The Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) has presented a proposal that expands the Communion's primacy beyond the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Two years ago the Anglican Consultative Council asked IASCUFO to find a solution for those provinces that were no longer willing to remain in Communion with Canterbury. While in part the work came in response to the Church of England's move to offer church blessings for LGBTQI couples, the brief included reimagining the Anglican Communion's leadership for a post-colonial era.

The Commission has produced two proposals: the first redefines how Anglican Church provinces link together, and the second expands the leadership of the Communion beyond the Archbishop of Canterbury, towards a rotating Presidency shared across the Communion's five global regions.

The IASCUFO "Nairobi-Cairo" document redefines Anglican Provinces' membership (last defined by the Lambeth Bishops' Conference in 1930) to no longer require "full communion with the See of Canterbury".

The new description – which the Communion will vote on at the Anglican Consultative Council in 2026 – reimagines the colonial-era structures that centred on the Church of England, to reflect more accurately the 21st-century Anglican Communion that operates as a fellowship of sibling churches linked primarily to one another, while still historically linked to the Church of England. 

"Anglicans now recognise that fullness of communion with the Church of England or the See of Canterbury are not requisite for any church of the Communion. Rather, all together seek a highest degree of communion possible, one with another." explains the Nairobi-Cairo document's team of scholars and leaders from across the Communion. 

The proposed definition of the Anglican Communion reads as follows:

"(Proposed) Statement of the nature and status of the Anglican Communion, as that term is used in the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council.
The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted dioceses, provinces or regional Churches, which have the following characteristics in common: 

a.   they seek to uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order as they are generally set forth in the Book of Common Prayer as authorised in their distinct Churches; 

b.   they are autonomous, and, as such, promote within each of their territories a local expression of Christian faith, life and worship; and 

c.   they are bound together through their shared inheritance, mutual service, common counsel (of bishops and others) in conference, and historic connection with the See of Canterbury, by which they seek interdependently to foster the highest degree of communion possible one with another.  

The definition concludes with the same aspirational hope of unity embedded in the 1930 version:

"We make this statement praying for and eagerly awaiting the time when the Churches of the present Anglican Communion will enter into full communion with other parts of the Catholic Church not definable as Anglican in the above sense, as a step towards the ultimate reunion of all Christendom in one visibly united fellowship."

The IASCUFO team, which released its Nairobi-Cairo document in mid-December 2024, also shaped their proposed definition into a single sentence: 

“The Anglican Communion is a fellowship of autonomous episcopal churches bound together by their shared inheritance, mutual service, common counsel, historic connection with the See of Canterbury, and commitment to seeking full communion one with another and with the wider Church.”

The second part of the Nairobi-Cairo document changes the way the Anglican Communion elects its global leaders.

Today, the Archbishop of Canterbury is both the Communion's leader and the Archbishop of the Diocese of Canterbury in the Church of England. On the global side of the role, the Archbishop of Canterbury needs to convene and preside at all Anglican global meetings. 

The IASCUFO group have now discerned that a way for the Communion's leadership to better reflect the Anglican Church worldwide would be to release the Archbishop of Canterbury from the need to chair and preside internationally, and instead elect a worldwide President for the Anglican Consultative Council(ACC) from amongst the 42 Anglican Primates. 

The President of the Anglican Communion would be elected by, and from amongst, the 42 Anglican Primates across Africa, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia, Oceania and Europe. 

The Anglican Communion  President would have a six-year term alongside the Chair and Vice-Chair of the ACC, and would represent the Anglican Communion in ecumenical and interfaith meetings, and preside at the Anglican Consultative Council. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury would continue to hold an ex-officio role on the ACC Standing Committee, and maintain the historic inheritance of the Canterbury as a Primate among sibling Primates, but would not have a guaranteed vote.

The Nairobi-Cairo document also suggests a future possibility of moving the Lambeth Conference out of Lambeth (while retaining its historic name), limiting it to diocesan bishops, and changing the Anglican Consultative Council's name to the "Anglican Communion Council".

The full report from the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order can be downloaded in PDF here.