Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, will represent the Church of England at the next Primates’ Meetings, which is scheduled for February 14 to 19 2007 in Tanzania.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will make the final decision to add Dr Sentamu to the primates’ ranks, following the proposal which was made by five members of the Primates’ Standing Committee earlier this year.
A spokesman for the Anglican Consultative Council confirmed the proposal was under active consideration stating: “There have been suggestions that would include the Archbishop of York, but as of August 24, the invitations, to my knowledge, have not gone out.”
Dr Sentamu declined to comment on the matter, and released a statement through his press officer on Monday stating: “The decision of the Primates’ Standing Committee has yet to be discussed and approved by the Primates’ meeting. Until such a time any comment on this issue would be premature."
While there have long been informal gatherings of the archbishops, presiding bishops and moderators of the Anglican Communion, the first formal gathering of the heads of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion was convened in 1979 by Archbishop Donald Coggan following the 1978 Lambeth Conference.
The initial meetings of the primates were held every three years and included only a cross section of archbishops and were structured to provide “leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation.”
The 1998 gathering of the bishops of the Anglican Communion asked that the “Primates’ Meeting under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, include amongst its responsibilities positive encouragement to mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within Provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity, in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies.”