Structure and Strain

The Anglican Communion has no single doctrinal authority comparable to the Pope in Roman Catholicism or an Ecumenical Patriarch in Eastern Orthodoxy. Its cohesion instead rests on four Instruments of Communion: the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose recognition has traditionally signaled membership; the Lambeth Conference of bishops, held roughly once a decade; the Anglican Consultative Council, a body of bishops, clergy and laity; and the Primates' Meeting, gathering the senior bishops of each member province. None of these bodies can compel a member church's compliance, a design that reflects the Communion's origin as a voluntary fellowship of already independent churches rather than a single hierarchical institution.

That looseness has come under real strain in recent decades. Disagreements over the ordination of women, and more sharply over the ordination of partnered gay clergy and the blessing of same sex unions, have led some provinces, particularly in parts of Africa and Asia, to declare impaired or broken communion with others, notably the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, and to form parallel conservative structures such as the Global Anglican Future Conference. Whether the Communion holds together as a single body or continues to fragment along these lines remains an open and actively contested question within Anglicanism itself.