Archbishop Anne Germond, acting primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. Photo: Contributed
With the retirement of Archbishop Linda Nicholls as primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Anne Germond, metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Ontario and diocesan bishop of Algoma and Moosonee, took on the role of acting primate Sept. 15.
Born in South Africa, Germond was raised Roman Catholic but converted to Anglicanism in high school. She worked as a primary school teacher and a college instructor before emigrating to Canada in 1986. Germond was ordained a priest in 2002, serving as rector of the Anglican Church of the Ascension in Sudbury, Ont. until 2016. A graduate of Thorneloe University’s School of Theology, she has served as the university’s chancellor since 2015. In February 2017 she was elected bishop of Algoma and in October 2018 metropolitan of Ontario, through the latter also becoming bishop of Moosonee.
Germond will serve as acting primate until next summer’s General Synod, which will see the election of a new primate. The Anglican Journal spoke to Germond in mid-September about her plans as acting primate. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are your top priorities as acting primate?
My main priority is to act as an interim leader, and this is going to be a very part-time position because of my other commitments.
Some of my responsibilities and therefore priorities are going to be to participate in some of the important councils of the church. I will be chairing the Council of General Synod (CoGS). I’ll be a member of the planning and agenda team for General Synod. I will be chairing the fall and spring House of Bishops meetings. The spring meeting in particular is going to be a very important national House of Bishops meeting because the candidates who will be the nominees for primate will be discerned through an internal process.
One of the things that is very important for the primate is to be the voice of the Anglican Church of Canada. Because I’m not going to be able to do very much travel over the next eight months—as I’ve mentioned, this is a part-time position—the way that I communicate within the church is going to be important. I think those messages which are seen by and read by the church as they come through the Anglican Journal and other communication channels are going to be important. We all need words of encouragement, words of hope, good words, gospel words. Communication and preaching and teaching have always been things I’ve been passionate about.
What do you see as some of the main challenges and opportunities facing the church during your eight months as acting primate?
There are plenty of challenges. I don’t think that I need to give an extensive or exhaustive list of them. People are concerned about finances and that’s across the board. There’s a concern around declining numbers. Those challenges are there now and probably will be long after I’m no longer the acting primate.
I always feel that in a time of challenge, it’s up to us to give a counter-narrative, because there are good stories. There are so many good things happening at the local parish level that give counter-narrative to decline. Our parishes are making a huge tangible difference in the lives of individuals, both in their parish and in their communities. Jesus used storytelling often, and we need to start telling good news stories. I think we are given an opportunity every day to do that.
The primate’s commission on re-imagining the church has put forward several hypotheses on potential structural changes, which have sparked debate across the church. How much of a challenge do you see navigating this process leading up to the commission’s report at General Synod 2025?
In whatever way I can as the acting primate, I want to work with the members of the primate’s commission to keep moving that work forward. It’s definitely provocative and causing lots of conversation in the church, and perhaps that’s what we need. There are strong opinions on each and every one of those seven hypotheses.
I hope that those who are invited to engage in this work with the primate’s commission will do so. The primate’s commission has made it very clear that this is not a definite course of action that the church will move on. Chair [Archdeacon] Monique Stone has said clearly that the commission will be sharing the substance of the responses that they’ve gleaned with General Synod next June. But certainly everything will not be resolved by then. We rely on the chair and the primate’s commission to do their work [and we need] to support them in their work, to pray for them in their work.
As to a personal comment on any of the hypotheses, I’m going to be participating in discussion with the House of Bishops and will reserve my personal comments to then.
What will be your approach to relations with Sacred Circle and the Indigenous church?
This is an opportunity to really continue to listen well to the Indigenous church through ACIP [the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples], through Sacred Circle. I already have a really good friendship and relationship with [National Indigenous Anglican] Archbishop Chris [Harper]. Last week at Church House, I had the opportunity to meet with [Indigenous Ministries Coordinator] Rosalyn Elm and just to spend time getting to know their vision for the Indigenous church as we move forward in this new time, and how we continue to find and look for opportunities to embrace mutual interdependence.
The word that comes to mind is an African word that was often used by Desmond Tutu, ubuntu. Ubuntu basically says a person is a person through other people. We need each other. That’s part of what I look forward to—growing in my understanding of the Indigenous church as it sees itself becoming something new within the Anglican Church of Canada and how we can keep saying to one another, “Ubuntu—I need you and you need me to be the people that God intends us to be.”
How do you plan on balancing your responsibilities as primate, metropolitan of Ontario and bishop of Moosonee and Algoma?
In the diocese of Moosonee, I have appointed Archbishop Fred Hiltz, who had been working with me as the assisting bishop of Moosonee since late 2019. I have actually named Archbishop Fred as the commissary for Moosonee, and so Archbishop Fred has been given all the authority to take on the mantle of leadership in Moosonee. He lets me know what’s happening in the diocese. Thank God for Archbishop Fred, because he’s doing a tremendous amount of work.
Moosonee had a historic synod in June where they voted to return to being a diocese with their own duly elected bishop. That’s what Archbishop Fred is going to be [working on]. His focus over the next several months is working with the diocese of Moosonee to prepare for that electoral synod. We don’t have a date for it, but it’ll probably be sometime next year.
With respect to the province, we have been preparing for our provincial synod next week [Sept. 24-26], which is taking place in Sault Ste. Marie. I’m expecting that once next week is over, things will quieten down at the provincial level. Just as I have huge support in the diocese of Moosonee, every single one of the Ontario House of Bishops has reached out to me to say, “How can we help, Archbishop, with your new responsibilities?”
In my beloved diocese of Algoma, they are incredibly generous, incredibly prayerful and incredibly supportive in so many ways. I am in conversation with Bishop Michael Oulton, retired bishop from the diocese of Ontario, who has agreed to come and lend a hand in Algoma—he’s going to become the assisting bishop in the diocese of Algoma for eight months. We’re still in conversation about exactly how that will look, but Bishop Michael knows Algoma very well. He’s been to two of our synods.
I do not feel in any way that I am holding up the Anglican Church of Canada. The Anglican Church of Canada has got incredibly gifted leaders, and I feel very honoured to be working alongside them.
The primatial election next June is going to be very important as the church discerns who the next primate for the Anglican Church of Canada is going to be. I would like to invite the church to be praying with me for the bishops who may already be discerning whether, if they are nominated, they would let their name stand. The Holy Spirit is touching and will touch people’s lives, and so I would just really like to call the church to prayer as we contemplate the primatial election next year.
Have you thought about allowing your name to stand as primatial candidate, if you are nominated?
I’m very willing to serve as acting primate but will not be letting my name stand for primate if nominated.