The 1998 Lambeth Conference further enhanced the role of the Primates\u2019 Meeting asking that it intervene \u201cin cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
A return now to the \u201ctalking-shop\u201d\u009d model of the early 1980s would not work, one African archbishop told ReligiousIntelligence.com, while Archbishop Peter Akinola told his some of his colleagues on Feb 1 that the primates must be consistent in their actions and not walk away from the undertakings made at the last three meetings.<\/p>\n
As the primates began to arrive at the Helnan Palestine Hotel on Alexandria \u2019s corniche, splinter groups on the left and right met to prepare strategies for the meeting. The larger conservative faction met on the afternoon of Jan 31. \u201cLong distances\u201d\u009d and \u201cpoor communications\u201d\u009d in the developing world necessitated the pre-conference meeting, Presiding Bishop Maurice Sinclair, retired primate of the Southern Cone told us.<\/p>\n
Bishop Sinclair, who after retirement served a term as Dean of the Anglican Cathedral in Cairo and as visiting lecturer at the Alexandria School of Theology, stated he had not been part of the strategy group for the Global South primates, but had been invited by the Bishop of Egypt, the Rt Rev Mouneer Anis to greet the primates on his behalf.<\/p>\n