Twelve Churches and a Communion Redrawn
The Diocese of the Southern Cross is small. What it belongs to is not.
By David W. Virtue, DD
October 22, 2026
The Diocese of the Southern Cross, Australia's orthodox Anglican refuge, is quietly growing. On October 10 in Brisbane, two lay ministers were ordained deacons, bringing their congregations in as Member Churches. The Anglican Church of the Torres Strait is about to join as well, making it the twelfth Member Church. In Perth, Rev. Mekyal Keira, who pastors the Sudanese Kush Southern Cross Anglican Church, was ordained a presbyter. Gafcon Australia Chair Peter Smith preached.
Twelve churches will not shake Lambeth Palace. The significance of Southern Cross is not its size. It is a local sign of a global realignment that, over the past twelve months, has moved from protest to building permanent structures.
From Martyrs' Day to Abuja
The realignment came to a head when Sarah Mullally was named Archbishop of Canterbury. On October 16, 2025, responding to the Church of England's announcement, Rwanda's Archbishop Laurent Mbanda declared that GAFCON is the authentic Anglican Communion. The terms were blunt.
Member provinces would stay away from meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC. They would neither give money to the ACC nor accept money from it. They were also told to remove from their constitutions any reference to being in communion with Canterbury and the Church of England.
In March the movement gathered in Abuja. Some 347 bishops and 121 lay and clerical leaders came from 27 provinces. Many expected the meeting to elect a rival "first among equals" to Canterbury, but that did not happen. Instead, the movement created a Global Anglican Council. Mbanda was unanimously elected chairman, with Brazil's Archbishop Miguel Uchôa as vice-chairman and Canadian-born Bishop Paul Donison as general secretary. Any office-holder in the Global Anglican Communion who keeps attending Canterbury's Instruments must step down from that office. In August the Council named Abuja as the Communion's headquarters.
The language from Abuja was Reformational, not schismatic. The communiqué invoked Cranmer: the movement says it is reforming the Communion from within while leaving the Canterbury Instruments behind. Put plainly, the orthodox are no longer waiting at Canterbury's door. They have built another house.
How Big Is the House?
The numbers are contested, and they matter. GAFCON says it represents more than 85% of the world's practicing Anglicans. Peer-reviewed research from 2015 and 2016 put GAFCON-aligned provinces nearer 45% of practicing Anglicans and just over 54% of baptized members. Even the lower figure is remarkable for a movement born only in 2008. Unlike the established Communion, GAFCON plants churches. ACNA in North America, the Confessing Anglicans in New Zealand, and now Southern Cross in Australia all grew out of the same refusal of revisionism. All of them are growing while their parent churches shrink.
The GSFA: Same Grief, Different Road
The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches shares GAFCON's convictions but not its methods. When Mullally was named, GSFA chairman Archbishop Justin Badi Arama of South Sudan said it was sad that the new Archbishop supports same-sex marriage. He recalled that she had called the 2023 Synod decision to bless same-sex couples a moment of hope. The GSFA said its position had not changed since its February 2023 Ash Wednesday statement, when it stopped recognizing the Archbishop of Canterbury as "first amongst equals." Its proposed remedy is a covenanted framework for orthodox provinces, grounded in explicit doctrinal commitment and mutual accountability.
That is real pain, but it is not the same as GAFCON's clean break. GSFA primates met in the Seychelles in January 2026, their first in-person gathering since launching their Covenant Structure in Egypt in June 2024. The GSFA is building its own house next door. One commentator noticed what Abuja left unsaid: the Abuja Affirmation never mentioned the GSFA at all. The two orthodox bodies agree on the diagnosis but, so far, offer two different prescriptions.
Mullally's Charm Offensive
Canterbury has noticed. Mullally has spent her first months courting the Global South, especially the provinces that have not left. Twenty-six Primates attended her installation, and she met regional delegations of primates at Canterbury afterward. From late July to early August she visited Ghana and Cameroon at the invitation of West Africa's Primate, Dr Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith. Lambeth framed the trip as a way to strengthen ties between the See of Canterbury and the province. In Accra she met President John Dramani Mahama and Ghanaian Anglican leaders. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV received her in the Apostolic Palace during a fraternal visit.
The strategy is clear. Embrace the moderate Africans, publicize the ecumenical handshakes, and present GAFCON as a noisy fringe. It is a sophisticated play, and Mullally deserves credit for it. But a photo opportunity is not a doctrine of marriage. No amount of travel changes the fact that the Church of England now blesses what Scripture does not, and most of the Global South knows it.
Back to the Torres Strait
That is why twelve churches in Australia matter. The Torres Strait Islanders who broke away in 1996–97 did not need Abuja to tell them when their leadership had lost their trust. Nor did the Sudanese believers in Perth, who know what it costs to keep the faith under pressure. Southern Cross is led by Bishop Glenn Davies, former Archbishop of Sydney. It is not part of the Canterbury-linked Communion, and it does not seem to miss it.
I went to Singapore twice in those early years, and both times travelled on to Kuala Lumpur. I met the bishops of the Global South and heard their speeches. More importantly, I saw their church planting with my own eyes. These men were not theorists of renewal; they were doing the work, one congregation at a time. Some of those bishops, and one archbishop, have since gone to their reward. They did not live to see Abuja, but Abuja is their legacy. What the establishment once dismissed as irregular and doomed is now a global council with its own headquarters.
Canterbury still has the cathedral, but the Anglican future is being built somewhere else.
Sources: John Sandeman (October 9, 2026); Religion News Service; MinistryWatch; Christian Century; Church Times; Psephizo; GSFA statement of October 3, 2025; GSFA Primates' communiqué (Seychelles, January 2026); Sudans Post; EFE.
David W. Virtue, DD, is the founder, editor, and publisher of VirtueOnline. His stories can be read here: www.virtueonline.org His Substack on the Middle East can be read here: davidvirtue2.substack.com
Comments