Church of the Province of Central Africa
The Church of the Province of Central Africa | |
---|---|
Classification | Holy Bible |
Theology | Anglican doctrine |
Polity | Episcopal |
Primate | Albert Chama |
Headquarters | Mzuzu |
Territory | Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe |
Members | 600,000 |
Official website | www.anglicancommunion.org |
The Church of the Province of Central Africa is part of the
History
In 1861, the first Anglican missionary to the area was
Moving from Cape Town, he arrived at Chibisa's village in June 1861 with the goal to establish a mission station at
There is an
Membership
Today, there are at least 600,000 Anglicans out of an estimated population of 31,780,000.
Structure
The polity of the Church of the Province of Central Africa is
- The Diocese of Botswana[3]
- in Zambia :
- in Zimbabwe :
- The Diocese of Central Zimbabwe[4]
- The Diocese of Harare
- The Diocese of Masvingo (Anglican)
- The Diocese of Matabeleland
- The Diocese of Manicaland
- in Malawi (former Nyasaland) :
There are 250 congregations and about 400 priests in the Church of the Province of Central Africa.
Doctrine and practice
The centre of the Church of the Province of Central Africa teaching is the life and resurrection of
- Jesus Christ is fully human and fully God. He died and was resurrected from the dead.
- Jesus provides the way of eternal life for those who believe.
- The Old and New Testaments of the Bible were written by people "under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit". The Apocrypha are additional books that are used in Christian worship, but not for the formation of doctrine.
- The two great and necessary sacraments are Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist
- Other unction.
- Belief in Jesus's return in glory.
The threefold sources of authority in Anglicanism are scripture, tradition, and reason (borrowing from Thomas Aquinas). These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. This balance of scripture, tradition and reason is traced to the work of Richard Hooker, a sixteenth-century apologist. In Hooker's model, scripture is the primary means of arriving at doctrine and things stated plainly in scripture are accepted as true. Issues that are ambiguous are determined by tradition, which is checked by reason.[5] Minor differences of doctrine should not damn or save the soul but are frameworks surrounding the moral and religious life of the believer. Church governance by bishops was biblical and traditional, but this was not license for absolutism.
Ministry, liturgy and ecumenical relations
The Church of the Province of Central Africa embraces three
Anglican realignment
The Church of the Province of Central Africa is a member of the
See also
- List of Archbishops of Central Africa
References
- ^ Anglican Communion News Service: Zambian bishop installed as sixth Archbishop of Central Africa Province
- ^ "The Living Church Annual". 1957.
- Bishop of Botswana, is portrayed in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith and appears as himself in the TV series.
- ^ "Anglican Communion: Diocese".
- ^ Anglican Listening Archived 2008-07-05 at the Wayback Machine Detail on how scripture, tradition, and reason work to "uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way".
- ^ "Province of Central Africa Approves Ordination of Women". The Living Church. 2023-11-07. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
- ^ "Growing Church: Central Africa agrees women's ordination, more dioceses and new provinces". Anglican Communion News Service. November 6, 2023.
- ^ World Council of Churches
- ^ GAFCON III largest pan-Anglican gathering since Toronto Congress of 1963, Anglican Ink, 20 June 2018
Further reading
- Neill, Stephen, Anglicanism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.