In the weeks following the G26 gathering in Abuja, questions emerged across the Anglican world about what, exactly, was established and how leadership within this new structure is meant to function. Much of the concern centered on the Global Anglican Council and the role it will play in relation to the wider Global Anglican Communion. After an exclusive conversation with the Rt. Rev. Paul Donison, General Secretary of the Global Anglican Communion, it is clear that the developments in Abuja are best understood as an effort to bring clarity and consistency to leadership within a Communion already defined by shared theological commitments.

At the heart of this clarification is a distinction that is essential to understanding the Council itself. Participation in the Global Anglican Communion is broad. Leadership within the Global Anglican Council is defined and, by design, more limited. Bishop Donison reiterated for us that all churches, dioceses, and provinces willing to affirm the Jerusalem Declaration are recognized as participants in the Global Anglican Communion. This shared confession continues to serve as the theological foundation of the movement. At the same time, those who serve as office holders within the Global Anglican Communion are asked to meet an additional requirement, one that has become the focus of much recent discussion: principled disengagement from the Canterbury Instruments. 

This requirement, affirmed in the Abuja statement, is not presented as a matter of preference or strategy, but of coherence. As articulated in that document, leadership in the Global Anglican Communion requires a “full and public disengagement” from structures historically associated with the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and Primates’ Meetings called under Canterbury’s authority. It also includes a refusal to direct financial support toward those bodies, and an expectation that leaders will not receive financial assistance from sources understood to be theologically compromised.

The rationale offered is both theological and ecclesial. Theologically, the concern is that continued participation in these structures suggests that deep disagreements over doctrine can be treated as secondary. Ecclesiastically, it reflects the conviction that shared leadership requires visible agreement, not only in stated belief but in institutional alignment. 

It’s important to note that this requirement applies to leadership, not to belonging. Provinces or dioceses that affirm the Jerusalem Declaration but are not prepared to exercise principled disengagement are not excluded from the Global Anglican Communion or future GAFCON gatherings. They remain within its fellowship and are welcome to participate in its life to whatever degree they are able. What they are not able to do, however, is serve in positions of leadership within the Global Anglican Communion – whether on the governing Global Anglican Council, or other offices such as Trustees, Branch Chairs, Network Leaders, or Secretariat Staff.

This distinction is central. Bishop Donison was eager to bring this point home. It is an attempt to hold together both openness and integrity. “Communion remains broad,” he stated, “but leadership requires a higher level of alignment.”

The structure of the Council itself reflects this approach. At its core, the Global Anglican Council is led by primates and senior episcopal leaders from across the Communion. We were given a list of members at every level, so that the leadership composition and structures remains clear. Current members include :

• The Most Rev. Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of Rwanda, who also serves as Chair
• The Most Rev. Miguel Uchoa, Anglican Church in Brazil, who serves as Vice Chair
• The Most Rev. Henry Ndukuba, Archbishop of All Nigeria
• The Most Rev. Stephen Kaziimba, Archbishop of Uganda
• The Most Rev. Enrique Lago, Archbishop of Chile
• The Most Rev. Siegfried Ngubane, Presiding Bishop of REACH South Africa
• The Rt. Rev. Julian Dobbs, Acting Archbishop of the ACNA

These leaders represent a broad geographical and ecclesial spread, particularly across the Global South and Latin America, where Anglicanism continues to grow and where the theological commitments reflected in the Jerusalem Declaration are most clearly articulated. The Council’s leadership is therefore not an abstract or imported body, but one grounded in existing primatial authority.

Alongside the primates, the Council includes a group of regional advisors. These are diocesan and extra-provincial bishops who lead missionary jurisdictions connected to the GAFCON movement. Among them are the following five:

• The Most Rev. Kanishka Raffel, Archbishop of the Diocese of Sydney
• The Rt. Rev. Andy Lines, Bishop of Anglican Network in Europe
• The Rt. Rev. Jay Behan, Bishop of the Church of Confessing Anglicans in Aotearoa, New Zealand 
• The Rt. Rev. Glenn Davies, Diocese of the Southern Cross 
• The Rt. Rev. Yassir Eric, Presiding Bishop of EKKIOS

Their role is to provide theological, strategic, and pastoral counsel. They do not replace or override primatial leadership, but as bishops, serve alongside it, contributing regional insight to the Council’s work.

A third component of the Council is the inclusion of guarantors. These individuals, drawn from leadership at every level of the Church (bishops, clergy, and laity), represent a continuity of the movement’s founding commitments. They currently include: 

• The Most Rev. Peter Akinola, Emeritus Archbishop of All Nigeria
• Mr. Mano Kampouris, Laity, Anglican Church in North America 
• Yinka Fisher, Laity, Anglican Church of Nigeria

The role of guarantors is not to function as an alternative center of authority, but to help ensure that the theological and institutional commitments of the Council are preserved over time.

Taken together, these three elements of primates, advisors, and guarantors form a structure that is both conciliar and episcopal. Primates lead the Council, and key leadership roles such as Chair and Vice Chair are reserved for them, reinforcing the historic role of bishops within Anglican polity. Advisors and guarantors contribute to the Council’s discernment and accountability, but do not displace episcopal authority. 

Entry into this leadership structure follows a clear pattern. Anglican primates who affirm the Jerusalem Declaration and commit to principled disengagement are not elected onto the Council but are invited into it by virtue of their office. This reflects an effort to preserve the dignity and responsibility of primatial leadership rather than subject it to external selection. At the same time, primatial leadership is not closed. Additional primates are being actively engaged and informed about the Council’s framework and are being invited in. Bishop Donison shared with us a recent example that illustrates this process. Archbishop Enrique Lago was not present at the Abuja gathering. After receiving the Council’s decisions and affirming both the Jerusalem Declaration and the requirement of principled disengagement, he was welcomed into the Council’s leadership after G26 occurred. The same invitation remains open to other primates who are prepared to make that commitment.

Those Anglican primates who are not able to do so are not excluded from the life of the Communion, and, as previously stated, are recognized as participants in the Global Anglican Communion, but will not be made office-holders or hold leadership within the Council itself. They will also be welcome to any future Gafcon gathering. In this way, the emerging structure seeks to distinguish between shared fellowship and shared governance.

Questions about discipline also arose in the wake of G26, particularly regarding the possibility of leaders not maintaining these commitments. The framework is straightforward. Those who continue to participate in the Canterbury Instruments will not be allowed to continue in leadership roles within the Global Anglican Communion and will be asked to step down. This is not presented as punitive, but as a matter of consistency between conviction and practice.

It is also important to note that the constitutional language governing these structures is still being refined. The Council’s current form reflects decisions made in Abuja, but further clarification is expected as the Global Anglican Communion continues to work through the implications of these developments.

What has emerged, even at this stage, is a clearer articulation of how leadership is to function within a global Anglican framework that is no longer uniformly defined by the historic Instruments of Communion. Rather than attempting to resolve deep theological disagreements within those structures, the Global Anglican Communion and its Council represents an effort to align leadership with a shared confession and to ensure that this alignment is visible, public, and consistent. At the same time, this clarification naturally raises further questions that will be addressed in time. For example, if the Council is conciliar in structure, bringing together primates, advisors, and guarantors, how is episcopal authority exercised within that framework? More specifically, how do primates continue to exercise their historic and pastoral oversight in a way that is not diminished, displaced, or reconfigured by the presence of the Council itself?

This question lies behind many of the concerns voiced in recent weeks, including the perception in some quarters that a more presbyterian or committee-driven model of governance may be emerging. Such concerns are not incidental. They reflect a longstanding Anglican instinct to safeguard the role of bishops and to ensure that any conciliar body serves, rather than supplants, episcopal leadership.

In response, Bishop Paul Donison emphasized that just as Anglican dioceses and provinces are episcopally-led and synodically-governed, at the global level we are primatially-led and conciliarly-governed. The Council is not intended to override primates, but to include them as key members, support them in their authority, and add to their governance the voices and wisdom of faithful members of the Church from every level. This provides a structure for shared discernment, coordination, and accountability across a rapidly growing and increasingly interconnected Communion. How that relationship is defined in practice, however, is a matter that is still being worked out, both constitutionally and relationally.

That ongoing work, and the role of primates within it, will be the focus of a future article, based on our continued conversation with Bishop Paul Donison.