Anglican Congress
Diocesan Press Service. March 11, 1963 [VIII-11]
Delegates to the Anglican Congress to be held in Toronto, in August, will represent 18 autonomous churches and a large number of missionary dioceses comprising the Anglican Communion with a world membership of more than 40,000,000.
Some 1,000 clergymen and laymen, with their wives, are expected to attend the Congress, the aim of which is to consider common tasks facing the Church today and to promote closer ties of mutual trust and affection among its members. The Congress is not a legislative body.
The term Anglican Communion was first used in the 19th century to denote that branch of Christendom consisting of the various churches in communion with the Church of England. The uses of this term underlined the growth of Anglicanism.
Besides the Church of England, there are three other members of the communion in the British Isles: The Church in Wales, dating back to the third century; the Church of Ireland, which also originated in Celtic Christianity; and the Episcopal Church of Scotland, which maintained its tradition after 1689 when the established Church of Scotland became Presbyterian.
American Influence
Development of Anglicanism outside Britain, to which it had been confined for some 200 years after the Reformation, had its genesis in the United States. Following the War of Independence and the severance of the colonies from the British Crown, the Protestant Episcopal Church was established. While doctrines were maintained as in the Church of England, the new church became independent of all foreign authority.
Extension of Anglican organization to the colonies was slow at first but it gradually gained momentum and as the colonies became partners in the British Commonwealth the existing churches became independent members of the Anglican Communion.
In 1787, three years after the formation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, Canada got its first bishop when the Rev. Charles Inglis was consecrated Bishop of Nova Scotia, with jurisdiction over all British possessions in North America. But the Canadian Church did not become independent until Confederation in 1867.
Founding of the sees of Jamaica and Barbados in 1824 marked the beginning of the Church of the West Indies.
19th Century Expansion
Anglicanism's 19th-century expansion is well exemplified by what is now the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. Although Anglican chaplains and missionaries had been with the British in India about 200 years, it was not until 1814 that the Rev. T. F. Middleton was made Bishop of Calcutta following representations made in parliament by William Wilberforce. Within 10 years the bishop had an enormous jurisdiction that took in Ceylon, the East Indies and even Australia.
But today the Ceylon-born Metropolitan of the Indian Church presides over an ecclesiastical province that has seen several former Anglican dioceses enter the Church of South India, a union that linked Anglicans, Presbyterian, Methodists and Congregationalists. Other proposed unions in North India and Ceylon may entirely remove the Anglican Communion as such from India.
Australia's connection with India ended in 1836 when Ven. William Broughton was made the first bishop of what has since become the Church of England in Australia. It is more like the Church of England constitutionally than any other in the communion.
The Church of New Zealand had its inception in 1841 when George A. Selwyn was chosen as its first bishop. Today its membership includes Maoris and the Polynesian peoples of the neighbouring islands.
In Africa, hundreds of native clergy and thousands of members are found in five autonomous Churches - the Church of South Africa, the Church of West Africa, the Church of Central Africa, the Church of East Africa, and the Church of Uganda and Ruanda Urundi. In addition various dioceses in the Middle East have been brought together in an Archbishopric with Jerusalem as its centre. While it has its own Episcopal Synod, the ultimate authority rests in the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Anglican Churches in Japan and China, grown from missionary areas of the English, Canadian, or United States Churches, are now independent with their own national bishops and other clergy. The Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Holy Catholic Church of Japan), for a time isolated by war, now has friendly relations with other members of the Anglican Communion, but the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (Holy Catholic Church of China) is completely isolated from Western contact.
The Anglican Communion is completed by dioceses scattered about the world that come under the jurisdiction either of the American Church or of the Archbishop of Canterbury. These include parts of Europe, Gibraltar, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Singapore, Borneo, South and Central America, islands of the Caribbean, and Liberia.