The Anglican Church of Nigeria has severed diplomatic relations with the Church in Wales following the election of an openly lesbian archbishop. The Nigerian primate announced this decision during a meeting of church legal officers in Abuja.
The Most Rev. Henry Ndukuba, leading the Church of Nigeria, addressed delegates at the 14th Conference of Chancellors, Registrars, and Legal Officers, stating that his province rejected the election of the Right Rev. Cherry Vann as the Archbishop of Wales.
Vann, who has been bishop of Monmouth for five years, was elected as the 15th archbishop of Wales after two days of voting by an electoral college of clergy and lay members at St. Pierre church near Chepstow.
She is notably the first woman and the first lesbian to hold this position. Her biography on the Church in Wales website mentions that she “lives with her civil partner, Wendy, and their two dogs.”
According to Anglican Ink, he described the election as “an abomination” and a “significant departure from biblical teaching.”
In his keynote address, Ndukuba compared the situation to the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson in the Episcopal Church in the United States, which also resulted in the Nigerian Church ending its ties with that province.
He stated that just as the Church of Nigeria had acted then, it would now end all ties with the Church in Wales. The Church of Nigeria has long opposed same-sex marriage and civil partnerships, which have been legal in England and Wales since 2013, although the Church of England maintains that “marriage is between a man and a woman.”
He also pointed out that “in 2021, the Church in Wales voted to allow blessings of same-sex unions,” and that other denominations such as the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland already permit same-sex marriage ceremonies.
Ndukuba criticized what he called the “growing influence of revisionist teachings in parts of the Western Church,” asserting that “those advancing these positions had not stepped back from their agenda but had instead intensified it,” and he rejected their ideas.
The Nigerian Church reaffirmed its support for like-minded Anglicans in Wales, stating it would “stand with them through platforms such as the Global Anglican Future Conference, known as GAFCON.”
