Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is a Christian communion consisting of the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares ("first among equals"), but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches. With approximately 85 -110 million members, it is the third-largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches globally.

The Anglican Communion was officially and formally organised and recognised as such at the Lambeth Conference in 1867 in London under the leadership of Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury. The churches of the Anglican Communion consider themselves to be part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, with worship being based on the Book of Common Prayer. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarized in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571) and The Books of Homilies.

As in the Church of England itself, the Anglican Communion includes the broad spectrum of beliefs and liturgical practises found in the Evangelical, Central and Anglo-Catholic traditions of Anglicanism; both the larger Reformed Anglican and the smaller Arminian Anglican theological perspectives have been represented. Each national or regional church is fully independent, retaining its own legislative process and episcopal polity under the leadership of local primates. For many adherents, Anglicanism represents a distinct form of Reformed Protestantism that emerged under the influence of the Reformer Thomas Cranmer, or for yet others, a via media between two branches of Protestantism—Lutheranism and Calvinism—and for others, a denomination that is both Catholic and Reformed.

Most of its members live in the Anglosphere of former British territories. Full participation in the sacramental life of each church is available to all communicant members. Because of their historical link to England (ecclesia anglicana means "English church"), some of the member churches are known as "Anglican", such as the Anglican Church of Canada. Others, for example the Church of Ireland and the Scottish and American Episcopal churches, have official names that do not include "Anglican". Conversely, some churches that do use the name "Anglican" are not part of the communion. These have generally disaffiliated over disagreement with the direction of the communion.