No Change in Marriage Teaching, Archbishop of Canterbury Pledges
10/07/2005

The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, assuring him of the Church of England’s orthodoxy, pledging it has not, and will not, put the Anglican Communion at risk by altering its teaching on marriage.

Archbishop Akinola disclosed the letter at a news conference in the Nigerian capital of Abuja following the Church’s triennial synod. In his remarks, Archbishop Akinola stated his Church’s decision to delete references to the Archbishop of Canterbury from its constitution had been misconstrued by some as a prelude to schism by Nigeria. This was not true, he said, as the Church of Nigeria “treasured its place in the Anglican Communion.”

However, Archbishop Akinola said “the disarray the United States and the Canadian churches brought on the Communion because of their revisionist agenda on homosexuality” prompted Nigeria to act. Adding a confessional clause to its constitution allows that “those who are bent on creating a new religion in which anything goes, and have thereby chosen to walk a different path, may do so without us” he said. The rest