Abp. Linda Nicholls writes:

'To The Anglican Church of Canada

'Grace and Peace to you in Christ!

'Today marks the beginning of what was to have been an 11-day gathering of more than 800 Anglican bishops from across the global communion for the gathering of the 15th Lambeth Conference in the Anglican Communion. The continuing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have, of course, resulted in a necessary postponement in the interests of the health and safety of all participants and attendees. Although we had expected to gather in summer 2021 the Conference has now been postponed further to summer 2022.

'Around this same time one hundred years ago, in 1920, some 250 Anglican bishops were meeting together for what was just the 6th Lambeth Conference. This was, of course, just a short time after the cessation of hostilities during World War I, and the subsequent Influenza pandemic which followed. It was a conflictual, fearful, and uncertain time in world history, with not a few parallels to our own.

'It was in the wake of these challenging times that the bishops at Lambeth 1920 issued a milestone letter to all followers of Jesus across the globe entitled “An Appeal to All Christian People.” The letter begins by acknowledging the scandal that is the divisive and sometimes violent history of the one-but-broken Body of Christ, and confessing the “self-will, ambition, and lack of charity” which has contributed to it. Conscious of living in a time of great conflict, the bishops speak of a new vision rising as a witness to another way: “that of a Church, genuinely catholic, loyal to all truth, and gathering into its fellowship all ‘who profess and call themselves Christians,’ within whose visible unity all the treasures of faith and order, bequeathed as a heritage by the past to the present, shall be possessed in common, and made serviceable to the whole Body of Christ.” This unity of Christians is understood not as an end unto itself, but rather as a sign of a way of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace – a sign “for which the world is manifestly waiting.”...'

Read more at anglican.ca