Anglican Church of Nigeria Will Not Ordain Women for Now

The Nigerian Anglican Church will not begin to ordinate women, said Primate Archbishop Peter Akinola in a pastoral letter to the church. "However, the issue may be re-visited in the future," he said.

He did not give the reason for the decision of the Standing Committee, which had met in Kaduna, Nigeria from 9-11 March.

In the letter, the the Archbishop also announced that the Church hopes to greatly expand evangelism efforts and to double the current membership of 17 million by 2007.

"On our main task of evangelism, the time has come when each Diocese requires to rise up, mobilise and empower the laity for large-scale mission," said the Archbishop.

The Church hopes to implement this with the "Vision 1-1-3" strategy. He added, "We need to approach this with the spirit of obedience for fruitful results."





Francis Helguero
Ecumenical Press