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February 18th, 2007 posted by kendall at 7:20 amAnglican leaders in Zanzibar for Holy Eucharist as row over homosexuality threatens to fracture Anglican Communion
February 18th, 2007 posted by kendall at 7:17 amThe spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion led services in a historic cathedral on the island of Zanzibar on Sunday and called on bishops to feel humility before God as a fierce debate over homosexuality threatened to break apart the worldwide fellowship of churches.
Leaders of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, in Tanzania for a closed, six-day conference, traveled by boat from the mainland for a Eucharist on this predominantly Muslim archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams called upon church leaders to remember the most basic premise of the church.
“There is one thing that a bishop should say to another bishop … ‘I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great savior,’” he said.
The cathedral’s altar is built over a slave whipping post — a meaningful symbol as Zanzibar marks the 100th anniversary of the last sale of a slave here and the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British empire. While taking communion, the bishops could hear the Muslim call for prayer from nearby mosques.
Anglican preacher undeterred
February 18th, 2007 posted by kendall at 7:16 amDavis Mac-Iyalla, Nigerian gay activist and Anglican lay preacher, has faced death threats, condemnation from church leaders and a push by his parliament to criminalise homosexuality.
However, the 35-year-old has kept the faith, even when someone threatened to attack him with acid in a letter delivered anonymously by hand.
“It weakens me and puts fear in me, but yet it still has not stopped me,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Initially, Mac-Iyalla’s diocese in the Niger Delta wanted to turn him away when he declared his sexual orientation in 2005, but relented.
“When the Church in which you are born wants to disclaim you, there’s no one who will be happy to get such news,” he said on the sidelines of a summit of leading Anglican clerics this week called to try to avert schism in the world’s third-biggest Christian denomination over gay clergy and same-sex unions.
Led by Archbishop Peter Akinola, Nigeria’s Anglican Church is in the forefront of a conservative faction of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, which strongly opposes gay rights.
posted by t19elves at 7:56 AM
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