ANGLICAN COUNCIL HISTORY ™

Angican Council and The Global South Anglican History

The term did not have a single individual creator; instead, it emerged organically from a coalition of conservative Anglican archbishops and bishops from Africa, Asia, and Latin America during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It formally solidified into an organized entity during the Global South Encounter which later became known as the Worldwide Anglican Church - Orthodox

• The African Orthodox Church (AOC) fundamentally predates the modern "Global South" Anglican movement by nearly eight decades, serving as an early, radical expression of traditional Anglican orthodoxy operating outside Western institutional control. Founded in 1921 by Bishop George Alexander McGuire—a former Episcopal priest—the AOC was established specifically because the white-dominated Western church refused to grant equal ecclesiastical authority to Black leadership. McGuire did not want to abandon his beloved traditional Anglican liturgy, theology, or sacramental identity; instead, he sought to preserve them in an autonomous, independent body free from Western colonial paternalism. Long before 21st-century conservative primates organized the Global South Fellowship to protest Western theological shifts, the AOC had already pioneered the concept of a self-governing, traditionalist, and African-descended communion. They effectively laid the historical blueprint for regional autonomy and theological resistance against the Western mother churches, ultimately seeking historic apostolic succession to cement their independence.

• The Later Evolution: In the late 1980s, Anglican dioceses outside the West started a "South-South Movement" to cooperate on mission work. Their first major meetings—called "South to South Encounters"—happened in Limuru, Kenya (1994) and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1997). At the time, they simply called themselves "Anglican churches in the South."

• The Catalyst: The terminology shifted dramatically around 2003. Following deep theological divisions within the global Anglican Communion (specifically over issues of human sexuality and biblical authority, catalyzed by the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church), conservative leaders chose to organize.

• The First Official Use: In 2003, leaders like Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Bernard Malango of Central Africa, and Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda officially co-signed a letter addressing themselves as the "Primates of the Global South."

By adopting the geopolitical term "Global South," these church leaders effectively flipped the script on the Western provinces (like the US and UK). It allowed them to frame their theological conservatism not as outdated, but as the vibrant, overwhelming majority voice of the rapidly growing Christian population in the Southern Hemisphere.