 1840 there were still only ten colonial bishops. In 1841 a Colonial Bishoprics Council was set up, and many more dioceses soon appeared.
A ruling in 1861 then settled the legal footing. Except where it was specifically established, the Church of England had the same legal position as any other church. Bishops came to be appointed locally, and national synods began passing church law without reference to England. These churches shared a heritage, but they no longer shared a legislature. Someone would have to invent a way for their bishops to meet.
When Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, convened the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, some bishops hesitated to come. They feared the gathering would declare itself a council with power to legislate for the whole church. It agreed to pass advisory resolutions only. Its stated purpose was to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action". Since the second conference in 1878, bishops have met roughly every ten years, and the archbishop of Canterbury issues the invitations.
One early resolution proved enduring. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 was meant as a basis for talks on reunion with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. It had a side effect, because it also sketched Anglican identity in four points. The first was the Holy Scriptures, "containing all things necessary to salvation". The second was the Apostles' Creed as the baptismal symbol, with the Nicene Creed as a sufficient statement of faith. The third was the two sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. The fourth was the Historic Episcopate, locally adapted to the needs of different peoples.
Two more bodies followed. The Anglican Consultative Council was created by a resolution of the 1968 Lambeth Conference and first met in 1971. It gathers bishops, other clergy and laity chosen by the provinces, usually at three-year intervals. Its permanent secretariat, the Anglican Communion Office in London, has the archbishop of Canterbury as president. The Primates' Meeting first met in 1979, called by Archbishop Donald Coggan for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation".
The archbishop himself is the fourth instrument. He is called primus inter pares, "first among equals", and serves as the spiritual head and focus of unity. No Anglican church has historically claimed membership in the communion without being in communion with him. The three consultative bodies pass resolutions with no legal effect on the provinces. They work by persuasion.
That design has a consequence. Membership depends on a province's communion with Canterbury, so expelling anyone would require the archbishop himself to refuse communion with that church. No instrument is built to do that.
The communion consists of forty-two autonomous provinces, each with its own primate and governing structure, plus five extraprovincial churches under the metropolitan authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Some provinces are single nations, such as Canada, Uganda or Japan. Others combine many, such as the West Indies, Central Africa or Southeast Asia. The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East stretches from Bahrain and Cyprus to Yemen.
The name on the door is no guide to membership. The Church of Ireland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the American Episcopal Church do not use the word Anglican in their official names. Meanwhile some churches that do call themselves Anglican stand outside the communion, generally because they disaffiliated over the direction it was taking. Baptism is treated as the traditional gauge of who counts as a member.
Counting members is an exercise in choosing definitions. The Church of England Yearbook reported 93,511,730 members in 2024. The World Christian Database, published in 2021, estimated about 97,399,000 Anglicans in 2020, excluding the United churches of South Asia. Of that total, 63,556,000 were in Africa and 24,400,000 in Europe. Oceania had 4,565,000, Northern America 2,689,000, Asia 1,230,000 and Latin America 959,000.
The United churches add more. South India has over 5,000,000 members, North India 2,300,000, Pakistan 1,900,000 and Bangladesh 22,600. The ten largest member churches by reported membership, which is not the same as active membership, are England, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Australia, South India, Southern Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and the Episcopal Church.
The small end of the scale is just as striking. The Parish of the Falkland Islands reports a membership of 810. The Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church and the Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church in Portugal also sit among the extraprovincial churches.
Provinces can also disappear. The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America existed only from 1861 to 1865. The Church of Hawaii ran from 1862 to 1902, and the United Church of England and Ireland from 1800 to 1871. Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui in China was established in 1912 and dissolved in 1949. The Church of India, Burma and Ceylon lasted from 1930 to 1970.
New ones are being planned. In September 2020 the archbishop of Canterbury asked the bishops of the Church of Ceylon to prepare an autonomous province, ending his own role as metropolitan of its two dioceses. In 2023 the Church of the Province of Central Africa approved a plan to divide into separate national provinces for Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Botswana could form a fourth or join one of the others. Ghana is in a process to leave the Province of West Africa and become autonomous.
Beyond its own provinces, the communion is in full communion with the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Scandinavian Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion. The list also includes the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian and Malabar Independent Syrian churches of India, and the Philippine Independent Church, also called the Aglipayan Church.
Recognition of Anglican clergy is more contested. The Roman Catholic Church does not recognise Anglican orders, as set out in Apostolicae curae. In 1922 Meletius IV, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, recognised them as equal in validity to those of the Roman, Old Catholic and Armenian churches. By 1946 five autocephalous Orthodox jurisdictions had done likewise: Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Cyprus and Romania, along with the autonomous Church of Sinai. The Church of Greece had accepted them in 1939 "by economy". The Russian Orthodox Church answered in 1948 that it would not do so without a council of autocephalous Orthodox churches.
Even the friendly recognitions were conditional, and Anglican clergy who join the Orthodox Church are reordained. The Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware suggests that reordination might become unnecessary if full unity in the faith were reached. He adds that a number of Orthodox theologians would never accept the validity of Anglican orders at all.
The Catholic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced the Tractarian and Ritualist controversies, the first notable dispute inside the wider communion. Those fights left two new bodies behind: the Free Church of England and, in the United States and Canada, the Reformed Episcopal Church. Arguments that had once been settled by legislation inside England multiplied as the church moved across cultures, and they fell mostly into two types, liturgical and social.
Abortion shows how a position can persist across decades of conferences. The 1930 Lambeth Conference was the first since abortion was first legalised in Europe, in Russia in 1920. It declared: "The Conference further records its abhorrence of the sinful practice of abortion." The 1958 report Family in Contemporary Society rejected induced abortion except under strict and undeniable medical necessity, and the 1968 conference commended it. It added that "the sacredness of life is, in Christian eyes, an absolute which should not be violated".
The 1978 conference changed nothing and urged diocesan programmes stressing the sacredness of human life. Debates over euthanasia and assisted suicide later drew a statement in 1998 that "life is God-given and has intrinsic sanctity, significance and worth". Individual Anglicans and member churches still differ on when abortion should be permitted.
The ordination of women split the communion along a different line. In the late 1970s the Continuing Anglican movement produced several new church bodies opposed to women's ordination, prayer book changes and new understandings of marriage. As of 2024, provinces representing about 3% of Anglicans worldwide did not ordain women at all. Three of them were South East Asia, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia. Two other provinces ordained women only as deacons, and sixteen ordained deacons and priests but not bishops. Twenty-two provinces, representing about two thirds of Anglicanism, ordained women at all three levels.
On the 28th of January 2026, Sarah Mullally, previously bishop of London, was elected archbishop of Canterbury. She became the first woman to hold the see and to act as first among equals in the communion. Laurent Mbanda, who chairs the GAFCON Primates Council, claimed a predominant reservation against women serving as bishops. Her election arrived alongside a separate dispute that had been building since 1998.
The Lambeth Conference of 1998 took up the theology of same-sex attraction in relation to human sexuality. Philip Jenkins and others have called it a "watershed in global Christianity". For the first time in centuries, primates from Africa, Asia and Latin America prevailed over bishops from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom who favoured a more progressive reading of doctrine. In this view, 1998 marks the moment when a West-dominated Christianity gave way to one led by the growing churches of "the two-thirds world".
Five years later, in 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop in a same-sex relationship. Some Episcopalians defected and founded the Anglican Church in North America. In 2005 the Church of England agreed to let clergy enter same-sex civil partnerships, provided they stayed celibate. The Church of Nigeria opposed both decisions. Churches formed outside the communion in opposition are usually counted in the Anglican realignment movement, or called "orthodox" Anglicans.
Objectors condemned the changes as unscriptural, unilateral and lacking prior agreement from the communion. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada replied that they had acted after lengthy scriptural and theological reflection, within their own canons and constitutions, and after wide consultation. The Primates' Meeting asked both churches to withdraw their delegates from the 2005 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. They attended without voting rights. Neither was expelled or suspended, because no mechanism for that exists.
The Windsor Report followed. Acting on its recommendation, Rowan Williams, then archbishop of Canterbury, set up a working group to explore an Anglican covenant that would spell out the conditions for communion.
The realignment is concentrated in the Global South. The Anglican Church of Kenya, the Church of Nigeria and the Church of Uganda have opposed homosexuality. GAFCON, a fellowship of conservative churches, appointed "missionary bishops" in response to what it saw as liberalisation in North America and Europe. According to the BBC, the provinces open to changing teaching on marriage include Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, South India, South Africa, the United States and Wales.
Others sit between the poles. The Church of Ireland has no official position on civil unions and has said it will treat civil partners the same as spouses. The Anglican Church of Australia has no official position on homosexuality, and each diocese may bless same-sex couples if it chooses. In 2025 the Church in Wales elected Cherry Vann as Archbishop of Wales. She is the first woman to serve as archbishop in the United Kingdom, and the first openly LGBTQ and partnered bishop to be a primate in the communion. The Global South Fellowship criticised the appointment.
The 20th of February 2023 was the day ten provinces and realignment churches formed the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches. Their trigger was the decision of the Church of England to allow priests to bless same-sex partnerships during regularly scheduled worship. The fellowship declared "impaired communion" with the Church of England and said it no longer recognised Justin Welby as first among equals. The same statement made clear that its members were not leaving the communion.
That year the Church of England announced it would authorise prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and God's blessing for same-sex couples. In 2024 its General Synod voted to support allowing clergy to enter civil same-sex marriages. In 2023 the bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa approved drafting prayers for same-sex couples, and drafts were published for consideration in 2024. Also in 2024 the Global South Fellowship set up a new structure, no longer recognising the archbishop of Canterbury as the de facto leader. It again stated its intention to remain in the communion.
On the 16th of October 2025, Laurent Mbanda, archbishop of Rwanda, announced a planned "Global Anglican Communion" independent of the See of Canterbury. He insisted: "they have not left the Anglican Communion; they are the Anglican Communion." The statement was signed by only one person. Mbanda later called it "closer to a rebrand than a new organization". Bishops affiliated with GAFCON in Kenya and Congo said their provinces would stay in the existing structures. In December 2025 Mbanda wrote again: "We will not walk with sin, but neither will we walk away from the Anglican Communion."
GAFCON churches met in Abuja on the 3rd and the 4th of March 2026. They confirmed they would remain in the communion, rejected the word schism, and described their effort as reorganisation and "continuity". They had announced a plan to elect a "rival" primus inter pares to the archbishop of Canterbury. On the 5th of March 2026 they decided against it and chose to elect a "Global Anglican Council" instead.
The size of the movement is itself disputed. As of 2025, GAFCON claims to represent upwards of 85% of the world's practising Anglicans. Peer-reviewed research from 2015 and 2016 puts GAFCON-aligned provinces closer to 45% of practising Anglicans, and just over 54% of members baptised in any province.
Meanwhile, a different proposal pointed away from Canterbury altogether. In 2025 the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order put forward the Nairobi-Cairo proposals. They call for a "de-centred, polycentric understanding of the mission of the Church", and the report states that "the leadership of the Communion should look like the Communion". Membership would no longer be defined by full communion with the archbishop of Canterbury, and Canterbury would be named only as a historical connection. The presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council would rotate among the communion's five regions. The Primates' Standing Committee would have more say in calling the Lambeth Conference and the Primates' Meeting. Supporters describe the plan both as a step toward decolonising the structures and as a way to hold autonomous, disagreeing churches together.
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Common questions
Who leads the Anglican Communion?
The Archbishop of Canterbury is its spiritual head and focus of unity, recognised as first among equals. He has no formal authority in provinces outside the Church of England. Sarah Mullally was elected to the post on the 28th of January 2026.
Can a church be expelled from the Anglican Communion?
No mechanism exists to suspend or expel a province. Membership rests on communion with the archbishop of Canterbury, so removal would require him to refuse communion with that church.
What are the instruments of communion?
There are four: the archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference first held in 1867, the Anglican Consultative Council first meeting in 1971, and the Primates' Meeting first meeting in 1979. The last three are consultative, and their resolutions have no legal effect.
How many Anglicans are there?
Estimates vary by source. The Church of England Yearbook reported 93,511,730 members in 2024, and the World Christian Database estimated about 97,399,000 for 2020, excluding the United churches of South Asia.
What is the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral?
It is a statement from 1888 setting out four principles: the Scriptures, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, and the Historic Episcopate. It was meant as a basis for reunion talks and also came to mark out Anglican identity.
What is GAFCON and has it left the communion?
GAFCON is a fellowship of conservative Anglican churches. Its leaders have said they have not left the Anglican Communion, and in March 2026 its member churches meeting in Abuja confirmed their intention to remain while electing a Global Anglican Council.
All sources
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- 64Church of England body approves proposals to allow gay clergy to marryChantelle Billson — 2024-07-10
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- 219The Anglican Communion (AC) claims approximately 85 million members. The denominations that make up the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), with their full members, collectively claim over 10
- 220The Anglican Church of Australia last published statistics in 2001, when it reported having 4,865,328 members. The 2021 Census reported that only 2,496,273 people self-identified as Anglican in the co
- 221The Anglican Church of New Zealand and Polynesia reports on its own website its 2013 Census membership figure of 459,711. However, the 2021 Census, the most recent, reported only 245,301 Anglicans in
- 222This province does not publish its own statistics. Data from the latest national census.
- 223The national census does not report the number of members of this province. Data released by the denomination itself.
- 224The 2021 Canada Census reported that there were 1,134,315 Anglicans in the country. The denomination's official statistics, however, reveal a much lower number. For this reason, the denomination's own
- 225The 2018 Malawi Census reported that there were 410,633 Anglicans in the country. In 2010, according to a report by the Pew Research Center, 87% of Botswana's population was Christian and 2% of Christ
- 226According to the U.S. National Institute of Statistics, in 2022, an estimated 2 percent of Mozambique's population, or 615,600 people, are Anglican. The Diocese of Angola reported that it had 115,000
- 227In 2010, according to a report by the Pew Research Center, 80% of the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was Christian and 2% of the Christians in that country (1,055,456) were Anglica
- 228The 2022 Republic of Ireland Census reported that there were 126,658 Anglicans in the country. The 2021 Northern Ireland Census reported that there were 219,788 Anglicans in the country. The numbers r
- 229The Anglican Church of Melanesia reported 200,000 members in 2006, its last published statistics. According to the 2020 Vanuatu Census, there were 35,923 Anglicans in the country, or 12.02% of the pop
- 230The Anglican Church of Tanzania reported 2,000,000 members in 2006. In 2010, according to a Pew Research Center report, 60% of Tanzania's population was Christian, and 10% of the country's Christians
- 231The Church of the Province of South East Asia estimated that it had 168,079 members in 2005. In 2017, new statistics were released, reporting 98,000 members.
- 232The Anglican Church of Central America reported having only 35,000 members in 2022. On the other hand, the book Growth and decline in the Anglican communion: 1980 to the present, published in 2010, es
- 233The Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil claimed to have 120,000 members in 2006. However, an independent study, carried out in 2009, published in 2012, reported that only 0.01% of the Brazilian popula
- 234The Church of England claims 26 million baptized members. Of these, however, according to its 2024 statistics, only 1,019,000 are active members. According to data from the British Social Attitudes su
- 235The Anglican Church of Mexico claimed to have 100,000 members in 2009. However, an independent survey in 2015 reported that there were only 20,000 Anglicans in the country.
- 236The Anglican Church in Japan reported having only 22,000 members in 2022. On the other hand, the book Growth and decline in the Anglican communion: 1980 to the present, published in 2010, estimated th
- 237The Anglican Church of Korea reported having only 65,000 members in 2006. On the other hand, the book Growth and decline in the Anglican communion: 1980 to the present, published in 2010, estimated th
- 238The Anglican Church of South America reported having only 22,500 members in 2006. On the other hand, the book Growth and decline in the Anglican communion: 1980 to the present, published in 2010, esti
- 239The Church of Nigeria claims to have 18,000,000 members. However, in 2010, according to the Pew Research Center, 46% of the population of Nigeria was Christian and 9% of Christians in that country (6,
- 240The Anglican Rwanda Church claims to have 1,500,000 members in 2025. However, in 2010, according to a report by the Pew Research Center, 93% of the Rwanda population was Christian and 4% of the Christ
- 241In 2025, according to statistics from the Scottish Episcopal Church itself for the year 2024, the denomination had 22,990 members (16,124 Communicant and 6,866 non-Communicant members). In the 2022 Sc
- 242Active members are those who regularly attend worship services.
- 243Self-identified members are those who identify as Anglican when asked about their religion. They include all active members, as well as those who, while not active members, still have some connection
- 244Baptized members are those who have received Anglican baptism. This number includes active members, self-identified members, and also those who do not identify as Anglican in national censuses and ind
- 245Include membership figures for Extraprovincial churches.
- 246BookThe Study of AnglicanismPaul Avis — SPCK — 1998
- 247JournalHomosexuality and the Construction of "Anglican Orthodoxy": The Symbolic Politics of the Anglican CommunionChristopher Craig Brittain et al. — 2011
- 248BookAnglicanism: A Very Short IntroductionMark Chapman — Oxford University Press — 2006
- 249BookThe Oxford Dictionary of the Christian ChurchOxford University Press — 1957
- 250BookThe Next Christendom: The Coming of Global ChristianityPhilip Jenkins — Oxford University Press — 2002
- 251JournalBourdieu, Capital, and Conflict in a Religious Field: The Case of the 'Homosexuality' Conflict in the Anglican CommunionAndrew M. McKinnon et al. — 2011
- 252BookEncyclopedia of ProtestantismFacts on File — 2005
- 253JournalThe Bricolage of Global AnglicanismDuane Alexander Miller — 2014
- 254Michael O'Riordan
- 255BookAnglo-Catholicism: A Study in Religious AmbiguityW. S. F. Pickering — James Clarke & Co. — 2008
- 256BookA History of Global AnglicanismKevin Ward — Cambridge University Press — 2006
- 257BookUnity and the Lambeth Declaration: Lectures Under the Auspices of the Minnesota Church Club, 1896H. B. Whipple et al. — The Young Churchman — 1896