Since the 1990s, the Anglican Communion has struggled with controversy regarding homosexuality in the church. In 1998, the 13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops passed a resolution "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". However, this is not legally binding. "Like all Lambeth Conference resolutions, it is not legally binding on all provinces of the Communion, including the Church of England, though it commends an essential and persuasive view of the attitude of the Communion." "Anglican national churches in Brazil, South Africa, South India, New Zealand and Canada have taken steps toward approving and celebrating same-sex relationships amid strong resistance among other national churches within the 80 million-member global body. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has allowed gay marriage since 2015." "Church of England clergy have appeared to signal support for gay marriage after they rejected a bishops' report which said that only a man and woman could marry in church." The Church of England's General Synod is set to discuss a diocesan motion "to create a set of formal services and prayers to bless those who have had a same-sex marriage or civil partnership". At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain married and recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition provided that the spouses identified as opposite genders at the time of the marriage.
Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, is the second cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster of the Anglican Church of Canada. A place of worship in Greater Vancouver, the cathedral is located at 690 Burrard Street on the north-east corner of West Georgia Street and Burrard Street, directly across from the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver.
The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the Roman Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. For much of Australian history the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
The Diocese of New Westminster is one of five dioceses of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and the Yukon of the Anglican Church of Canada. The see city is Vancouver. The current bishop is the Right Reverend John Stephens. He was consecrated as the Coadjutor Bishop on January 23, 2021, and installed as Diocesan Bishop on February 28, 2021. The Dean of New Westminster and Rector of the Cathedral, is the Very Reverend Christopher Pappas and the Executive Archdeacon of the Diocese is the Venerable G. Douglas Fenton.
The Anglican Church of Canada is the province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is l'Église anglicane du Canada. In 2017, the Anglican Church counted 359,030 members on parish rolls in 2,206 congregations, organized into 1,571 parishes. The 2011 Canadian Census counted 1,631,845 self-identified Anglicans, making the Anglican Church the third-largest Canadian church after the Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada. Although Canada has no established church, the Queen of Canada's Canadian Royal Style continues to include the title of Defender of the Faith, albeit not in relation to any specific denomination, and the Canadian Monarch continues her countenance of three Chapels Royal in the Realm.
The blessing of same-sex marriages and same-sex unions is an issue about which Christian churches are in ongoing disagreement. These disagreements are primarily centered on the interpretation of various scripture passages related to homosexuality, and in some churches on varying understandings of homosexuality in terms of psychology, genetics and other scientific data. While various Church bodies have widely varying practices and teachings, individual Christians of every major tradition are involved in practical (orthopraxy) discussions about how to respond to the issue.
The Book of Alternative Services (BAS) is the contemporary, inclusive-language liturgical book used alongside the Book of Common Prayer (1962) (BCP) in most parishes of the Anglican Church of Canada. When first published, the BAS included the Common Lectionary, unlike the BCP; in printings since the publication of the Revised Common Lectionary, the latter has superseded the original lectionary.
The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is a province of the Anglican Communion serving New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands. Since 1992 the church has consisted of three tikanga or cultural streams: Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia. The church's constitution says that, among other things, it is required to "maintain the right of every person to choose any particular cultural expression of the faith". As a result, the church's General Synod has agreed upon the development of the three-person primacy based on this three tikanga system. It has three primates (leaders), each representing a tikanga, who share authority. This system has been compared to apartheid, as it has resulted in Churches which are divided along racial lines.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-nine dioceses, of which twenty-one are located in South Africa, three in Mozambique, and one each in Angola, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and Saint Helena. In South Africa, there are between 3 and 4 million Anglicans out of an estimated population of 45 million.
Christopher FitzSimons Allison is a retired American Episcopal bishop and an author. He is known for his participation in the controversial consecration in 2000 of two bishops opposed to the blessing of same-sex unions by the Episcopal Church, that took place in Singapore. He resides in Georgetown, South Carolina.
Peter Elliott is a Canadian priest. He is the former (retired) rector of Christ Church Cathedral and Dean of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada. Elliott grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario. In 1976 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and philosophy from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Subsequently, he attended and graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1981 he was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Niagara. Prior to coming to Vancouver he was Director of Ministries in Church and Society with the Anglican Church of Canada. In 1994, Elliott was made rector of Christ Church Cathedral and Dean of New Westminster. He retired in October 2019 after 25 years.
In 2003, the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed by the Anglican Communion to study problems stemming from the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first noncelibate self-identifying gay priest to be ordained as an Anglican bishop, in the Episcopal Church in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions in the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster. The Commission, chaired by Archbishop Robin Eames, published its findings as the Windsor Report on 18 October 2004. The report recommended a covenant for the Anglican Communion, an idea that did not come to fruition.
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) is a group of Anglican churches in Canada and the United States established in 2005 under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, a province of the Anglican Communion. It was a founding diocese of the Anglican Church in North America in June 2009. It comprises 76 parishes in nine Canadian provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and two American states: Massachusetts and Vermont. The Canadian provinces with more parishes are British Columbia and Ontario, both with 26. Their first Moderator Bishop was Don Harvey, from 2009 to 2014, when he was succeeded by Charlie Masters.
The Anglican Church of Kenya is a province of the Anglican Communion, and it is composed by 37 dioceses. The current Primate and Archbishop of Kenya is Jackson Ole Sapit.
The Anglican Diocese of Wangaratta is mostly located in the north-east region of Victoria, Australia. The diocese includes the cities of Wangaratta, Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton.
The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion. This movement is primarily active in parts of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. Two of the major events which 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.
Frederick James "Fred" Hiltz is a Canadian retired Anglican bishop. From 2007 to 2019, he served as Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.
Donald Frederick Harvey is a Canadian Anglican bishop. He was the Moderator Bishop and director of the Anglican Network in Canada, a founding diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, from 2009 to 2014, and the Director of Anglican Essentials Canada. He was previously the Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador in the Anglican Church of Canada from 1993 to 2004.
Peter Wall is a Canadian Anglican priest. He is Dean of the Diocese of Niagara.
