ABUJA, Nigeria — GAFCON’s newly formed Global Anglican Council on Friday told its leaders to boycott future meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury and stop approving financial contributions to the Anglican Consultative Council, hardening a split that now reaches the core institutions of the Anglican Communion. The directive followed a four-day gathering in Nigeria in which conservative bishops formally broadened GAFCON’s leadership and argued that Canterbury-led structures no longer carry doctrinal authority, March 6, 2026.
The language first surfaced in the boycott directive announced Friday and was reinforced in the Abuja Affirmation, issued after a gathering of 347 bishops and 121 lay and clerical leaders from 27 provinces. In that statement, GAFCON rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting as failed “Instruments of Communion.”
The escalation came a day after GAFCON created the Global Anglican Council, replacing its primates’ council with a broader body of primates, bishops, clergy and lay leaders. Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda was elected chairman, with Archbishop Miguel Uchoa as vice chairman and Bishop Paul Donison as general secretary.
That places the movement on a collision course with the Anglican Communion Office, which is still preparing ACC-19 in Belfast from June 27 to July 5. Communion leaders plan to debate the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals there and to welcome Archbishop Sarah Mullally to her first official Communion meeting, underscoring how far apart the two sides now are on both authority and process.
Why GAFCON says Canterbury has lost moral authority
GAFCON’s leaders have framed the rupture as doctrinal, not merely administrative. They argue that the crisis centers on biblical authority, same-sex blessing and, for some provinces, women’s ordination. The dispute intensified after the Church of England advanced prayers of blessing for same-sex couples and after Mullally’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury — a choice GAFCON said would make it impossible for Canterbury to remain a focus of unity.
Friday’s language did not appear out of nowhere. In 2023, the Kigali Commitment said GAFCON had no confidence in Canterbury and the other Instruments of Communion. The movement signaled an even sharper break last October, when Episcopal News Service reported that GAFCON leaders planned to disengage from the Communion’s deliberative bodies and halt ACC funding.
GAFCON’s break with Canterbury has been years in the making
The continuity stretches back even further. When GAFCON first gathered in Jerusalem in 2008, its leaders said they were not leaving the Anglican Communion even as they moved to form an alternative council of bishops, as Reuters reported at the time. What looked then like a pressure tactic now reads more like the beginning of a parallel governance project.
Whether the latest boycott becomes a clean institutional break remains unclear. GAFCON insists it is preserving authentic Anglicanism rather than launching a schism. But with its new council instructing officeholders to avoid Canterbury-led meetings, and with Communion leaders pressing ahead with a rival reform agenda, the chances of restoring the old center of Anglican authority look slimmer than at any point since the movement emerged nearly two decades ago.
