Church of Nigeria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Church of Nigeria is the Anglican Church in Nigeria. It is the second-largest Province in the Anglican Communion, as measured by baptized membership, after the Church of England. It gives as current membership "over 18 million"[1], out of a total Nigerian population of 140 million.
Since 2002 the church of Nigeria is organised in ten ecclesiastical Provinces. It has rapidly increased the number of its dioceses and bishops from 91 in 2002 to 122 (as at May 2007). The administrative headquarters is located in Abuja.
Its Primate is Archbishop Peter Akinola.
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[edit] Origins
Christianity came to Nigeria in the 14th century through Augustine and Capuchine monks from Portugal. The first mission of the Church of England was, though, only established in 1842 in Badagry by Henry Townsend. In 1864 Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba and former Slave, was elected bishop of the Niger. Lagos became a diocese of its own in 1919.
Leslie Gordon Vining became bishop of Lagos in 1940 and in 1951 the first Archbishop of the newly inaugurated Province of West Africa. Vining was the last bishop of Lagos of European descent.
[edit] Foundation of the Church of Nigeria
On 24 February 1979, the sixteen dioceses of Nigeria were joined in the ecclesiastical province of Nigeria with Timothy O. Olufosoye, then bishop of Ibadan, becoming its first archbishop, primate and metropolite. Between 1980 and 1988, eight additional dioceses were created. In 1988, J. Abiodun Adetiloye became the second primate and metropolite of Nigeria and the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) was founded.
In 1989 the diocese of Abuja was created on the area of the new capital of Nigeria with Peter Akinola as first bishop.
The 1990s were the decade of evangelization for the Church of Nigeria. They got started by consecrating mission bishops for the mission dioceses of Minna, Kafanchan, Katsina, Sokoto, Makurdi, Yola, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Egbado und Ife. Between 1993 and 1996 primate Adetiloye founded nine dioceses, Oke-Osun, Sabongidda-Ora, Okigwe North, Okigwe South, Ikale-Ilaje, Kabba, Nnewi, Egbu, and Niger Delta North, in December 1996 five more mission dioceses in the north, Kebbi, Dutse, Damaturu, Jalingo und Oturkbo. In 1997 and 1998 four more dioceses were established, Wusasa, Abakaliki, Ughelli and Ibadan North. In 1999, the Church of Nigeria added thirteen new dioceses, four in July (Oji River, Ideato, Ibadan South and Offa), eight in November (Lagos West, Ekiti West, Gusau, Gombe, Niger Delta West, Gwagwalada, Lafia and Bida) and Oleh in December. So within ten years, there were 27 new regular dioceses and 15 mission dioceses created. The archbishop of Canterbury declared the Church of Nigeria to be the fastest growing church in the Anglican Communion.
In 1997, the Church of Nigeria was split into three ecclesiastical provinces:
- Province One, consisting of the dioceses in the West, headed by archbishop Adetiloye who remained primate of All Nigeria
- Province Two, consisting of the Eastern dioceses, headed by Ben Nwankiti bishop of Owerri as archbishop
- Province Three, consisting of the Northern Dioceses, headed by Peter Akinola, bishop of Abuja, as archbishop. [2]
In 2000, archbishop Peter Akinola succeeded archbishop Adetiloye as primate of the Church of Nigeria. One of his first actions as primas was, to get together 400 bishops, priests, lay members and members of the Mother's Union to elaborate a vision for the Church of Nigeria under chairman Ernest Shonekan, a former president of Nigeria. The vision elaborated was:
- "The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) shall be; bible-based, spiritually dynamic, united, disciplined, self supporting, committed to pragmatic evangelism, social welfare and a Church that epitomizes the genuine love of Christ." [3]
The program of action included among others additional translations of the liturgy, establishing a lay fundraising team, establishing a legal support to ensure freedom of religion and worship, establishing theological colleges and universities, internet access for all dioceses, training evangelists, priests and their wives, social welfare programs, hospitals, secondary schools, literacy courses and setting up cottage industries.
In 2002, the Church of Nigeria was again reorganised, this time in ten ecclesiastical provinces.[4].
In 2005, as one of the goals of the Vision of the Church of Nigeria, the church-owned Ajayi Crowther University in Oyo was granted license to operate as a private university in Nigeria on 7 January 2005.[5]
[edit] Conflicts within the Anglican Communion
The primate of the Church, Peter Akinola, has become prominent in recent years as a leader of conservatives within the Anglican Communion. After the 2003 ordination of the noncelibate gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, he threatened that it might split in the Anglican Communion.
As a first step, the Church declared itself in "impaired communion" with the Episcopal Church USA on November 21, 2003. In September 2005, the Church in Nigeria reworded its constitution to redefine, from its point of view, the Anglican Communion. No longer would it be "provinces in communion with the See of Canterbury" but instead "all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the ‘Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’".
Since one of Akinola's demands, the expulsion of the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada from the Communion, is considered unlikely (or even impossible), some commentators saw this rewording as a portent of a forthcoming attempt by conservatives to set up a rival Anglican Communion. On November 12, 2005 the Church entered into a "Covenant of Concordat" with the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America, two groups outside the Anglican Communion which do not recognize the ECUSA.
In October and December 2006, several churches in Virginia declared themselves out of communion with ECUSA, due to their opposition to the ordination of Robinson and the election of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and joined the Church of Nigeria through the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a mission originally started by the Church of Nigeria to support Nigerian Anglicans in the U.S. It now mostly consists of non-Nigerian, theologically conservative American Anglicans, and has two American Bishops (Bishop Martyn Minns and Suffragan Bishop David Bena) who are simultaneously Bishops of the Church of Nigeria. In March 2007, CANA announced plans to elect additional American bishops in September 2007[6]. These actions do not have the consent of The Episcopal Church and have engendered litigation over property that has yet to be resolved. They have also raised tensions between The Episcopal Church and several other provinces of the Anglican Communion.
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