2026 Will Be a Decisive Year for the Anglican Communion

GSFA will stay in the Communion but demand reform as the price GAFCON has cut ties with

Canterbury and will consecrate a new Archbishop to replace the current Archbishop of Canterbury

PHOTO: GSFA primates present at the Seychelles meeting: Archbishops Justin Badi Arama of South Sudan, Titus Chung of South East Asia, Ande Titre of Congo, Samy Shehata of Alexandria, Gilbert Rateloson of the Indian Ocean, and Miguel Uchoa of the Anglican Church of Brazil – Courtesy of TLC

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

February 20, 2026

By any reckoning, 2026 will be a decisive year for the Anglican Communion.

Global factions are hardening their stances as the Western branches of Anglicanism continue their rocky ride into the sunset.

The numbers speak for themselves. The Global South is under 30, female, Black, and growing. Its members represent 80% of the Anglican Communion. The Global North is over 60, predominantly white, and dying. The Global South is orthodox in faith and morals; the Global North is revisionist and progressive. One group accepts the authority of Scripture; the other defers to the culture, especially in the area of morals.

A new woman Archbishop of Canterbury is a non-starter for the vast majority of the Global South, as well as for Anglo-Catholics and some evangelicals in the Global North who believe Scripture offers no support for such a consecration. Her progressive views on sexuality undermine her authority even more. That she is supported by the Archbishop of York and the majority of her bishops and clergy underscores the deep fissures within the Church of England and the wider Communion.

The ordination of women to the priesthood is a lightning rod issue that won't go away. While the issue has been resolved by progressives, ecclesiastical movements like the ACNA are internally conflicted over it. Continuing Anglicans have issued a resounding no.

Homosexual activity, proscribed by Scripture, is the standard for orthodox Anglicans. Progressive sexuality — which has led to homosexual priests, bishops, and even an archbishop, and to the acceptance of homosexual marriage — has undermined the biblical, traditional, and historic position. This has proven unacceptable to faithful Anglicans. From Lambeth Resolution 1:10 to the Jerusalem Declaration, the wider church, with its 80 million members, has declared a categorical and unambiguous no to such behavior. Caving into the culture is the kiss of death.

GSFA CHURCHES RESPONSE

The primates of the orthodox Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), who met recently in the Seychelles, maintained a tentative grip on the Anglican Communion as they sought "to bear witness to life rather than death; lament the departure from historic Anglican teaching and support fellow conservatives within the Church of England."

It is clearly a delicate balancing act that has defined the movement since its inception in 1994. The fellowship was formed to represent orthodox evangelical Anglican churches, primarily from the Southern Hemisphere and Third World provinces within the Anglican Communion.

They released a communiqué saying they planned to become "an increasingly effective instrument for the reform of the Communion," and are working on a strategic plan to make it happen. This becomes more urgent as the Church of England has chosen a woman to lead the Mother Church for the first time in its 1,400-year history. Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London and a former head nurse, is also a proponent of same-sex blessings, a position the vast majority of Anglicans in the world reject.

Archbishop Titre Ande of Congo chose John 6:68 — "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" — as the sermon text for the gathering's opening service.

"This question comes to the Church today: are we leaving or are we staying? GSFA is staying within the Anglican Communion, but more importantly, we are staying with Jesus to bear witness that we must choose life rather than death and light rather than darkness," they said.

The primates said they "lamented the departure from historic Anglican teaching which is now becoming entrenched in the senior leadership of the Church of England." This was an indirect reference to Archbishop of Canterbury-elect Sarah Mullally's support for same-sex blessings, a fact highlighted in their October response to news of her appointment.

At the same time, they expressed support for fellow conservatives within the Church of England and in other parts of the Communion who have been encouraged by the recent House of Bishops' decision to effectively table Living in Love and Faith.

"We recognise that there are many in the Church of England, united in 'The Alliance,' who have remained faithful and are offering an increasingly effective resistance to the revisionist agenda," they wrote. "It was a privilege for some of us to be present with over three hundred orthodox leaders in July last year, and we assure them of our continued solidarity as they contend for the faith."

They added that GSFA is "working to truly be a home for all orthodox Anglicans" and that they "continue to engage for the time being with the IASCUFO Nairobi-Cairo proposals."

Three of the six primates present — Titre Ande, Samy Shehata of Alexandria, and Titus Chung of South East Asia — are members of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order, which developed the proposals.

The proposals seek to create space for unity and common mission amid theological disagreement by revising the Anglican Communion's classic definition and decentering the Archbishop of Canterbury's role in its Instruments. The GSFA submitted an as-yet unpublished response to the proposals during the summer.

Notably absent from the GSFA communiqué was any reference to the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) October announcement of launching the Global Anglican Communion as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound by the Reformation Formularies of 1867. This decision marks a departure from the Anglican Communion's established order, with GAFCON urging its members to remove references to Canterbury from their constitutions and disengage from the ACC.

GAFCON TO ELECT NEW LEADER TO REPLACE ABC

GAFCON has invited all Anglican churches that accept the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration in March to cut all ties with the Canterbury-centered Anglican Communion and has invited its primates to Abuja in March to elect a new leader, who they say will take the Archbishop of Canterbury's place as the "first among equals" leader of worldwide Anglicanism.

This will be viewed as a red cape to a cloistered bull that will infuriate Lambeth Palace's newly anointed Archbishop Sarah Mullally; but the arrogance with which Church of England leaders operate — as if they still own the Communion — will be shattered once and for all by this election.

Six of the nine GSFA primates who signed the January communiqué are also listed as members of GAFCON's Primates' Council. One of them, Archbishop Miguel Uchoa of the GAFCON-founded Anglican Church of Brazil, was among the drafters of the vision for the Global Anglican Communion.

There are eight provinces affiliated with both the GSFA and GAFCON (Alexandria, Brazil, Chile, Congo, Myanmar, North America, South Sudan, and Uganda), though several of these are not currently active in GAFCON. Some officially remain in GAFCON; their withdrawal has never been requested.

Titre Ande, who is listed as both a GSFA and GAFCON primate, has critiqued GAFCON's plan, writing in late October that the Anglican Church of Congo has "no intention to leave the Anglican Communion, rather to keep working with brothers and sisters of the GSFA to accomplish our common goal: to reform, heal, and revitalize the Anglican Communion without leaving it."

While GAFCON and GSFA can coexist with common purposes and different strategies, each organization has a unique calling. GAFCON, since 2008, has already declared its goal to be the resettlement of the Anglican Communion.

There is little doubt that 2026 will be a Kairos year in the life of the Anglican Communion. Orthodox Anglicans in the West and Global North wait with bated breath to see where and how the chips will fall. Stay tuned.

END