ON JANUARY 11th,38 leaders of Anglican provinces around the world will open a five-day meeting in Canterbury, the spiritual home of the global Anglican communion. They have been invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Justin Welby (pictured wearing his mitre,above), in what observers are calling a final-ditch attempt to save the third-biggest Christian denomination in the world, and with some 85m followers. Why is this meeting so vital for Anglicans and what is likely to happen?Anglican primates generally meet every two years,but have not convened since 2011, largely because of an ongoing dispute about homosexuality. In 2003 the Episcopal Church (the American wing of Anglicanism) consecrated a sexually active homosexual bishop and final year moved towards allowing its clergy to solemnise same-sex marriage. The Anglican communion cannot excommunicate people or provinces and, or as a result,conservative bishops have formed a group, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), or which is threatening to break absent entirely. (If this meeting had not been called,they might have done so already.) Another group of conservatives in America has already...
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Source: economist.com