Anglican Mainstream

The Church of England Newspaper reports on its front page

THE BISHOP of Sheffield has been accused of barring
the Archbishop of Nigeria from preaching at a
church in his diocese and putting relationships in
the already fraught Anglican Communion under
even greater tension.

Archbishop Peter Akinola is one of the
most controversial and well-known figures in the
worldwide Church, leading the 17 million-strong
Church of Nigeria and heading up the influential
Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. He has
strongly opposed moves in the Western Churches to
liberalise on the issue of homosexuality and famously
remarked that you don’t have to go through Canterbury
to get to Christ.

He has been a visitor to the Church of England
many times in the past and has never been refused
permission to preach before now.

A spokesman for the Bishop of Sheffield this week
claimed that the problem was a misunderstanding of
protocols governing the visit of a primate.
But the chaplain to the Nigerian Community in
London, the Rev Ben Enwuchola said this week that
the Archbishop had been asked to preach at a baptism
service in St Thomas’s Philadelphia, Sheffield,
which took place last Sunday during an informal visit
to the city for a medical appointment. He agreed and
asked the church to contact the bishop to seek permission.
Later one of the clergy contacted Mr Enwuchola
and told him that the Bishop had said he could
only bring greetings but couldn’t preach.
A diocesan spokesman denied the claims of a ban
on the Archbishop: “An Archbishop cannot preach
without the permission of the Archbishop of the
Province. It was only a couple of days’ notice. The
Bishop of Sheffield didn’t say no, but just pointed to
the actual procedure we must follow.”
In spite of these claims the Archbishop of Nigeria
left the country believing that he had been refused
permission to preach in the diocese.
A senior clergyman said this week that seeking
permission for an Archbishop to go into another
province was usually just a matter of a phone call on
the part of the visiting Archbishop or the church or
diocese he was visiting. He expressed surprise that
the diocese were not willing to phone the Archbishop
of York’s office or had not advised St Thomas’ to
do so if they believed that to be the correct protocol.
Furthermore, the claims of the diocese about
short notice do not square with the account of the
Archbishop of Nigeria’s chaplain who said that St
Thomas’s phoned him on Tuesday or Wednesday of
last week to give him the news that the Bishop had
said he could only bring greetings but not preach.
Ben Enwuchola expressed incredulity at the diocese’s
explanation. “That is ridiculous, that is just not
true,” he said of the account of protocol given by the
spokesman for the diocese.
Canon Chris Sugden of Anglican Mainstream said
that given Archbishop Akinola’s ‘outstanding record
as a church planter’ he would have been an appropriate
choice of preacher at St Thomas’s. “It would be a
great pity if it turns out that a simple administrative
mistake means that the Archbishop has left the
country under the impression that the Bishop of
Sheffield’s office prevented him from preaching in a
significant church plant in the diocese.”
Only last month the former Archbishop of Canterbury,
Lord Carey, was banned from giving a lecture
in Bangor Cathedral by the Dean. In contrast, the
controversial liberal John Spong, former Bishop of
Newark, frequented English pulpits during the
1980s and 1990s even in dioceses led by evangelical
bishops.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.