The conservative Anglican group, the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON), is meeting in Nigeria’s capital this week to elect its own leader of the Anglican Communion. The appointment, which will happen just weeks before the installation of Sarah Mullally as the 36th Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, is seen as a direct challenge to her leadership.
GAFCON, which claims to represent 85 per cent of the world’s practising Anglicans, though those numbers are likely inflated, formed in 2008 in response to a perceived sense that the Anglican Communion was deviating from biblical principles. The group is a movement rather than a church, so it did not formally sever ties with the Anglican Communion, as it was not itself a church capable of being in communion. However, some of the provinces it represents have formally separated themselves from Canterbury.
