Trouble in the South

Archbishop Peter Akinola, primate of Nigeria, has excluded the province of Brazil and its primate, Archbishop Orlando Santo de Oliveira, from a meeting of Anglicans of the Global South to be held this month in Alexandria, Egypt.

Archbishop Oliveira had dissociated his province from the actions of the bishop of Recife, Robinson Calvacanti, who took part in irregular confirmations in Ohio in March 2004. Bishop Calvacanti was later deposed and the diocese appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference, but matters came to a head last week when the suffragan bishop of Recife, Filadelfo Oliveira, deposed 32 clergy loyal to Bishop Calvacanti.a?

The “Recife 32” issued a statement on Sept. 2 expressing their “shock and dismay” at the decree, and protestinga? the action.

a?Archbishop Akinola described Bishop Calvacanti’s deposition as “creating a crisis concerning our relations.” Archbishop Orlando, a member of the planning committee for the first South-to-South Anglican meeting in Kenya, said that he was shocked and saddened that an official meeting of the Anglican Communion had for the first time been set up in a way that was “authoritarian and discriminatory.”