# redirect Anglican Communion

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.

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.

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

The Anglican Communion Office is headed by its Secretary General, the Reverend Canon Kenneth Kearon.

The Anglican Communion has no official legal existence nor any governing structure which might exercise authority over the member churches.

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.

As mentioned above, the Anglican Communion has no international juridical organisation.

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.

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.

All 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion are autonomous, each with its own primate and governing structure.

A world map showing the provinces of the Anglican Communion ( Blue ).

Also shown are the churches in full communion with the Anglican Communion: the Nordic Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion ( Green ) and the Old Catholic Church | Old Catholic churches of the Utrecht Union ( Red ).

In addition to other member churches, the churches of the Anglican Communion are in full communion with the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Scandinavian Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion in Europe, the India-based Mar Thoma and Malabar Independent Syrian churches and the Philippine Independent Church, also known as the Aglipayan Church.

The Anglican Communion is a relatively recent concept.

Thus the only member churches of the present Anglican Communion existing by the mid-18th century were the Church of England, its closely linked sister church, the Church of Ireland ( which also separated from Roman Catholicism under Henry VIII ) and the Scottish Episcopal Church which for parts of the 17th and 18th centuries was partially underground ( it was suspected of Jacobite sympathies ).

The churches of the Anglican Communion have traditionally held that ordination in the historic episcopate is a core element in the validity of clerical ordinations.

More recently, disagreements over homosexuality have strained the unity of the Communion as well as its relationships with other Christian denominations, leading to another round of withdrawals from the Anglican Communion.

Some churches founded outside the Anglican Communion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, largely in opposition to the ordination of openly homosexual bishops and other clergy are usually referred to as belonging to the Anglican realignment movement, or else as " orthodox " Anglicans.

Since the break the Church of England, an established national church, still considers itself part of the broader Western Catholic tradition as well as being the " mother church " of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Since going into ecumenical communion with their respective Anglican body, bishops in the ELCA or the ELCIC not only approve the " rostering " of all ordained pastors, diaconal ministers, and associates in ministry, but they serve as the principal celebrant of all pastoral ordination and installation ceremonies, diaconal consecration ceremonies, as well as serving as the " chief pastor " of the local synod, upholding the teachings of Martin Luther as well as the documentations of the Ninety-Five Theses and the Augsburg Confession.

The largest number of Benedictines are Roman Catholics, but there are also some within the Anglican Communion and occasionally within other Christian denominations as well, for example, within the Lutheran Church.

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, " Anglican realignment " and other Anglican churches.

Although all administrative links with Jamaica were broken in 1962, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica continue to share many links and experiences, including membership in the Commonwealth of Nations ( and Commonwealth citizenship ) and a common united church ( the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands ) and Anglican diocese ( although there is debate about this ) as well as a common currency ( until 1972 ).

It is especially important in the Catholic Church, but is also used in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic, as well as Anglican, and Lutheran churches, ( though less often in other Protestant churches ), and it emphasizes Jesus ' sacrifice — his death by crucifixion, which Christians believe brought about the redemption of mankind.

Among its first duties was the forcible seizure of tithes during the " Tithe War " on behalf of the Anglican clergy from the mainly Catholic population as well as the Presbyterian minority.

In the Roman Catholic Church, as well as among many Anglican and Lutheran congregations, palm fronds ( or in colder climates some kind of substitutes ) are blessed with an aspergillum outside the church building ( or in cold climates in the narthex when Easter falls early in the year ).

In the Episcopal and many other Anglican churches and in Lutheran churches, as well, the day is nowadays officially called " The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday "; in practice, though, it is usually termed " Palm Sunday " as in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer and in earlier Lutheran liturgies and calendars, to avoid undue confusion with the penultimate Sunday of Lent in the traditional calendar, which was " Passion Sunday ".

Official writings of the churches of the Anglican Communion have consistently upheld belief in the Real Presence, a term that includes transubstantiation as well as several other eucharistic theologies such as consubstantiation, transignification, and the purely spiritual presence affirmed by the Thirty Nine Articles.

" The majority Court Party was generally Anglican, strongest in Kent and Sussex counties and worked well with the colonial Proprietary government, and was in favor of reconciliation with the British government.

The Roman Catholic Church, as well as the Anglican Communion, Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches venerate ( not worship ) saints who are in Heaven.

Although the Great Awakening represented the first time African Americans embraced Christianity in large numbers, Anglican missionaries had long sought to convert blacks, again with the printed as well as the spoken word.

The Short Service, an unpretentious setting of items for the Anglican Matins, Communion and Evensong services, which seems to designed to comply with the Protestant reformers ’ demand for clear words and simple musical textures, may well have been composed during the Lincoln years.

He is commemorated on 23 November as a Pope and Martyr in the Roman Catholic Church as well as within the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran Church.

In other Anglican and Lutheran traditions, as well as a few others, August 15 is celebrated as St. Mary, Mother of the Lord.

" Mass " is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church, Latin liturgical rites, Western Rite Orthodox Churches, as well as in similar celebrations in Old Catholic Churches, in some Anglican parishes, and in many Lutheran Churches.

A number of Traralgon families also send their children to the three independent Anglican grammar schools in the region, two of which are about 40 minutes drive from Traralgon: St. Paul's Anglican Grammar School, which has a campus in Traralgon as well as Warragul, or Gippsland Grammar School in Sale.

They also sang the alto parts in Handel's choruses, and it was as choral singers within the Anglican church tradition ( as well as in the secular genre of the glee ) that countertenors survived throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

There were many letters of strong protest against the portrait of the Anglican clergyman, who was indeed portrayed as a man not particularly concerned with religious matters and without really very much to do as clergyman.

In some ways they represent a stronger opposition because they have the backing of many member provinces of the Anglican Communion and, in some cases, are or have been missionary jurisdictions of such provinces of the Communion as the Churches of Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and the Southern Cone of America.

As in England, while many prayers were retained the structure of the Communion service was altered: a Prayer of Oblation was added to the Eucharistic prayer after the ' words of institution ', thus reflecting the rejection of Cranmer's theology in liturgical developments across the Anglican Communion.

Some Lutheran and many Anglican provinces commemorate him on the traditional Eastern feast day of 27 January.

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.

On Easter Day 2007, it was estimated that many of the two billion Catholic, Anglican, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Christians who were sharing in the celebration of Easter would read, recite, or sing the short prayer in hundreds of languages.

In many towns and villages there are United Churches which are sometimes with Anglican or Baptist churches, but most commonly are Methodist and URC, simply because in terms of belief, practice and churchmanship, many Methodists see themselves as closer to the United Reformed Church than to other denominations such as the Church of England.

The Nicene Creed has been normative for the Anglican Church, the Church of the East, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church including the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Old Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and many Protestant denominations, forming the eponymous mainstream definition of Christianity itself in Nicene Christianity.

Within modern Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan, there are churches and believers from many Christian denominations, including Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglican, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic ( Eastern and Western rites ), Protestant, and others.

The contemporary service books of many Anglican provinces do not use the term but it remains in the Book of Common Prayer.

Palmerston campaigned for Gladstone in Oxford because he believed that his constituents would keep him " partially muzzled ", because many Oxford graduates were Anglican clergymen at that time.

His translation of the Psalter is used in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and is the most familiar translation of the psalms for many Anglicans all over the world.

Peel felt compelled to resign his seat as MP representing the graduates of Oxford University ( many of whom were Anglican clergymen ), as he had stood on a platform of opposition to Catholic Emancipation ( in 1815 he had, in fact, challenged to a duel the man most associated with emancipation, Daniel O ' Connell ).

The public services of the Anglican churches, as contained in the Book of Common Prayer, do not directly invoke the Blessed Virgin or any other saint in prayer, and the thirty-nine Articles of Religion reject the practice of praying to saints, but many Anglo-Catholics feel free to do so in their private devotions.

WCC member churches include most of the Orthodox Churches ; numerous Protestant churches, including the Anglican Communion, some Baptists, many Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian and other Reformed, a sampling of united and independent churches, and some Pentecostal churches ; and some Old Catholic churches.

In many denominations, such as Methodism, Presbyterianism, and Lutheranism, the roles of clergy are similar to Roman Catholic or Anglican clergy, in that they hold an ordained pastoral or priestly office, administer the sacraments, proclaim the word, lead a local church or parish, and so forth.

In the 20th century, the diaconate was restored as a permanent order in many Western churches, most notably in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and The United Methodist Church.

" Mass " is one of many terms used to describe the Eucharist in the Anglican tradition.

There are also many tourism attractions in Georgetown including the St. George's Anglican Cathedral, and Stabroek Market, the Demerara Harbour Bridge, the Guyana museum and the Pegasus hotel.

Eventually, after the 16th and 17th centuries, and especially after the Anglican Reformation and the Plantation of Ulster, many of the " Old English " settlers were gradually assimilated into the Irish population, in large part due to their relative reluctance to give up Roman Catholicism ( those who worshiped in the Church of Ireland were rewarded with a higher status ).