Anglican Church in New Row after Nigerian Primate Bans Brazilian

Much commotion has arisen in the Anglican Communion over the past week as the Archbishop of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, banned Brazilian archbishop the Most Revd Orlando Santo de Oliveira, from a meeting of Anglican leaders. The conference of church leaders from the Global South will be held in Alexandria, Egypt, next month.
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Archbishop Orlando had dissociated his province from the actions of the Bishop of Recife, the Rt Revd Robinson Calvacanti, in taking part in irregular confirmations in Ohio in March 2004, reported the Church Times.

Bishop Calvacanti was deposed and Recife had appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference. But last week the situation was inflamed even more when the suffragan bishop Rt Revd Filadelfo Oliveira of Recife, removed all 32 clergy who had been loyal to Bishop Calvacanti.

On 2 September, the “Recife 32” issued a statement expressing their “shock and dismay” at the decree and protested that they had been excommunicated before the result of the appeal to the panel.

It was "without being accused of anything, without following any official process, without having the right to defend ourselves, and without the opportunity of any appeal".

In a letter released this week, Dr Akinola wrote that Orlando Santos de Oliveira, primate of Brazil, would not be allowed to attend the conference next month because he had deposed Bishop Calvacanti and criticised the Church’s Windsor report.

In the letter, Dr Akinola described Bishop Calvacanti’s deposition as “creating a crisis concerning our relation."

Dr Akinola went on to say that he was greatly troubled by a paper published by the Bishop of South Western Brazil, the Rt Revd Jubla Neves, as “an authoritative voice from Brazil”. The paper reported that the Windsor report and the agreed theological position of the Communion represented “a pretentious majority wishing to assume control and power”, and Akinola stated that these comments in particular were “shocking, damaging and false”.

"We are seeking to speak with integrity and love. The actions and statement of your province are only adding to the tensions," he wrote. "Until we hear from you and your Church your clear decision to correct these actions and statements, the organising committee has agreed unanimously to withdraw the invitation for your province to be represented in Egypt."

In a letter responding to Dr Akinola, Dr Santos de Oliveira said: "This attitude [has] astounded me ... we never blocked the participation of any province, for whatever reason, to participate in the meeting [before] ... it seems that the organising committee ... does not want to listen to us ... they only want to listen to one way of thinking," reported the Guardian.

Church Times reported that Archbishop Orlando, who is also a member of the planning committee for the first South-to-South Anglican meeting in Kenya, said: "It seems that the participants and the theological content of the meeting will have only one theological perspective, and not pastorally and theologically [be] open to the diversity which is the basis of the Anglican Communion."

The Guardian newspaper reported that some senior figures in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church described Dr Akinola’s remarks as setting himself up as a pope of the Anglican Church.