Who's who in the new look Gafcon setup

The realignment of the Anglican Communion has been realigned. In this two part series, Mouse sets out who is not in charge and what it all means.

For those who have not been following closely (and Mouse envies you if that is the case), Gafcon is a grouping of conservatives formed 2008 in protest at the appointment of an openly gay bishop in The Episcopal Church in the US. The grouping is an odd one, consisting of both those within the Anglican Communion and those outside it who nevertheless call themselves Anglicans. Some are member churches within the Anglican Communion, most notably a number of provinces in Africa. Some are dioceses and individuals within churches in the Anglican Communion, such as Sydney Diocese. Others are groups who have either split from their Anglican Communion churches or formed as conservative rivals to them, such as the Anglican Church in North America who split from TEC and the Anglican Mission in England, a Gafcon missionary arm.

Until recently, Gafcon was led by a council of Primates from the provinces who formed the bloc. But with much fanfare, the world's media were gathered to Gafcon's more recent meeting in Abuja and told to expect the election of a primus inter pares from among the Gafcon Primates Council to act as an alternative figurehead to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This had been announced by the Primates Council in October of last year, alongside the resolution that a Primates Council will lead Gafcon. Then we were told in Abuja that there had been a 'late night movement of the spirit' and the whole plan was off. In fact, the plan changed rather dramatically.

Mouse will dig into the wider context of this in Part II to this post, but in the meantime, Mouse suggests you ignore commentary about the new leadership structure for Gafcon, take no notice of the rebranding of its top table and laugh off claims to be reclaiming the historic origins of the Anglican Communion. What actually happened in Abuja is much simpler. The Primates Council was disbanded and replaced by a group of true believers dominated by the ACNA and its off-shoots.

These true believers mostly come from outside the Anglican Communion and were installed to ensure the purity of the vision. Mouse understands the Primates from the Primates Council who have now been exiled from their Gafcon leadership positions were not present.

In this post, Mouse simply lists out who is now in charge of Gafcon and makes a few observations about the membership.

In place of the Primates Council, Gafcon is now led by the Global Anglican Council. Mouse has listed out the members of the new council below, all of whom we are told have equal voting rights.

Member	Member of the Anglican Communion
Laurent Mbanda, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, Chairman of Gafcon	Y
Miguel Uchoa, Archbishop of the Anglian Church in Brazil, Vice Chairman of Gafcon	N
Samuel Magula, Primate of the Church of Uganda	Y
Henry Ndukuba, Primate of the Church of Nigeria	Y
Siegfried Ngubane, Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH-SA)	N
Julian Dobbs, Acting Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA)	N
Enrique Lago, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Chile	Y
Paul Donison, General Secretary (Rector and Dean of Christ Church Plano in the ACNA)	N
Jay Behan, Presiding Bishop of the Diocese of the Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa / New Zealand	N
Glenn Davies, Bishop of the Diocese of the Southern Cross	N
Yassir Eric, Presiding Bishop of EKKIOS (a diocese in formation for Muslim-background believers)	N
Andrew Lines, Presiding Bishop, Anglican Network in Europe	N
Kanishka Raffel, Archbishop of the Diocese of Sydney	Y
Peter Akinola, Former Primate of the Church of Nigeria and Gafcon Guarantor Chairman	Y
Olayinka Fisher, Gafcon Guarantor and Trustee Member Church of Nigeria	Y
Emmanuel Kampouris, Gafcon Guarantor and Trustee Member of ACNA	N

Mouse observes a few things about this list:

Only seven of the sixteen members of the Council belong to churches within the Anglican Communion, and two of those are from Nigeria. It is perhaps also worth noting that the Anglican Church of Chile became a province in 2018, so is a newbie on the Anglican scene and has just 20,000 members.
Only four Primates from within the Anglican Communion are now members of Gafcon’s governing body. Of the former Primates Council, the Primates from Congo, Myanmar, Alexandria and Kenya have all been dropped. None were present at the Abuja meeting. These provinces have kept some degree of engagement with the Anglican Communion's official instruments, so have been effectively excluded until such time as they publicly sever ties. It has been reported that they have been invited to join should they agree to this condition.
The ACNA has four members of the Council, including its General Secretary and multi-millionaire businessman Emmanuel Kampouris. The eight Council members representing churches outside the Anglican Communion have a combined membership of around 250,000.
Two lay members have been appointed to the council. Both are, coincidentally, multi-millionaires.

What few people realise, however, is that Gafcon is legally speaking a UK Charity. This is only referenced on Gafcon's website on the contacts page, which directs you to Christ Church, Sheffield (an AMiE church) as the secretariat for the organisation and shows the UK Charity number. So if you want to email Gafcon, your email will be picked up by someone in Christ Church, Sheffield.

This also explains the reference to 'Trustee' for Olayinka Fisher and Emmanuel Kampouris's listing on the Global Anglican Council - they are trustees of the UK charity. The full list of trustees is quite fascinating.

When we look of the list of people who are legally responsible for the organisation, we find just four members of the Global Anglican Council. The trustees are, instead, stuffed full of ACNA members. Quite how Sarah Finch qualifies under the 'leadership commitments' of the new look Gafcon leadership when she sits on the General Synod of the Church of England is beyond Mouse, but perhaps she too will find herself removed from her position shortly.

Quite what the Charity Commission will make of this is another question. Overseas trustees for UK charities are permissible, but having just two UK trustees and a leadership structure which appears to be entirely subservient to the new Global Anglican Council, raises significant governance questions.

The full list of trustees, per the Charity Commission listing, is:

John Guernsey, Chair	Retired Bishop, ACNA
Carolyn Parlato	Retired US lawyer, member ACNA
Joel Reinhardt	Canadian Lawyer, member ACNA
Paul Donison	Gafcon General Secretary, ACNA
Laurent Mbanda	Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, Chairman of Gafcon
Charles Marnham	Retired Church of England priest
Emmanuel Kampouris	US businessman, Gafcon Guarantor and Trustee, Member ACNA
Laurence Scandrett	Australian consultant, Gafcon Australia, Director, member Sydney Diocese
Christopher Green	AMiE priest
Olayinka Fisher	Nigerian businessman, Gafcon Guarantor and Trustee, Member Church of Nigeria
Sarah Finch	PCC member, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, General Synod member

When you combine these two leadership lists, you can see just how strongly the ACNA is represented in its leadership, including with post the General Secretary, and how little involvement there is from within the actual Anglican Communion.

13 April 2026