Sources close to the conservative Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), which represents churches on every continent and the majority of Anglicans worldwide, have said that they fully expect the organisation to “formally disassociate” from both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England.
For centuries the interests of the Latin Catholics living in the Ottoman Empire – this year is the 100th anniversary of its fall, a fate decided by the victors in the First World War – had been protected at the Sublime Porte by the representative of France. This right originally had its basis in the “Capitulations,” agreements of a politico-commercial nature that soon opened up to the protection of individuals or individual communities residing in the Empire.
The Church of England is considering whether to use gender-neutral terms to refer to God, a spokesperson said on Thursday, adding that there are no plans to “to abolish or substantially revise” the existing liturgy.
At Vatican II, the bishops came from 116 countries, most of them native born: 36 percent from Europe, 23 percent from Latin America, 12 percent from North America, 20 percent from Asia and Oceania, and 10 percent from Africa. By the time of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome, 74 percent of the bishops came from countries other than Europe or North America, as do more than 70 percent of the world’s Catholics today.
The President of South Sudan says he will resume his engagement with a Church-led peace process in response to Pope Francis’ landmark ecumenical pilgrimage to the war-torn country. President Salva Kiir made the announcement in the garden of the presidential palace on the afternoon of 3 February in front of the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Church of Scotland’s moderator, Iain Greenshields.
Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields, will begin a joint visit to South Sudan on 3 February. What impact could their ecumenical journey together have on this conflict-ridden country? Denominations? Dr Haruun Ruun, a former leader of the New Sudan Council of Churches, said to a European visitor: “You are the ones who had the Reformation, not us. Our denomination is survival.”
In recent years, religion has become increasingly present in discussions of international politics. This is partly due to the recognition that religious communities are contributing to some of the conflicts that mar the international scene today. Religiously inspired nationalist movements are among the more dangerous ways that religion can lead to conflict today. On the other hand, religious communities can also be important agents of peace. Pope Francis has been an important religious contributor to peace, both through his actions and his teaching.
King Charles III not only became Britain's monarch immediately upon the death of his mother, but he also became the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. And at his coronation he will be granted the symbolic title "Defender of the Faith", as have all British sovereigns since 1521. But in an interview in 1994 when he was still only the Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, Charles mused over the exact meaning of that title."
Friction has been simmering within the global Anglican Communion for many years over its 42 provinces’ sharp differences on whether to recognize same-sex marriage and ordain LGBTQ clergy. In 2022, the divisions have widened, as conservative bishops – notably from Africa and Asia – affirmed their opposition to LGBTQ inclusion and demanded “repentance” by the more liberal provinces with inclusive policies.
In recent decades Christian scholars have written much about the saving work of Christ reaching those who follow other religions. A dimension needing more consideration is that of the priesthood of Christ. How can the theology of religions be enriched by reflection on the high priesthood of Christ? We begin with the Second Vatican Council, then focus on the Letter to the Hebrews, and finish with Paul and John.
Most Indians like to brag that theirs is a very “tolerant” society and compare it with China, for instance, or the Islamic countries of West Asia. But speak to a Dalit, a tribal or a woman in this country, and you get a very different story. The truth is that a caste-ridden society can never be respectful and accepting of others, and in the India of today not only is there violence based on caste but growing intolerance based on religion.
The approved response to Rishi Sunak becoming prime minister is – regardless of how you regard his party – that it is a proud day for British Asians. That was the approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon for the Scottish nationalists before retuning to party politics. It is indeed a proud moment for the Indian community – though it turns out that his paternal grandfather was from presentday Pakistan, while his parents came from Kenya – and its ethos of hard work and commitment to family.
From July 26 to August 8, 2022, the 15th Lambeth Conference took place at the University of Kent (England). More than 650 Anglican bishops, together with their spouses, representing about 165 countries and about 85 million faithful, gathered near the historic seat of Anglicanism, Canterbury Cathedral, with the intention of responding to the challenges that the local circumstances of the 42 provincial churches of the Communion pose to Christian faith and witness in the 21st century.
Charles, the new King of England, had once made it clear that he did not want to be called defender of the faith. The “Queen of England And All Her Realms” dies as a much-loved grandmother, who provided some ephemeral sense of continuity in a rapidly changing world of the 20th Century and the first two decades of the 21st.Her life reflected the buffeting of her land and her people through a devastating world war, acute depression, rebuilding, and loss of income from the vast commonwealth. In an ironic rebounding tsunami, one among a wave of refugees almost became the last prime minister of her long, very long reign.
The Archbishop of Westminster has distanced himself from the Vatican’s attempts to sustain dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church during the war in Ukraine. Speaking to the Religion Media Centre, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said that there was “a scandal attached to that refusal not just to condemn, but even to stop supporting the Russian military effort” on the part of Patriarch Kirill and the Moscow hierarchy.
“We clearly state that we can’t continue to remain in any form of canonical subordination to the Moscow patriarch.” More than 300 priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have signed a petition to the Council of Eastern Patriarchs asking it to put Patriarch Kirill of Moscow on trial.
The petition accuses Kirill of heresy in preaching the “Russian world” ideology, and of moral crimes in blessing Russian troops and their invasion of Ukraine. It calls on the primates of the local Orthodox Churches to subject him to an international ecclesiastical tribunal.
The passing of former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, on December 26, 2021, marks another milestone in the history of the ecumenical “Church Struggle” against apartheid in South Africa. This era, starting somewhere in the late 1950s and gaining momentum in the 1960s, reaching its peak in the heady days of the 1980s as a broad coalition of community organizations, trade unions and religious organizations came together, broadly working in parallel.
There is a strong case for expelling the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches, Rowan Williams has said. “When a Church is actively supporting a war of aggression, failing to condemn nakedly obvious breaches of any kind of ethical conduct in wartime, then other Churches do have the right to raise the question.”
The Protestant St Peter’s Cathedral in Geneva, where John Calvin preached the Reformation, has hosted its first Catholic Mass in almost five centuries, with clerics from the once-opposed denominations sharing Lenten ashes in a sign of ecumenical harmony.
The Reverend Christian Krieger is convinced that the Christian Churches and communities across Europe should be speaking out and challenging the Moscow Patriarchate to take a firm stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "The ideology pursued by the Russian president is fully reflected in some of Patriarch Kirill's statements," says Krieger, a 58-year-old French Reformed theologian."I wanted to remind (the patriarch) that Christian identity is beyond our national and cultural identities," he says.