Gafcon, the body governing the Anglican grouping that broke with Canterbury last year has decided to establish its headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, according to a communique released on August 29 by the Most Rev Laurent Mbanda, chairman of the Global Anglican Council.
Mbanda said the decision was taken at a council meeting in Recife, Brazil, on August 22, where members considered how to support the future work of the fellowship. He described the choice of Abuja as fitting because of the city’s place in the group’s recent history.
The move would give a physical base to a network that has spent the past year building parallel structures to those of the Anglican Communion, whose central office is in London. Gafcon, which says it speaks for the majority of the world’s Anglicans, declared in October 2025 that it no longer recognised the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the other bodies known as the Instruments of Communion, as previously reported by Christian Daily International.
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The communique said the headquarters would begin as an administrative centre. Mbanda wrote that while technology allows the fellowship’s leaders to work across borders, there is “great value in a physical home and administrative hub” for its shared life and mission.
He added that the council hopes the site will in time serve as “a place for gathering, training, and equipping leaders.” No timeline, budget or site was given, and Mbanda said much work remains in shaping the new base.
The council is exploring the plan with the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), which Mbanda said had responded with enthusiasm. The Church of Nigeria is among the largest provinces claiming Anglican identity and hosted the group’s Abuja conference in March.
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Abuja was the setting for G26, a gathering held from March 3 to 6 that Gafcon has described as the first conference of the Global Anglican Communion. Organisers said 347 bishops and 121 lay and clerical leaders from 27 provinces attended, hosted by the Church of Nigeria.
The conference closed with a statement known as the Abuja Affirmation, which said Gafcon had reordered the Anglican Communion into a global church. The same document replaced the Gafcon Primates’ Council with the Global Anglican Council as the fellowship’s leadership body, with Mbanda, who is archbishop and primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, as chairman.
The Most Rev Miguel Uchôa Cavalcanti, primate of the Anglican Church in Brazil, serves as vice chairman, and Bishop Paul Donison as general secretary. Uchôa hosted the August council meeting in Recife, where leaders also attended the installation of a new cathedral dean.
In its October 2025 declaration, Gafcon said the Anglican Communion would be reordered around the Bible as its sole foundation of communion, and rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting as bodies that had failed to uphold Anglican doctrine and discipline, according to Christian Daily International‘s earlier reporting. Mbanda said then that provinces in the new grouping would not take part in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
That declaration followed the election of the Rt. Rev Cherry Vann, who is in a same-sex relationship, as Archbishop of Wales, and the naming of Dame Sarah Mullally, who has supported blessings for same-sex couples, as the first woman appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mbanda closed the communique by asking for prayer as the council works on the plans, and said the group hopes to serve Anglicans in every region from Abuja. A separate communique issued on August 25 said the council will hold an invitation-only prayer conference for lay people, called G27, in Recife from April 20 to 23, 2027.
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