November 7, 2008
By Matthew Davies

The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East will host the primates and moderators of the Anglican Communion for a February 1-5, 2009 meeting in Alexandria, Egypt.

In light of these dates and at the request of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Episcopal Church's Executive Council's January meeting is being rescheduled one day earlier and will now begin on the morning of January 29 and end on January 31.

While an agenda for the Primates Meeting is still in its early stages, topics expected to be addressed include the proposed Anglican covenant, the Windsor Process, and international concerns, especially relating to the Millennium Development Goals. The meeting is expected to be preceded by a pilgrimage, the details of which have yet to be finalized.

Alexandria, known as the Pearl of the Mediterranean, is the second largest city in Egypt and the country's main seaport. The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, under the leadership of President Bishop Mouneer Hanna Anis, includes four dioceses throughout Jerusalem, Iran, Egypt, Cyprus and the Gulf.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams acknowledged in an August 26 pastoral letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion that there had been "a general desire" at the 2008 Lambeth Conference "to find better ways of managing our business as a communion."

He suggested that the Primates Meeting might apply the Indaba process – named after a Zulu word meaning purposeful discussion – which formed the basis for groups of around 40 bishops that met each day during the Lambeth Conference, the decennial meeting of Anglican bishops that took place last summer in Canterbury, England.

"Many participants [at the conference] believed that the Indaba method, while not designed to achieve final decisions, was such a necessary aspect of understanding what the questions might be that they expressed the desire to see the method used more widely – and to continue among themselves the conversations begun in Canterbury," he said. "This is an important steer for the meetings of the Primates and the ACC [Anglican Consultative Council] which will be taking place in the first half of next year, and I shall be seeking to identify the resources we shall need in order to take forward some of the proposals about our structures and methods."

Since they last met in February 2007 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 12 new primates have been or are expected to be elected in Bangladesh, Canada, Central Africa, Jerusalem and the Middle East, Melanesia (retiring in December 2008), Myanmar, North India, South India, Southern Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, and the West Indies (retiring in December 2008).

While Anis has been critical of recent developments in the Episcopal Church concerning human sexuality issues, he also decried the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) that met in Jerusalem last June, saying that it was neither the right time nor place for such a meeting.

GAFCON was attended by conservative Anglican primates and bishops, some of whom boycotted the 2008 Lambeth Conference held one month later. Anis, however, chose not to attend the GAFCON conference, but did not boycott Lambeth.

Williams said in his final presidential address to the Lambeth Conference that "in the months ahead it will be important to invite those absent from Lambeth to be involved in these next stages" of the efforts to maintain the communion. "Much in the GAFCON documents is consonant with much of what we have sought to say and do, and we need to look for the best ways of building bridges here," he said.

The Primates Meeting is one of the three instruments of communion in the Anglican Communion, the other two being the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), the Anglican Communion's main policy-making body. The Archbishop of Canterbury, as primus inter pares, or "first among equals," is recognized as the focus of unity for the Anglican Communion, as resolved by the ACC at its June 2005 meeting in Nottingham, England.

Each province relates to other provinces within the Anglican Communion by being in full communion with the See of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, calls the Lambeth Conference, chairs the meeting of primates, and is president of the ACC. The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, serves as secretary. In Alexandria, Archbishop of York John Sentamu is expected to attend the Primates Meeting for the second time in his capacity as primate of England. Williams, as chief pastor of the Church of England, is primate of All England.

The term "primate" means senior archbishop or presiding bishop of a province in the Anglican Communion. In some provinces the primate is also called archbishop and/or metropolitan, while in others the term presiding bishop – or as in Scotland, primus – is preferred. In some provinces the term is translated to the local language, such as Obispo Primado in the Province of the Southern Cone (South America).

In the United Churches of South Asia, the moderators are invited to the Primates Meetings by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Primates Meeting was established in 1978 by Archbishop Donald Coggan (101st Archbishop of Canterbury) as an opportunity for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation."

Since 1979, the primates of the autonomous Churches of the Anglican Communion have met regularly in consultation on theological, social, and international issues. Meeting locations have included Ely, England in 1979; Washington, USA in 1981; Limuru, Kenya in 1983; Toronto, Canada in 1986; Cyprus in 1989; Ireland in 1991; Cape Town, South Africa in 1993; Windsor, England in 1995; Jerusalem in 1997; Oporto, Portugal in 2000; Kanuga, USA in 2001; Canterbury, England in 2002; Brazil, May in 2003; London, England in October 2003; Newry, Northern Ireland in February 2005; and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in February 2007.

The provinces and primates of the Anglican Communion are listed below. Primates' biographical information is available here.

• Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia
The Most Rev. William Brown Turei

• Anglican Church of Australia
The Most Rev. Phillip John Aspinall

• Church of Bangladesh
The Rt. Rev. Paul Sishir Sarkar

• Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil
The Most Rev. Maurício José Araújo de Andrade

• Anglican Church of Burundi
The Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi

• Anglican Church of Canada
The Most Rev. Fred Hiltz

• Church of the Province of Central Africa
Vacant

• Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America
The Most Rev. Martin de Jesus Barahona

• Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo
The Most Rev. Dr. Dirokpa Balufuga Fidèle

• Church of England
The Most Rev. Rowan Douglas Williams

• Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui
The Most Rev. Paul Kwong

• Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean
The Most Rev. Gerald James (Ian) Ernest

• Church of Ireland
The Most Rev. Alan Edwin Thomas Harper

• Nippon Sei Ko Kai (The Anglican Communion in Japan)
The Most Rev. Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu

• Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and The Middle East
The Most Rev. Mouneer Hanna Anis

• Anglican Church of Kenya
The Most Rev. Benjamin M P Nzimbi

• Anglican Church of Korea
The Most Rev. Francis Kyung Jo Park

• Church of the Province of Melanesia
The Most Rev. Sir Ellison Leslie Pogo KBE (retiring in December 2008)

• La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico
The Most Rev. Carlos Touche-Porter

• Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma)
The Most Rev. Stephen Than Myint Oo

• Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
The Most Rev. Peter Jasper Akinola

• Church of North India (United)
The Most Rev. Joel Vidyasagar Mal

• Church of Pakistan (United)
The Rt. Rev. Dr Alexander John Malik

• Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea
The Most Rev. James Simon Ayong

• Episcopal Church in the Philippines
The Most Rev. Ignacio Capuyan Soliba

• L'Eglise Episcopal au Rwanda
The Most Rev. Emmanuel Musaba Kolini

• Scottish Episcopal Church
The Most Rev. Idris Jones

• Church of the Province of South East Asia
The Most Rev. Dr John Chew

• Church of South India (United)
The Most Rev. John Wilson Gladstone

• Anglican Church of Southern Africa
The Most Rev. Thabo Cecil Makgoba

• Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America
The Most Rev. Gregory James Venables

• Episcopal Church of the Sudan
The Most Rev. Daniel Deng Bul

• Anglican Church of Tanzania
The Most Rev. Valentino Mokiwa

• Church of the Province of Uganda
The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi

• Episcopal Church in the USA
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori

• Church in Wales
The Most Rev. Dr. Barry Cennydd Morgan

• Church of the Province of West Africa
The Most Rev. Justice Ofei Akrofi

• Church in the Province of the West Indies
The Most Rev. Drexel Wellington Gomez (retiring in December 2008)

Episcopal News Service
Matthew Davies is editor of Episcopal Life Online and Episcopal Life Media correspondent for the Anglican Communion.