As the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Hong Kong ended, the Gafcon Primates Council issued a communique at the close of their rival gathering. In it they announced, “we have decided to call together a meeting of bishops of the Anglican Communion in June of 2020.”
The communique noted that “last year in Jerusalem our delegates urged us not to attend Lambeth 2020 if godly order in the Communion had not been restored.” Lambeth Conference takes place in July and August of 2020.
In his statement to the ACC, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion Office said Gafcon was “deliberately ignorant” of the communion’s polity.
On the eve of the ACC meeting, and the rival Gafcon meeting, it was announced that the Archbishop of ACNA, Foley Beach, was invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to attend Lambeth 2020 as an ecumenical observer. Beach responded with an emission taking offense that the Archbishop did not recognize him as a member of the communion. The Archbishop of ACNA is also the present chairman of Gafcon.
The Rt. Rev. Greg Brewer, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, called Gafcon’s rival June 2020 bishop’s conference “an exacerbation of our divisions” and “a tragedy”:
The news for me seems a further exacerbation of our divisions. Further tragedy.
— Greg Brewer (@revgregbrewer) May 6, 2019