The Abuja Affirmation can be found online here.
The communiqué issued at the conclusion of the G26 gathering, called the Abuja Affirmation, marks a significant moment in the life of the GAFCON movement and in the ongoing conversation about the future of the Anglican Communion. Bishops and Anglican leaders from across the global church gathered in Nigeria not simply for fellowship, but to reflect on the implications of the October 2025 Martyrs’ Day Statement and to continue discerning how faithful Anglicans might walk together in a time of deep ecclesial division.
The statement from Abuja makes clear that the leaders gathered here believe the Anglican Communion has reached a point where reordering is necessary. For more than two decades, GAFCON leaders and other orthodox Anglicans called for repentance from provinces and leaders who departed from historic Anglican teaching, particularly on matters of biblical authority and human sexuality. The communiqué argues that those appeals did not result in meaningful discipline or correction within the Communion’s historic structures.
According to the statement, the problem lies not only in the theological disagreements themselves but in the inability, or unwillingness, of the Canterbury-centered “Instruments of Communion” to maintain doctrinal accountability. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting are described as having failed to guard the faith once delivered to the saints. Rather than confronting false teaching, the communiqué argues, these structures increasingly sought to preserve institutional unity through the language of “walking together” despite deep theological disagreement.
In response to this perceived failure, the statement outlines what it calls a “reordering” of the Anglican Communion around a confessional foundation. The key theological principle underlying this vision is that true communion among churches must be grounded in shared doctrine rather than merely shared institutional affiliation or historical connection. In this view, communion exists where churches confess the same faith, particularly as expressed in the Jerusalem Declaration and the historic formularies of Anglicanism, including the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
From this perspective, the communiqué suggests that the current crisis within Anglicanism reflects not the existence of two separate communions but rather two competing definitions of communion. One definition is confessional, grounded in shared doctrine and submission to the authority of Scripture. The other is institutional, centered on historical structures that attempt to hold together provinces with fundamentally incompatible theological commitments.
The leaders gathered in Abuja argue that a confessional understanding of communion is not an innovation but a recovery of the historic Anglican vision. The communiqué points to the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, when Archbishop Charles Longley described the Anglican Communion as a fellowship of churches bound together by shared faith and common formularies rather than by centralized authority.
Against this backdrop, the G26 statement formally affirms the emergence of what it calls the Global Anglican Communion. According to the communiqué, this is not intended to be a breakaway body or a rival communion, but rather a reordering of Anglican life around the historic doctrinal commitments that originally defined Anglican fellowship. Central to this reordering is the creation of a new leadership body, the Global Anglican Council. The communiqué announces that the existing GAFCON Primates’ Council will now give way to this newly constituted council, which will include primates, advisors, and guarantors. The council will have responsibility for guarding the faith of Global Anglicans, recognizing participating provinces and dioceses, and authenticating new Anglican jurisdictions where faithful Anglicans are marginalized by revisionist leadership.
The council will be chaired by Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda, with Archbishop Miguel Uchôa serving as vice-chairman and Bishop Paul Donison as general secretary.
The statement also outlines a principle of what it calls “principled disengagement” from the Canterbury Instruments. Leaders participating in the Global Anglican Communion are expected not to attend future Lambeth Conferences, Primates’ Meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council. The communiqué argues that continued participation in these structures risks legitimizing the idea that fundamental doctrinal disagreements can simply be managed within the same ecclesial fellowship.
In addition, provinces are encouraged, where possible, to amend their constitutions to remove formal references to communion with the See of Canterbury. At the same time, the statement acknowledges that such constitutional changes may take time and may involve complex legal processes in different countries. For this reason, participation in the Global Anglican Communion is ultimately defined not by constitutional language but by assent to the Jerusalem Declaration.
Taken together, the G26 communiqué represents an effort to articulate a coherent theological and structural vision for Anglican life in a time of deep division. It reflects a growing conviction among many Global South leaders that the future of Anglican unity must be rooted not in institutional continuity but in shared faithfulness to the authority of Scripture and the historic teaching of the church.
At the same time, the statement naturally raises a number of important questions about how this vision will be implemented in practice.
For example, the communiqué announces the creation of the Global Anglican Council and describes its responsibilities, but it has not yet publish the governing documents that will define how the council operates. What constitutional framework will guide the work of the Global Anglican Council? Who participated in drafting them? As the council begins its work, greater clarity about its governance structures will help Anglicans around the world understand how this new body will function and trust in its steadfast development.
Another set of questions concerns the relationship between the Global Anglican Communion and other ongoing efforts to reform the structures of the wider Anglican Communion, such as the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans and its Cairo Covenant, and the Anglican Consultative Council’s Nairobi-Cairo proposals, which the statement directly refutes. Since some GAFCON primates participated in the recent IASCUFO discussions connected with the Nairobi-Cairo proposals and were approved by them, how will they now relate to the Global Anglican Communion in its determination to move forward in agreement?
Finally, many faithful Anglicans will naturally be asking what these developments mean in practical terms. The communiqué speaks of supporting orthodox believers in provinces that have embraced revisionist teaching, including England, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, and Brazil. It acknowledges that many Anglicans remain within these provinces while affirming the Jerusalem Declaration and expresses a commitment to support them. How these biblically faithful churches will ultimately be related to the emerging structures of the Global Anglican Communion remains to be seen, as does the question of how bishops, clergy, and laity who have concluded they cannot remain within those ecclesial structures will be supported. The communiqué reaffirms GAFCON’s longstanding commitment to stand with faithful Anglicans in difficult circumstances. As this new phase of leadership develops, many will be watching closely to see how that commitment takes institutional shape.
None of these questions diminish the significance of what took place in Abuja. If anything, they highlight the seriousness of the moment. What began nearly two decades ago as a movement seeking to uphold the authority of Scripture within Anglicanism has increasingly become a global fellowship seeking to provide durable structures for faithful Anglican witness. The G26 statement reflects a conviction shared by many Anglicans across the Global South: that the future of Anglican unity must ultimately be grounded not in institutional preservation but in a common confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether the structures now being proposed will succeed in providing that framework remains to be seen. What is clear is that the conversation about the future shape of the Anglican Communion has now entered a new and exciting chapter.