Windsor Report - Anglican Communion Covenant

Anglican Communion Covenant

In 2006, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, established the Covenant Design Group (CDG) to draft a covenant for the Anglican Communion. The CDG met between 2007 and 2009, producing three successive drafts: the Nassau Draft Covenant (2007), the St. Andrews Draft Covenant (2008), and the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant (2009). Each draft was indebted to previous ecumenical covenants that Anglicans had either proposed or entered into. The origins of Anglican ecumenical covenants date to the 1964 British Conference on Faith and Order, although this was indebted to the ecumenical covenanting which the World Council of Churches endorsed in 1948. However, since the late 1960s, Anglicans have discussed and debated several plans for greater integration of the Anglican Communion. Most recently, these proposals have incorporated significant discussions of canon law. The Anglican Covenant depends upon these discussions as well.

The final text of the covenant was sent to the provinces of the Anglican Communion in late 2009. As of June 2012, the covenant has been acceded to by seven provinces of the Anglican Communion: Mexico (2010), the West Indies (2010), Ireland (2011), Myanmar (2011), South East Asia (2011), Papua New Guinea (2011), and the Southern Cone (2011). The Church of Southern Africa took the initial steps towards ratifying the covenant in 2011, pending final approval in 2013. Two provinces have rejected the covenant: the Church of England (2012) and the Episcopal Church of Scotland (2012). In the Church of England, the diocesan vote against the covenant was decisive but the popular vote was only narrowly against the covenant. It is expected that the Covenant will brought up for reconsideration in the next triennium.

Two provinces have neither rejected nor embraced the covenant in full. On 9 July, 2012, the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia resolved that it was "unable to adopt the proposed Anglican Covenant due to concerns about aspects of Section 4, but subscribes to Sections 1, 2, and 3 as currently drafted to be a useful starting point for consideration of our Anglican understanding of the church." This resolution further stated that the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia "Affirms the commitment of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia to the life of the Anglican Communion; including the roles and responsibilities of the four Instruments of Communion as they currently operate." Two days later, on 11 July, 2012, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America chose to neither accept nor reject the Anglican Covenant, instead opting for a "pastoral response" that recognized the "wide variety of opinions and ecclesiological positions" within the province. The Episcopal Church voted to continue its participation in the Anglican Covenant process, monitoring and studying the text and its reception, throughout the Anglican Communion during the next three years.