The archbishop of Canterbury is proposing to effectively dissolve the fractious and bitterly divided worldwide Anglican communion and replace it with a much looser grouping.<\/p>\n
Justin Welby has summoned all the 38 leaders of the national churches of the Anglican communion to a meeting in Canterbury next January, where he will propose that the communion be reorganised as a group of churches that are all linked to Canterbury but no longer necessarily to each other.<\/p>\n
He believes that the communion \u201d\u201c notionally the third largest Christian body in the world with 80 million members, after the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches – has become impossible to hold together due to arguments over power and sexuality and has, for the past 20 years, been completely dysfunctional.<\/p>\n
A Lambeth Palace source said the archbishop felt he could not leave his eventual successor in the same position of \u201cspending vast amounts of time trying to keep people in the boat and never actually rowing it anywhere\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n