wfn.org | ACNS3455 Church of Nigeria cuts ties with the Diocese of New

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3455     |     NIGERIA	|     2 JUNE 2003

Church of Nigeria cuts ties with the Diocese of New Westminster

The Church of Nigeria has issued a statement expressing deep sadness with
the recent decision taken by the Diocese of New Westminster, Canada, to
officially sanction same-sex union.

In light of the news that the diocese conducted the first same-sex blessing
using an authorised public rite on Wednesday 28 May, the Primate of Nigeria,
the Most Revd Peter Akinola, said, "Regrettably, the much desired reflection
that will ease the strain on our Communion has been jettisoned. Furthermore,
failure to ensure strict compliance with resolutions duly passed at our
meetings clearly shows that Bishop [Michael] Ingham and his diocese see no
value in being accountable to anybody."

In addition, Archbishop Akinola referred to a statement that he issued at
the ACC-12 meeting in Hong Kong on 25 September 2002, saying:

"While I appreciate that the New Westminster diocese and the Church of
Canada may not be, in numerical terms, especially large ecclesia bodies, we
value them as dearly as we value all our partner Provinces. We have a
growing fear for the sense of loss which any sustained departure by them
from our common path and mind must risk. We urge and pray that reflection
will lead to reconsideration. It is hard indeed to see any action, which
threatens our Communion to be justified as a "local mission priority.

"But there is also a further context of which I must speak, painful though
it is. Many of us from the two-thirds world feel that the global north still
seeks to retain its disproportionate power and influence in our Church just
as in the world. It is significant that those dioceses most tempted to
indulge themselves with unilateral actions, taken without consulting the
wider Communion, seem so often to be among those materially most advantaged
and to be in the global north. Should this not occasion reflection? Do we
not see here, in the ready assertion of superior wisdom, a new imperialism?"

The Archbishop of Nigeria, representing 17 million Anglicans in Nigeria
spread over 80 dioceses, has stated that "it is this flagrant disregard for
the Anglican Communion and what the vast majority of it stand for [and as a
consequence] that has made it inevitable for the Province to severe
communion with Bishop Ingham and the diocese of New Westminster."

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