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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2025
This article proposes that while the four instruments of communion of the Anglican Communion (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates’ Meeting, the Lambeth Conference, and the Anglican Consultative Council) are not synods, they nevertheless manifest synodality. The historical origins of member church autonomy are first explored; then, each of the instruments is briefly discussed in turn; finally some suggestions are made for further exploration in the mode of receptive ecumenism.
1 Acts 10:20, NRSV.
2 Anglicans would more usually speak of the ‘Communion’ level than the ‘universal’, because Anglicans see themselves as only one part of God’s church. ‘Universal’ is used here to reflect the terminology of the Agreed Statement of the Third Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission, Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal (2017).
3 Anglican Communion Office, Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion (2022). Principle 15.6 states ‘Each church, province and diocese has an assembly, namely a synod, council or other body, the function of which is to govern’. Hence, as the function of the instruments of communion is not to govern, they are not termed synods. The word ‘Council’ is present in the title of the Anglican Consultative Council, but modified by the adjective ‘Consultative’.
4 Anglican Communion Office (note 3). There is no universal system of canon law common to the churches of the Anglican Communion; however, the canons and constitutions of the member churches do manifest certain common principles, which have been established by scholarly enquiry. Hereafter, reference to a ‘principle’ is to the 2022 edition.
5 ‘The United Church of England and Ireland is no part of the Constitution in any colonial settlement…’. In re Lord Bishop of Natal [1864] EngR 864; (1864) 3 Moo PCC NS 115, 148, 152; [1864] EngR 864; 16 ER 43, 57.
6 W Perry (ed), Journals of General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the United States, 1785–1835 (Claremont, 1874), 280.
7 Quoted in A Ross, A Still More Excellent Way (London, 2020), 60.
8 R Wilson, George Augustus Selwyn (1809–1878): Theological Formation, Life and Work (London, 2014), 111–136. Although Selwyn appealed to patristic authority, the revived synods often copied contemporary parliamentary practice.
9 Often the member church’s territory is co-terminous with national boundaries, but some churches’ territories cover only part of a sovereign nation (such as the Scottish Episcopal Church) and many cover several nations (such as the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).
10 The principle of member church autonomy is not incompatible with the royal supremacy. The Church of England exercises its autonomy through its Supreme Governor (who is a member of the Church of England). See the Report of the Archbishops’ Committee on Church and State (London, 1916) 26–27, 39–57.
11 The very first thing which a visitor to the Anglican Communion website reads is, ‘The Anglican Communion is a family of 42 autonomous and independent-yet-interdependent national, pan-national and regional churches in communion with the see of Canterbury’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org, accessed 30 September 2024.
12 Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, The Gift of Authority: Authority in the Church III (London, 1998) 34.
13 Ibid, 39.
14 ‘The churches of the Anglican Communion remain in communion with the See of Canterbury.’ Anglican Communion Office (note 3), Part II, Preface.
15 N Doe, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Oxford, 1998), 344.
16 O Chadwick, ‘Introduction’ in R Coleman, Resolutions of the Twelve Lambeth Conferences 1867–1988 (Toronto, 1992), viii.
17 Quoted in Doe (note 15), 346.
18 Recent research indicates that part of the reason why, from the beginning, the Lambeth Conference was not seen to have the power to make binding resolutions was because of the royal supremacy. See B Guyer, ‘“This Unprecedented Step”: The Royal Supremacy and the 1867 Lambeth Conference’ in P Avis and B Guyer, The Lambeth Conference: Theology, History, Polity and Purpose (London, 2017), 73–76.
19 Lambeth Conference 1930, res 49.
20 ‘The Lambeth Conference can be seen as a conciliar event in a non-juridical mode. Here the bishops come precisely to confer and not to take decisions that are binding on the member Churches.’ The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith & Order, ‘Towards a Symphony of Instruments’, s 2.2.1, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/209979/Towards-a-Symphony-of-Instruments-Web-Version.pdf, accessed 30 September 2024.
21 R Dewhurst ‘The “New World” of Ecclesiastical Law’, in N Doe and S Coleman, The Legal History of the Church of England (Oxford, 2024), 188.
22 The calls addressed the following themes: Discipleship; Environment and Sustainable Development; Anglican Identity; Safe Church; Science and Faith; Human Dignity; Christian Unity; Mission and Evangelism; Inter Faith; and Reconciliation. ‘The aim of each call is to deepen faithfulness to God, advance the ministry of the communion and enable wider participation in the calls by churches and communities around the world.’, https://www.lambethconference.org/phase-3/the-lambeth-calls/, accessed 30 September 2024.
23 Quoted in A Ross, A Still More Excellent Way: Authority and Polity in the Anglican Communion (London, 2020), 123.
24 Primates’ Meeting, ‘Purpose and Scope of the Primates’ Meeting: A Working Document’, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/68360/prim_scpurpose.pdf, accessed 30 September 2024.
25 Ross (note 23).
26 If primatial sees were once almost entirely honorific, they now usually have specific functions in the canon law of Anglican churches, including general leadership; initiating, developing, and implementing policy and strategy; representing a church in its dealings with other churches, national, and international bodies. See Principle 40.
27 Resolution III.6(b).
28 Anglican Communion Office, Windsor Report 2004: Lambeth Commission on Communion (2005), para 103.
29 ‘Articles of Association of The Anglican Consultative Council’, s 4, https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/39479/the-constitution-of-the-anglican-consultative-council.pdf, accessed 30 September 2024.
30 ‘7.2 The Member-Churches of the Council shall be those bodies listed in the Schedule to these Articles … with the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the Anglican Communion (which shall be deemed to have been received if not withheld in writing within four months from the date of notification) the Standing Committee may alter or add to the Schedule’, ibid.
31 Such as the Anglican Health and Community Network, the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, or the Anglican Communion Legal Advisers Network, of which I am the chair.
32 Ibid, 5.
33 Ibid, 5.4.
34 Emphasis added.
35 This principle, advising churches not to rely on their legal autonomy to the detriment of the wider Communion, might be seen as a canonical instantiation, for Anglicans, of St Thomas’s teaching on epikeia {equity}: ‘bonum autem est, praetermissis verbis legis, sequi id quod poscit iustitiae ratio et communis utilitas’ {but it is good, the words of the law being set aside, to follow that which justice and the common good demand} ST II:II q. 120 a. 1; or of the Scriptural injunction ‘only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another’, Galatians 5:13, NRSV.
36 ARCIC (note 12), 60.
37 Ibid, 62.
38 Would a re-reception of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome require a reformulation of the Church of England’s doctrine of the royal supremacy? Such a question lies beyond the scope of this paper, but I note that six dioceses which were, until that time, part of the Church of England radically changed their relationship with the crown at the disestablishment of the Church in Wales in 1920, showing that doctrinal development here is possible.
39 Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, Walking together on the Way (London, 2018), 72.
40 Ibid, 145.