WE, THEREFORE, HEREBY STATE AS FOLLOWS:
1. That today, we have inaugurated a Gafcon Branch and those who attended the meeting are hereby constituted as an Interim Branch Council.

2. That, we re-affirm the position of the Anglican Church of Tanzania, that marriage is between one man and one woman in a life-long commitment, in accordance with Scripture and as affirmed by the Lambeth Conference 1998 Resolution I.10.

3. That, we re-affirm our subscription to the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. We further commit to uphold the orthodox view of Scripture as the inspired Word of God, fully and finally authoritative for all matters of faith and conduct, and to faithfully maintain biblical doctrine, particularly as found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer…

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The primate of Tanzania, the Most Rev. Jacob Chimeledya, has affirmed his province’s break with the Episcopal Church of the USA. In September 2017 the Task Force on the Study of Marriage formed by the 78th General Convention which met in Salt Lake City in 2015, wrote to the primates of the Anglican Communion and other pan-Anglican bodies asking for their views on proposals to change the church’s teaching on holy matrimony.

In an undated letter released by the Task Force, Archbishop Chimeledya stated: “From now onward be informed that we are not having any church partnership. Please do not write me back on this matter.”

The 78th General Convention endorsed new liturgies for same-sex couples wishing to marry in church. It also approved changing the church’s canons governing marriage, making them gender neutral by substituting the terms “man and woman” with “couple.” However, clergy were also given the right to refuse to perform a same-sex marriage, with the promise they would incur no penalty, while bishops were given the right to refuse to allow the services to take place in their diocese.

The compromise meant that same-sex weddings are permitted with the full blessing of the church in places like Washington, Los Angeles and New York, but are forbidden in more conservative parts of the church, like Dallas, Albany and Orlando.

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The next Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania, Archbishop-elect Maimbo Mndolwa, is to consult widely with the bishops and lay leaders of the province as it prepares for its half-century anniversary in 2020. The province was created in 1970, when the then-Province of East Africa gave birth to the Provinces of Kenya and Tanzania. After his enthronement on 20 May, Bishop Maimbo will visit the bishops and diocesan leaders as he prepares a new strategy to “revive God’s work” in Tanzania.

Speaking to the Anglican Communion News Service today (Tuesday), Bishop Maimbo said he viewed last week’s election with “a mixture of feelings”. Upon his enthronement, he will combine his role as primate with his existing role as Bishop of Tanga. “On the outside you feel as if you are called to the ministry to do God’s work,” he said, “but in the deepness of heart, you feel thoughts of fear, that if you are working in the diocese, which needs you more, then you are elevated to this position, how will you divide the work?

“But as Paul guides us, the Lord who has called us to do both will enable us.”

The Church in Tanzania is growing. Its 28 dioceses cover almost the entire country. “We are honoured to thank God that among the members of the Church we have those who are revivalists, we have those who are evangelical, we have those who are Anglo-catholics,” Bishop Maimbo said. “And with all the traditions that we have, we remain united as one church.”

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Bishop Maimbo Mndolwa of the Diocese of Tanga has been elected as the next Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania. He will succeed Archbishop Jacob Erasto Chimeledya, who will retire in May. The election took place yesterday (Thursday) during a special Synod of the province. When he is enthroned, on 20 May, he will become the seventh primate of Tanzania.

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Sinodi maalum ya Kanisa Anglikana Tanzania leo imemchagua Askofu Maimbo Mndolwa kuwa Askofu Mkuu wa saba wa Kanisa hilo akimrithi Askofu Mkuu wa sasa anayemaliza muda wake Dkt. Jacob Chimeledya. pic.twitter.com/VhPNJ7SLHn

— Uhuru FM (@uhurufm) February 15, 2018

By George Conger
The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania has voted to rejoin the GAFCON movement and to authorize their primate to attend his week’s meeting of the GAFCON primates’ council in Nairobi. Meeting in Dodoma on 12-13 April 2016 the House of Bishops gave their blessing to the shift in policy initiated by Archbishop Jacob Chimeledaya (pictured) that began at the January meeting of primates in Canterbury.

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Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Bernard Membe has hailed the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) for standing firm and rejecting same sex marriages unlike some other churches in the West.

Mr Membe told the congregation that had gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the Dar es Salaam Diocese in the city that he was encouraged when the church in Tanzania stood firm and stressed to its foreign counterparts that same sex marriages will not be allowed in this country.

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Two homemade bombs exploded on Monday on the popular Indian Ocean tourist island of Zanzibar, but with no casualties, police said, in the latest in a series of attacks.

“Investigations are ongoing to find out details of the blasts and the motive behind them,” assistant police commissioner Mkadam Khamis told reporters.

One blast took place at the Anglican cathedral, a historic building in the heart of the narrow and winding ancient streets of Stone Town, the UNESCO-listed historical centre of the capital of the semi-autonomous Tanzanian archipelago.

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Watch it all courtesy of Anglican TV and see also Anglican Bishops Express Strong Support for Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina

Amidst allegations that Anglicans worldwide do not recognize the Diocese of South Carolina and its Bishop, Anglican Bishops from East Africa strongly announced their support for the Diocese’s dissociation from The Episcopal Church Tuesday during comments at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul in Charleston. ”¨

The Bishops from Sudan, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania proclaimed unqualified endorsement of Bishop Mark Lawrence and the Diocese. Their comments seemed to dispute the claims of Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, the newly elected Bishop of the recently formed Diocese – The Episcopal Church in South Carolina. In January, vonRosenberg announced that the Anglican Communion has not acknowledged Lawrence’s Diocese, even though it represents the vast majority of local Anglicans. However the four Bishops, all members of the Anglican Communion in good standing, specifically recognized the Diocese during the gathering.”¨

The four were guests of the Diocese following their participation in the New Wineskins Conference in Ridgecrest, North Carolina, the largest Anglican missions conference in the world.

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On April 9 at 6 p.m. we have the rare opportunity to hear from several Bishops from East Africa. We’ll hear first hand accounts of the vital work God is doing in the Anglican Communion. We’ll also hear how we can pray for their ministries and explore opportunities for further partnerships in “Making Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age.” Supper will follow in the Bishop Allison Courtyard, hosted by the Anglican Communion Development Committee. Students are encouraged to attend and to bring their youth leaders. We also welcome The Rev. Dr. Peter Moore who will moderate the conversation with the Bishops. Parking is available in the Cathedral lot and the CPW parking lot on Vanderhorst St. behind the parish house.

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The Archbishop of Tanzania was rebuffed yesterday in his bid for a second five year term as the Bishop of Mpwapwa, the Rt. Rev. Jacobo Chimeledya, was elected primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania.

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A Tanzanian bishop has said African churches have a duty to complement state education to help improve the local lives and the local community.

Bishop of the Diocese of the Rift Valley the Rt Revd John Lupaa was speaking after the Tanzanian government announced it would re-register Kalimatinde School of Nursing, which is owned and run by his Diocese.

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Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa has urged a leading candidate for president to promise to return to the church mission schools nationalized by the government.

Speaking at a school fundraising event on 24 Oct 2011 in Dar es Salaam, Dr. Mokiwa asked Edward Lowassa MP to return the schools if he wins the presidency. Elections are scheduled in the east African nation in 2015 to succeed President Jakaya Kikwete. While Mr. Lowassa has not formally announced his candidacy, he is considered a front runner for the post.

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Participants [at the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation] came from 19 An­glican provinces, including Brazil, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and the Southern Cone. Topics included theology, cultural contexts, and the shape and elements of ritual. Papers were delivered by the Bishop of Central Tanganyika, the Rt Revd Mdimi Mhogolo, and by the Revd Dr Simon Jones, of Merton College, Oxford.

Dr Jones drew attention to the particular issues faced by Church of England clergy who frequently have to deal with couples presenting themselves for marriage in church, neither of whom are baptised, or attend church regularly.

Bishop Mhogolo explained that Christian missionaries who came to Tanzania had paid no attention to traditional Tanzanian marriage-customs, in which washing and anointing rather than rings and vows were the principal symbols.

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Influential Muslims on this East African island have begun building what appears to be a hotel on a 100-year-old burial site owned by an Anglican church, Christian leaders said.

Church leaders with ownership papers for the land told Compass they are disturbed that authorities have taken no action since they filed a police complaint in December about the seizure of the burial site three kilometers (nearly two miles) from Zanzibar city’s airport. Tanzania’s Zanzibar archipelago, including the largest island of Zanzibar (officially known as Unguja), is 99.9 percent Muslim.

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A Tanzanian court has issued an arrest warrant for Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT).

On June 13 the High Court in Arusha issued a bench warrant for Dr. Mokiwa for contempt of court, after prosecutors claimed the archbishop ignored a court order blocking the consecration of the Bishop of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Sources in Tanzania report that as of June 14 the archbishop had not yet been served by police with the warrant.

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In a joint statement issued after a “Consultation of Bishops in Dialogue” meeting held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania the church leaders said they had shared testimonies about partnership mission work. Through this a common thread had emerged “our experience of finding ourselves in each other.”

“Across the globe, across the Communion, we actually really need one another,” the bishops’ statement said. “We are stronger in relationship than when we are apart. This, we believe, is a work of engaging in Communion building rather than Communion breaking. In the words of the Toronto Congress of 1963 we are engaged in living in ‘mutual responsibility and interdependence’ (Ephesians 2:13-22)”.

The bishops hailed from Sudan, Botswana, Malawi, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Canada, the United States and England. They met at the end of February as a group of partner pairs and triads and discussed a range of issues including human sexuality, slavery and tackling poverty.

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Update: An ENS article appears here also.

The breakaway from Christ Episcopal Church was part of a major rupture in the Episcopal Church of North America as conservatives rebelled against the ordination of homosexual priests and other trends in the church.

In the past decade, Africa has become a spiritual center for many Anglicans who have divorced themselves from the national Episcopal Church over divergent views on homosexuality and biblical interpretation, said Frank Kirkpatrick, a professor of religion at Trinity College in Hartford, and author of the book “The Episcopal Church in Crisis: How Sex, the Bible and Authority are Dividing the Faithful.”

When dozens of congregations, like Christ Church in Watertown, broke with the national church, their leaders surrendered their religious authority as Episcopalians, he said. African dioceses, which have led the more conservative wing of the international Anglican Communion, continued to recognize the worshippers and consecrate former Episcopalian priests to lead them.

But for Bywater, his spiritual connection to Tanzania is the result of a personal journey, rather than a political one. He said that unlike other priests who are recognized by an African diocese, he is actually an ordained priest within an African diocese.

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The woman who heads the area Anglican diocese has a question nagging at her, a question she spoke about passionately during a recent sermon at St. John’s the Baptist Episcopal Church in the Seacliff area.

That question is whether a 12-year-old Tanzanian boy named Sadiki would still be alive if she had not encountered him one day, in March, in a remote area of that East African country.

Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves told of that brief encounter movingly and with self-reproach.

It is a story that changed her life, the boy’s life and struck a chord with many others, Gray-Reeves said. It is undeniably tragic, yet growth has sprung from it.

The chance meeting with a disfigured child — an epileptic scarred and infected after falling into a cooking fire during a seizure — has led to a campaign by church members in the diocese to provide solar cooking classes, scholarships and other help to the boy’s village.

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The initial meeting between Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves of the Diocese of El Camino Real and Bishop Michael Perham of Gloucester, England, at the 2008 Lambeth Conference was an auspicious one. When a protester jumped up and called Bishop Gray-Reeves “a whore of the church,” Bishop Perham stepped in to help his new American acquaintance around the protesters and on to safety.

This frightening encounter brought together two parts of what has become a trio of bishops ”” the third is Bishop Gerard Mpango of the Western Tanganyika Diocese in Tanzania ”” who have linked up as companion dioceses. The combination of American, British and African dioceses is intentional. The three locations encompass three regions of discontent in the Anglican Communion. By meeting, talking and working together, the three bishops hope to show that people of different cultures, and these three cultures in particular, can maintain civil relations and look for answers to divisive issues.

“We want to hold together when the Communion is threatened,” Bishop Perham said.

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There is now a more detailed schedule available via this parish newsletter on page 2.

The Anglican Church of Tanzania has reiterated its opposition to the consecration of homosexuals and women as bishops.

Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa told The Citizen yesterday that the practice that threatens to tear apart the Anglican faithful resulted from what he termed ”a leadership failure at Canterbury”, headquarters of the church.

He also said he would not support the proposed ordination of women as bishops during his leadership as the head of the Anglican faithful in Tanzania.

He also denied during the interview that there was a physical split of membership in the Church over homosexuality.

He said the final decision would be reached at the coming Lamberth conference.

Dr Mokiwa said the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) that Tanzania is part of, is meant to bring churches in the developing world together but not to break them away from Canterbury.

”It is not a breakaway church but we decided to come together because we were uncomfortable with the state of communion,” he said.

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