Missing Primates at the Mullally Enthronement Tell the Real Story of a Fractured Communion

Commentary

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

March 26, 2026

She came; she was enthroned — but she did not conquer.

Sixteen of the forty-two orthodox primates were absent from the enthronement of Dame Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, a ceremony attended by some 2,000 gathered in Canterbury Cathedral. Their absence sent a defiant message: the fabric of the Anglican Communion is irretrievably torn. Just as the veil of the Temple was rent from top to bottom at the moment of Christ’s death, the communion’s unity has been sundered — and there are few who believe it can be repaired.

The symbolism surrounding the service was not lost on orthodox observers. The Dean of the Cathedral, the Very Rev. David Monteith, who lives openly in a same-sex relationship, presided over a ceremony whose very setting stands in violation of Lambeth Resolution 1:10. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams also declined to attend, citing his wish to avoid the appearance of a “lingering presence from the past” — though his tenure, marked by the inconclusive Windsor Report and unresolved tensions over Resolution 1:10, hardly left the communion on stable ground. Former Archbishop George Carey, 90, whose sympathies lie firmly with the theologically orthodox Global South, was likewise absent; the recent death of his son Andrew may have been a contributing factor.

Dean Monteith described the occasion as a “truly global gathering” — a characterization that rang hollow to many. The absent primates represent approximately 80 percent of the estimated 100 million Anglicans who hold evangelical convictions in matters of faith and morals. That figure is growing: roughly one million Anglicans are added to the global church each year, almost none of them in the declining West.

The Absent Primates

Twelve primates — leaders of GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) — formally declined to attend. They were the primates of Alexandria, Chile, Congo, the Indian Ocean, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South East Asia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda. Together, their provinces represent the majority of the world’s practicing Anglicans. Those who stayed away were:

•  The Most Rev. Dr. Samy Fawzy Shehata, Archbishop and Primate of Alexandria

•  The Most Rev. Enrique Lago Zugadi, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Chile

•  The Most Rev. Dr. Georges Titre Ande, Primate of the Anglican Church of the Congo

•  The Most Rev. Gilbert Rateloson Rakotondravelo, Archbishop and Primate of the Indian Ocean

•  The Most Rev. Jackson Ole Sapit, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya

•  The Most Rev. Stephen Than Myint Oo, Archbishop of the Church of the Province of Myanmar

•  The Most Rev. Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba, Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)

•  The Most Rev. Dr. Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda

•  The Most Rev. Dr. Titus Chung, Archbishop and Primate of the Church of the Province of South East Asia

•  The Most Rev. Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku, Archbishop and Primate of Sudan

•  The Most Rev. Justin Badi Arama, Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan

•  The Most Rev. Samuel Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu, Primate of the Church of Uganda

In geographic terms, the Middle East, South America, much of Asia, and a large portion of sub-Saharan Africa were unrepresented. The Province of Nigeria alone surpasses the combined regular worshipper numbers of the Episcopal Church (TEC), the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Church in Wales, and the Scottish Episcopal Church. Nigeria recently added fifteen new dioceses — a fact that speaks for itself.

Of the forty-two provinces in the Anglican Communion, twenty-four sent their primates. Pakistan and Burundi sent representatives, and Jerusalem, Melanesia, and the Acting Primate of Papua New Guinea offered apologies, citing travel difficulties arising from the conflict in the Gulf.

The Ceremony

At the service’s opening, Dean Monteith welcomed the congregation to what he called a “truly global gathering.” He later installed Mullally in the Chair of St. Augustine, praying that she might “by God’s grace be an instrument of communion and fellowship in Christ within the Anglican Communion.” Mullally was surrounded at the altar by women during her enthronement, and the service offered explicit acknowledgment of female scholars, musicians, and writers throughout the Church’s history. The Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann — herself the first openly lesbian archbishop in the Church of England’s history — offered a message of congratulations that highlighted this dimension of the occasion.

To a casual onlooker, the ceremony may have appeared both historic and unifying. To those who have followed the Anglican Communion’s internal conflicts over four decades, like this reporter, it carried a hollow ring. Those keeping watch on the procession noted the conspicuous absence of sixteen provincial leaders.

The Deeper Rupture

For nearly two decades, the GSFA has called on the Anglican Communion to submit to Scripture and to discipline those provinces — including the Church of England — it believes have “departed from the historic faith passed down from the Apostles.” These provinces will no longer recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as “first among equals” in global Anglican leadership.

Last month in Abuja, Nigeria, GAFCON went further, announcing “a shift of the stewardship of the Anglican Communion from the Canterbury Instruments to the Global Anglican Communion.” Leadership will now be vested in the newly formed Global Anglican Council, which GAFCON intends to be a confessional body anchored in biblical authority rather than institutional affiliation. The Abuja Affirmation reflected on the implications of the October 2025 Martyrs’ Day Statement and called for a thoroughgoing reordering of the Communion on doctrinal grounds.

This trajectory traces back to the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem, from which emerged the Jerusalem Declaration — a fourteen-point confessional statement articulating an orthodox Anglican identity rooted in Scripture, the historic creeds, and traditional Christian ethics. It was born from frustration with what many saw as theological drift in the Western provinces. None of this backstory was acknowledged at Canterbury.

It is now clear that the majority of the world’s Anglicans have turned their backs on Canterbury. A de facto schism exists; a de jure schism would require the full GSFA to formally break communion, and there are no immediate signs that step is imminent. But the direction of travel is unmistakable.

The Anglican Communion will stagger on — like a horse past its prime, hoping that if it crosses the finish line, there will be enough applause left to run again.