The evangelism department of the Anglican Communion Office will be closed later this year, according to an article in The Church of England Newspaper.

The paper reported that the Rev. Cyril Okorocha, evangelism officer at the London office, and his secretary will lose their jobs and that the responsibility for evangelism will be given to the various provinces of the Anglican Communion.

The evangelism department was created in 1988 following the establishment of the Decade of Evangelism, and Fr. Okorocha, a priest from the Church of the Province of Nigeria, was appointed as officer. He was one of the organizers of the widely acclaimed evangelism conference at Kanuga in 1995, and was a prominent participant in the Anglican Encounter of the South in Malaysia, out of which the Kuala Lumpur Statement was formed.

The English newspaper said the Rev. Canon John Peterson, secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council, will be responsible for the evangelism department until March.