There was so much interest shown in this present-day venture that it was continued on B.B.C., where comments were equally made by an Anglican parson, a Free Church minister and a Catholic priest.

The Anglican Communion is an international association of national and regional Anglican churches ( and a few other episcopal churches ) in full communion with the Church of England ( which is regarded as the mother church of the worldwide communion ) and specifically with its principal primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There is no single " Anglican Church " with universal juridical authority as each national or regional church has full autonomy.

With a membership currently estimated at over 85 million members worldwide, the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Some of these churches are known as Anglican, such as the Anglican Church of Canada, due to their historical link to England ( Ecclesia Anglicana means " English Church ").

The Anglican Communion considers itself to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and to be both Catholic and Reformed.

In response, the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada answered that the actions had been undertaken after lengthy scriptural and theological reflection, legally in accordance with their own canons and constitutions and after extensive consultation with the provinces of the Communion.

* The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

* The Anglican Church of Australia

* The Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil ( Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil )

* The Anglican Church of Burundi

* The Anglican Church of Canada

* The Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central America ( Anglican Church in the Central Region of America )

* The Province de L ' Eglise Anglicane Du Congo ( Province of the Anglican Church of Congo )

* Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui ( Hong Kong Anglican Church ( Episcopal ))

* The Anglican Church of Kenya

* The Anglican Church of Korea

* The Anglican Church of Mexico

* The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea

* The Anglican Church of Southern Africa

The oldest-surviving Anglican church outside of the British Isles ( Britain and Ireland ) is St Peter's Church in St. George's, Bermuda, established in 1612 ( though the actual building had to be rebuilt several times over the following century ).

It remained part of the Church of England until 1978 when the Anglican Church of Bermuda separated.

The town is home to numerous memorials, the national archives, a small population, and one of the oldest Anglican churches outside of England ( the others are in Virginia, Maryland and Bermuda ).

Elsewhere around the town there are a multitude of historical sites such as the old State House ( the first stone building in Bermuda, other than fortifications, built in 1620 to house Bermuda's Parliament, and today the oldest building on the island ), the Unfinished Church, the Old Rectory, St. Peter's ( the oldest surviving Anglican and oldest continuously occupied Protestant church in the Western hemisphere ), the Tucker House, the Bermuda National Trust Museum, and the St. George's Historical Society Museum and the Featherbed Alley Printshop museum ( both in the Mitchell House ).

* John Armstrong ( bishop of Bermuda ) ( 1905 – 1992 ), Anglican bishop

Thomas N. Nisbett, Bermuda's first Black Anglican priest ( later Canon Thomas Nisbett ), and Major Eugene Raynor, who became Colonel and Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Regiment, Bermuda's armed forces.

It remained part of the Church of England until 1978 when the Anglican Church of Bermuda was formed.

The Anglican diocese of Newfoundland also included the island of Bermuda.

The Anglican Church of Australia has five provinces: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia, and an extraprovincial diocese.

Full integration into the Anglican Communion occurred in 1980 when the Church became an extraprovincial diocese under the metropolitical authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A notable example of this was the discussion of Christian unity by the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr. Heenan, and the Anglican Archbishop of York, Dr. Ramsey, recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

Of course, the crowning event that has dramatically upset the traditional pattern of English religious history was the friendly visit paid by Dr. Fisher, then Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Vatican last December.

There is an Anglican Communion Office in London, under the aegis of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but it only serves a supporting and organisational role.

The Chair of St Augustine ( the episcopal throne in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent ), seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury in his role as head of the Anglican Communion

The body has a permanent secretariat, the Anglican Communion Office, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is president.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury.

Along with primacy over the Archbishop of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury also has a precedence of honour over the other bishops of the Anglican Communion.

In 2001, Peter Hollingworth, AC, OBE – then the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane – was controversially appointed Governor-General of Australia.

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has described homophobia as a " crime against humanity " and " every bit as unjust " as apartheid: " We struggled against apartheid in South Africa, supported by people the world over, because black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about ; our very skins.

* 1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II ; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church.

Paul Kwong, Anglican Archbishop and Primate of Hong Kong

Of the ten Australians appointed since 1965, Lord Casey, Sir Paul Hasluck and Bill Hayden were former federal parliamentarians ; Sir John Kerr was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales ; Sir Ninian Stephen and Sir William Deane were appointed from the bench of the High Court ; Sir Zelman Cowen was a vice-chancellor of the University of Queensland and constitutional lawyer ; Peter Hollingworth was the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane ; and Major-General Michael Jeffery was a retired military officer and former Governor of Western Australia.

The public role adopted by Sir John Kerr was curtailed considerably after the constitutional crisis of 1975 ; Sir William Deane's public statements on political issues produced some hostility towards him ; and some charities disassociated themselves from Peter Hollingworth after the issue of his management of sex abuse cases during his time as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane became a matter of controversy.

He drew the ire of many when he called Nobel Peace Prize winner and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu a phony " as far as representing the black people of South Africa.

** Augustine of Canterbury, Missionary, first Archbishop of Canterbury, ( Anglican Communion and Eastern Orthodox )

At the beginning of World War I, Bishop de Berghes went to the United States at the suggestion of the Anglican Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Richard Lovelace's mother was also the daughter of Anne Sandys and the granddaughter of Cicely Wilford and the Most Reverend Dr. Edwin Sandys, an Anglican church leader who successively held the posts of the Bishop of Worcester ( 1559 – 1570 ), Bishop of London ( 1570 – 1576 ), and the Archbishop of York ( 1576 – 1588 ).

* April 19 – George Carey is enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

* James Ussher of Ireland ( 1581 – 1656 ), Anglican theologian, Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of All Ireland