The Anglican Communion is a family of autonomous Churches. It finds its identity in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Churches of the Communion, which are self-governing, share something of a common history, and have traditionally set their faces against centralised government in favour of regional autonomy1. The Anglican tradition was fashioned in the turmoil of reformation in Western Europe in the sixteenth century. Its historic formularies acknowledge the circumstances in which its emerged as a distinctive church polity. The non-negotiable elements in any understanding of Anglicanism – the scriptures, the creeds, the gospel sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, and the historic episcopate – are to be found in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral2; and the Instruments of Communion – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates Meeting – provide an evolving framework within which discussion and discernment might take place. It remains to be seen if the circumstances in which the Communion finds itself today – externally and internally – might require over the years a shift of emphasis from \u201cautonomy with communion\u201d\u009d to \u201ccommunion with autonomy and accountability\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n
The principle of autonomy-in-communion described in the Windsor Report makes clear that the principle of subsidiarity has always to be borne in mind. If the concern is with communion in a diocese, only diocesan authority is involved; if communion at a provincial level then only provincial decision. But if the matter concerns recognising one another as sharing one communion of faith and life, then some joint organs of discernment and decision, which are recognised by all, are required. It is this necessity which led the WCG to articulate the move to \u201ccommunion with autonomy and accountability\u201d\u009d as being a better articulation of the ecclesiology which is necessary to sustain Communion.
\nSo the task for the CDG was to write something which preserved the autonomy of the Churches, but which provided for a strong glue that held us together. It had to reflect the fact that as Anglicans we do not believe in one authority structure, but in dispersed authority – the whole people of God bearing witness to the Truth found in Jesus Christ, and each church rooting its witness in its own mission context.<\/p>\n