Church of Nigeria: Encyclopedia - Church of Nigeria

Church of Nigeria

The Church of Nigeria is the Anglican Church in Nigeria. It is also the second-largest Province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptized membership, after the Church of England. It claims 15 million members. However, the Church of Nigeria is generally accepted to be the largest Anglican province by number of worshippers.

The Church of Nigeria has 78 dioceses in 3 ecclesiastical provinces. The administrative headquarters is located in Abuja.

The leader of the Church, Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola, has become prominent in recent years as a leader of conservatives within the Anglican Communion. After the 2003 ordination of the openly homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, he threatened that it might split in the Anglican Communion. As a first step, the Church declared itself in "impaired communion" with the Episcopal Church USA on November 21, 2003. In September 2005, the Church in Nigeria reworded its constitution to redefine, from its point of view, the Anglican Communion. No longer would it be "[provinces] in communion with the See of Canterbury" but instead "all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the ‘Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’". Since one of Akinola's demands, the expulsion of the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada from the Communion, is considered unlikely (or even impossible), some commentators saw this rewording as a portent of a forthcoming attempt by conservatives to set up a rival Anglican Communion. On November 12, 2005 the Church entered into a "Covenant of Concordat" with the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America, two groups outside the Anglican Communion which do not recognize the ECUSA.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Church of Nigeria", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki