Anglican realignment
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The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion.
Two of the major events that 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.
The current realignment movement differs from previous ones in that some Anglicans are seeking to establish different ecclesiastical arrangements within the Anglican Communion rather than separating themselves from it; and other Anglicans that had previously separated are being gathered into the new realignment structures along with those who were never Anglican/Episcopalian before. Some Anglican provinces, particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, West Africa, and South America, are seeking to accommodate them. A number of parishes that are part of the realignment have severed ties with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada and associated themselves with bishops from these other national Anglican provinces.
The conventions of four dioceses of the Episcopal Church voted in 2007 and 2008 to leave that church and to join the Anglican Church of South America. Twelve other jurisdictions, serving an estimated 100,000 persons at that time, formed on December 3–4, 2008 a Confessing Anglican body, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). The ACNA is seeking official recognition as a province within the Anglican Communion. The Church of Nigeria declared itself in communion with the new church in March 2009 and the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) formally recognized the new church in April 2009. In June 2009, the Anglican Church of Uganda also declared itself in full communion with the ACNA, and the Anglican Church of Sudan followed suit in December 2011.
In October 2025, GAFCON Chairman Laurent Mbanda, the Primate of Rwanda, announced that the GAFCON communion will officially be renamed the Global Anglican Communion and was planning to select a new primus inter pares instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He also asserted that GAFCON is not leaving the Anglican Communion but rather is the Anglican Communion. The election was going to take place at the next GAFCON, due to take place in March 2026 in Abuja, Nigeria, hosted by the Church of Nigeria. Mbanda said that in the wake of the appointment of Sarah Mullally as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the resulting controversy it poses amongst evangelical Anglicans, that "this may be the most significant gathering of faithful Anglicans since 2008." "The statement outlining that plan was signed by one person, Rwanda Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, who serves as chair of GAFCON’s primate council." In March, 2026, GAFCON declined to elect a "rival" primus inter pares, opting instead to reorganize the existing Primates' Council as the "Global Anglican Council."
As of 2025, GAFCON claims to represent upwards of 85% of the world's practicing Anglicans. Peer-reviewed research from 2015 and 2016, published in the Journal of Anglican Studies by Cambridge University Press, indicates that the GAFCON-aligned provinces represent closer to 45% of practicing Anglicans and just over 54% of all Anglicans. Excluding the United churches in South Asia, the World Christian Database, published in 2021 and produced by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, estimated that the Anglican Communion had 97,399,000 members in 2020 with 63,556,000 in Africa, 24,400,000 in Europe, 4,565,000 in Oceania, 2,689,000 in North America, 1,230,000 in Asia, and 959,000 in Latin America.