Anglican Consultative Council to consider revised Nairobi-Cairo proposals for structural reforms

[Episcopal News Service] An Anglican Communion body that developed proposals for communion structural reforms has issued revisions and supplemental documents to assist the Anglican Consultative Council as it prepares to convene this summer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The recommended reforms are known as the Nairobi-Cairo proposals, named for the cities where they were first developed by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, or IASCUFO. The commission is recommending two primary reforms, focused on how the Anglican Communion is defined and the way it assigns leadership in certain representative bodies.

“We believe in the importance of bringing Anglicans together,” the Rt. Rev. Anthony Poggo, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said in a March 2 media briefing on the latest revisions. Poggo said the Nairobi-Cairo proposals aim to foster global Anglican unity while allowing the 42 autonomous, interdependent Anglican provinces to stay true to their “different contexts.”

The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, or IASCUFO, issued its initial draft of the Nairobi-Cairo proposals in December 2024 and issued supplemental revisions in March 2026.

Bishop Graham Tomlin, a Church of England bishop who chairs IASCUFO, said the proposals seek common ground among Anglicans about “the nature of the church, the nature of the Anglican Communion.” Unity is a gift given by Jesus Christ, Tomlin said, “but it’s also something we have to work at.”

The proposals were first released in a 44-page report in December 2024. If adopted, they would de-emphasize the Church of England and the archbishop of Canterbury as a “focus of unity,” while elevating more geographically diverse leaders for the global network of Anglican and Episcopal churches.

They were developed partly in response to longstanding theological divisions between some of the provinces, and it remains to be seen whether the proposed changes could mend what some conservative bishops have described as their “impaired” communion with provinces like The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada that are more progressive on issues of LGBTQ+ inclusion.

The first proposal offers an updated statement of what binds the 42 provinces to each other: “shared inheritance, mutual service, common counsel in conference, and historic connection with the See of Canterbury.” That final principle’s wording differs slightly from the Anglican Communion’s existing definition, which since 1930 has required member churches to be “in communion with the See of Canterbury,” commonly understood as the Church of England.

After seeking and receiving additional input on its December 2024 report, IASCUFO concluded that no additional revisions were necessary for that first proposal, which is affirmed in the March 2 supplement.

The second proposal, on the other hand, has continued to evolve. It seeks to broaden and diversify the leadership of three Anglican Communion bodies known as the “Instruments of Communion” – the ACC, the Primates’ Meeting and the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. The office of the archbishop of Canterbury is considered a fourth Instrument of Communion.

The archbishop of Canterbury now serves as ACC president. IASCUFO initially suggested that the role be filled instead by a rotation of leaders from the Anglican Communion’s five regions. In the March 2 revisions, the commission concluded that the office of president was unnecessary and could be eliminated altogether, since the ACC already has an elected chair and an elected vice chair.

To broaden the geographical diversity of Anglican Communion leadership, the commission emphasized the role of the Primates’ Standing Committee. The Anglican Communion could empower those provincial leaders to fulfill some global obligations that previously had fallen to the archbishop of Canterbury, such as attendance at the inauguration of a new province or the installation of a new primate.

“On such occasions, the relevant primate would precisely represent the Anglican Communion and not function as a delegate of the archbishop of Canterbury. This follows from the principle of the diversified face of the communion that ought not always be the face of the Church of England,” IASCUFO said. “The archbishop of Canterbury could continue to serve as the presumptive representative of the Communion in most ecumenical settings, even as the option of calling upon others could prove helpful.”

These revised proposals were issued a little more than a month after Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally took office as the 106th archbishop of Canterbury. In that role, she will convene her first ACC meeting in late June and early July, hosted by the Church of Ireland.

The latest revisions also come as a group of theologically conservative Anglican leaders, who call themselves GAFCON, are holding their latest conference this week in Nigeria to discuss a previously announced plan to split from the Anglican Communion to create a new global structure.

So far, there has been little public evidence of widespread support for GAFCON’s plan to leave the Anglican Communion, though at least three provinces — Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda — already for years had been excluding themselves from global gatherings, such as the Anglican Consultative Council.

Episcopal News Service, during the March 2 media briefing, asked whether Anglican Communion leaders had any indication how many provinces planned to send representatives to the ACC meeting in Northern Ireland. Poggo said all 42 provinces have been invited, though he did not yet have a complete accounting of who will attend.

The Episcopal Church has three representatives to the ACC. The Rev. Ranjit Mathews, canon to the ordinary and chief of staff of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, will attend his second ACC meeting this summer, after participating in the 2023 meeting in Ghana. He will be joined by two new members, Puerto Rico Bishop Rafael Morales Maldonado and Yvonne O’Neal, a lay leader from the Diocese of New York.

Mathews, in a March 2 phone interview with ENS, said he was encouraged by IASCUFO’s willingness to listen to member provinces and revise its initial proposals. “I think that’s some good movement,” Mathews said. The commission is “doing some good Anglican work, in the sense of being in conversation.”

He said he will reserve judgement on the Nairobi-Cairo proposals until they can be discussed and possibly revised further by the ACC, though he applauded the “open and transparent process.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.