Asked if GAFCON was a breakaway Anglican movement, Secretary of the Primates Council Archbishop Peter Jensen said: “Nothing could be further from the truth. It wishes to work in [and] with the Anglican Communion on the very issues Archbishop Welby mentioned. We seek to model how the communion can be when it insists on strong theological standards.”
Archbishop Welby is clearly taking note of the words of the Primates Council of GAFCON when it met in London in April 2012 and said that the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion should elect their own chairman.
This conference was not supposed to happen. There was no trigger event like the Lambeth conference and its invitation to the consecrators of Gene Robinson to attend, which lit the fuse for the first GAFCON in Jerusalem in 2008. GAFCON at Jerusalem was ignored by the Anglican instruments of communion because they did not believe it would happen.