The Church of England is facing a seismic schism, with the conservative Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Gafcon), representing nearly 40 million members—ten times the UK’s Anglican population—declaring itself the authentic Anglican Communion.
Gafcon announced it has severed ties with progressive factions, accusing them of abandoning biblical authority and pursuing a “revisionist agenda.”
The group stated, “We cannot remain in communion with those who forsake the inerrant word of God.”
Over the past two decades, the denomination has continued a leftward drift.
In early October 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that far-left Sarah Mullally was announced as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, marking the first time a woman has been chosen for the position.
Her election by the College of Canons was formally confirmed by King Charles III, and Mullally will be officially installed at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2026. Her appointment may have served as a tipping point for the conservative majority.
A self-described feminist, she is also an open advocate of abortion and has supported initiatives such as LGBT+ History Month.
When Sarah Mullally was questioned on how the Church would protect children from sexualisation & “queer theory”, she remained silent.
Today, she was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury pic.twitter.com/Ek0k4XAAkv
— Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) October 3, 2025
The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Gafcon), which represents the conservative branch of the denomination, mainly in the developing world and Africa, has seen the writing on the wall and has been pushing back against the denomination, routinely castigating them for their abandonment of the scriptures and historic Anglican teaching.
Anglicans have four Instruments of Communion: the Archbishop of Canterbury, (someone first among equals) the Lambeth Conference (a meeting of bishops around the world that gathers once a decade), the Primates’ Meeting (a meeting of the bishops and archbishops of each of the church’s 41 provinces, with the last one held in 2020), and the Anglican Consultative Council, which includes everyone from bishops to deacons to laity and meets every three years.
Gafcon shared the following statement:
To our dear Anglican brothers and sisters in Christ.
Grace and peace to you in the name of our risen Lord Jesus Christ, on the Commemoration of the martyrdom of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley.
The first Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) gathered in 2008 in Jerusalem to prayerfully respond to the abandonment of the Scriptures by some of the most senior leaders of the Anglican Communion, and to seek their repentance.
In the absence of such repentance, we have been prayerfully advancing towards a future for faithful Anglicans, where the Bible is restored to the heart of the Communion.
Today, that future has arrived.
Our Gafcon Primates gathered this hour to fulfil our mandate to reform the Anglican Communion, as expressed in the Jerusalem Statement of 2008.
We resolved to reorder the Anglican Communion as follows:
1. We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered, with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading” (Jerusalem Declaration, Article II), which reflects Article VI of the 39 Articles of Religion.
2. We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
3. We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
4. Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.
5. Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.
6. Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.
7. To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.
8. We shall form a Council of Primates of all member provinces to elect a Chairman, as primus inter pares (‘first amongst equals’), to preside over the Council as it continues “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
As I declared in my statement two weeks ago,“the reset of our beloved Communion is now uniquely in the hands of Gafcon, and we are ready to take the lead.”
Today, Gafcon is leading the Global Anglican Communion.
As has been the case from the very beginning, we have not left the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion.
At our upcoming G26 Bishops Conference in Abuja, Nigeria from 3 to 6 March 2026, we will confer and celebrate the Global Anglican Communion.
Please pray that we will lead our Communion in prayerful submission to the Holy Spirit as we hear the voice of Jesus in his wondrous Scriptures, to the glory of God.
Yours in Christ,
The Most Revd Dr Laurent Mbanda
Chairman, Gafcon Primates’ Council
Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda
Thursday 16th October, 2025
