Field Deck — companion to Dossier XVII · Anglicanism
Two Communions, One Deck
Fifty-two who hold Anglican power now · dealt across a schism six months old · the rank is the value
✞ How to read the deck — and why the suits are drawn this way
A true 52-card deck of the living — only people who hold Anglican power right now, in 2026.
No dead archbishops, no retired primates except where a retired man is still a voice the living listen to
(as the Roman deck cards Sarah and Müller). History belongs in the dossier, not the deck.Every other deck in the hall maps one body's hierarchy. Anglicanism has had two since 3 March 2026, and a
third position between them, so the suits are drawn along the fracture:
♠ Spades — The Thrones. The Canterbury communion's senior offices: the two English primates, the provinces that stayed, and the machinery.
♦ Diamonds — The Realignment. The Global Anglican Council declared at Abuja — its official list of 27 March 2026 — and the provinces that walked out of Belfast.
♥ Hearts — The Third Way. The Global South Fellowship and the middle: provinces that signed a confessing covenant and stayed in the room with Canterbury.
♣ Clubs — The Overlap & the Voices. North America, Europe and South America, where two structures claim the same ground — and the living voices both sides read.
✓ Every one of the 52 was checked online as living and in office on 2026-09-21.
Five of the 52 stand on a single source and say so on the card (one source). The cuts are results, not failures:Steve Wood — ACNA's archbishop, inhibited 16 November 2025; his church trial concluded 11 September 2026 and a
verdict may take until about 21 December. Suspended is not power. He stays cut until a verdict restores him.Justin Welby — resigned Canterbury November 2024. Geoffrey Smith — retired as Primate of Australia October 2025.
Andy John — retired as Archbishop of Wales July 2025. Sixbert Macumi — succeeded in Burundi August 2026.
Offices decay; re-verify each name at every audit — and in a schism, verify which communion, not merely which see.⟳ What changed since the 9-card deal of 2026-07-27: the ♥ suit is dealt for the first time,
the three short suits are full, Wood's trial date (then "26 October") has come and gone, and Belfast happened —
ACC-19 met in June–July 2026 with 37 of 42 provinces in the room. The five absent were Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda,
Sudan and Congo. That single fact is what lets this deck tell ♦ from ♥.
♠The Thronesthe Canterbury communion · the ancient sees, the provinces that stayed, the machinery · 13 cards
The first woman in the office in 1,400 years. Confirmed at St Paul's 28 January 2026 , installed at Canterbury 25 March . Formerly Chief Nursing Officer for England . Her first six months were spent going to the provinces: the Holy Land (19–24 June), Belfast for ACC-19 , Nairobi in August at Ole Sapit's own residence , and Bujumbura on 23 August to preach at Burundi's installation — a GSFA province, four months after it signed the covenant. ★ On 5 June 2026 she led a Lords debate on AI, grounding dignity in human weakness — the sharpest answer to Dossier III in this hall. Installed 03-2026 · verified 09-21
The second seat of the Church of England, and the man who held the primacy through the interregnum — from Welby's resignation in November 2024 until Mullally's confirmation. He ran the English church through the fourteen months in which the communion came apart , and he moved the motion that closed the Living in Love and Faith programme by July 2026 — handing the sexuality question to two new working groups instead of settling it. verified 09-21
2024– · 28th Presiding Bishop, The Episcopal Church
Head of the American province whose 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson lit the fuse. In office from 1 November 2024 on a nine-year term . In February 2026 the Canadian primate wrote to him in solidarity over immigration enforcement in U.S. cities — the Episcopal Church's fights in 2026 are with its own government, not with Canterbury. He will still be in post when most of this deck has turned over. verified 09-21
Holds the third see of England while it stands empty: London has been in vacancy since Mullally's translation , and the Crown Nominations Commission meets 23 September and 12–13 November 2026 to choose the 134th Bishop of London . Carded as acting, at Jack, because the office outranks the tenure — swap the name the day the Crown announces. Acting · vacancy in see · verified 09-21
Elected 30 July 2025 after five years as Bishop of Monmouth, succeeding Andy John, who retired in the wake of the Bangor scandal. The realignment's press attacked the appointment the day it was made. In April 2026 her first presidential address called for a cultural and spiritual reset of a church whose witness, she said, had been gravely weakened by scandal and defensiveness. verified 09-21
2020– · Archbishop of Armagh · Primate of All Ireland
Enthroned 28 April 2020 . Hosted ACC-19 in Belfast on his own ground. At the May 2026 General Synod (600 representatives, Newcastle) he spoke against the far right's migration myths — "not some form of organised conspiracy aimed at the colonial dispossession of the Irish people." Issues a joint Easter message each year with the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh. verified 09-21
8♠Photo: Gareth Saunders from Anstruther, United Kingdom · CC BY-SA 2.0 · credit
Mark Strange
2017– · Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness; Primus since 27 June 2017 . On 17 September 2026 he became the Europe region's representative on the Primates' Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion — four days before this deal . Stood at Mullally's installation for the church that ordained the first American bishop in 1784. New seat 09-17 · verified 09-21
2025– · 15th Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada
Elected 26 June 2025 , installed three days later at St Paul's, London, Ontario. Bishop of Ottawa before that; a labourer before he was a sociologist before he was a priest. In June 2026 he consecrated a new Bishop of Yukon. The Canadian church's answer to ACNA on its own soil is, so far, quiet. verified 09-21
2025– · Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia
Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn; Primate since November 2025 , succeeding Geoffrey Smith. The clearest overlap inside one national church in the world: his largest diocese, Sydney, has an archbishop (Raffel, 7♦) sitting on the Abuja council while the national church he leads stays with Canterbury. verified 09-21
2008– · Archbishop of Cape Town · Primate of Southern Africa
Metropolitan since January 2008 — the longest-serving primate in this deck . Named chair of Christian Aid in February 2026; delivered his charge to the 68th Cape Town synod on 9 July. REACH-SA (Ngubane, 8♦) claims the same ground. Tutu's successor but one, and still the moral voice of the southern church. verified 09-21
2018– · Archbishop of Aotearoa · one of three primates
Senior of the three co-equal primates of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia — one for each tikanga , with Justin Duckworth (2024) and Sione Uluʻilakepa (2023). The only province in the communion that solved its own plurality by design rather than by schism — and Behan's Confessing Anglicans (5♦) still planted a rival on the same islands. verified 09-21
Runs the Anglican Communion Office — the Secretariat. His ACC-19 in Belfast (June–July 2026) is the measuring stick for everything in this deck: 37 of 42 provinces came ; the Council endorsed "degrees of communion" 67–7–3 and kept "full communion" language 52–24–4; the Nairobi–Cairo proposals were sent back for more work; and the new Standing Committee was elected with no African on it, from five African candidates . verified 09-21
Chairs the body that holds and invests the Church of England's central endowment — the money behind bishops, cathedrals and the national church. Carded at 2 not because money is minor but because it is the one office here that outlasts every schism: whoever wins the argument, the endowment stays in London. verified 09-21
♠ READ THE SUIT AS A MAP OF WHO STAYED. Thirty-seven provinces sat in Belfast. The thrones carded here are the
English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Southern African and American heads — the old
Anglosphere, plus the money and the secretariat. The provinces that make Anglicanism large are in ♥ and ♦.
♦The Realignmentthe Global Anglican Council · official list 27 March 2026 · and the provinces absent from Belfast · 13 cards
A♦LM
Laurent Mbanda
Chair, Global Anglican Council · Archbishop of Rwanda
★ Arguably the most consequential Anglican alive. Chairman of the GAFCON Primates Council since 21 April 2023 ; signed the October 2025 communiqué declaring the Canterbury appointment an abandonment of global Anglicans; and now chairs the council that replaced it — 347 bishops from 27 provinces at Abuja, 3–6 March 2026. He presided over the moment his movement could have crowned him and chose a committee instead. Rwanda did not go to Belfast. Chair since 03-2026 · verified 09-21 ⚠︎ Re-checked 2026-10-11: The House of Bishops elected Bishop Manasseh Gahima of Gahini on 11 September 2026 to succeed him as Archbishop of Rwanda. Mbanda (71, term already extended) retires and hands over on 25 October 2026. Gafcon's own page still lists him as Chairman of the Global Anglican Council; whether he keeps the chair after leaving the primacy is not yet reported.
Primate of All Nigeria · 5th Primate, installed 2020
The largest province in world Anglicanism — 25 million+ members , 14 internal provinces, 162 dioceses. The Church of Nigeria hosted G26 at Abuja , which is why the new communion was born on Nigerian ground, and Nigeria was the first name on the list of the five absent from Belfast. On active membership he shepherds more Anglicans than Canterbury, York and New York combined. verified 09-21
Vice Chair, Global Anglican Council · Anglican Church in Brazil
The Latin American anchor of the realignment and second officer of the new council. His presence is the answer to the charge that this is simply an African revolt — the Abuja body spans Africa, Asia and South America. His church and Bassotto's (10♣) both call themselves Anglican Brazil. verified 09-21
The administrative engine of the new communion — the office that turns 27 provinces and a confession into a functioning structure. In a body that deliberately refused a primate, the general secretary is not a clerk; he is the continuity. verified 09-21
2020– · Archbishop of Uganda · Council primate · GSFA treasurer
Ninth Archbishop of Uganda from 1 March 2020 . Led 52 Ugandans to Abuja — 41 of them bishops — and Uganda stayed away from Belfast. ★ The one man on both books: a primate of the Abuja council and treasurer of the Global South Fellowship (♥). In April 2026 he refused calls for confrontation with the state: "I won't die like Janani Luwum." verified 09-21
Chile became a province of its own in 2018, carved out of the old Southern Cone. On the official Council list as a primate member , and Chile is a GSFA province besides. Brian Williams (9♣) leads what Chile left behind. verified 09-21
Presiding Bishop · REACH South Africa · Council primate
The Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa — the old Church of England in South Africa, outside Canterbury's communion for generations and now seated as a full primate of the Abuja council . Makgoba (5♠) and he claim the same ground, and have for a century. verified 09-21
Heads the richest and most conservative diocese in the Anglican world, and sits on the Abuja council as a regional advisor — while his own national church (Short, 6♠) stays with Canterbury. Sydney is the proof that the line does not run between provinces; it runs through them. verified 09-21
Bishop · Diocese of the Southern Cross · Council regional advisor
Archbishop of Sydney before Raffel; now bishop of the Southern Cross , the extra-provincial diocese planted in 2022 for Australians who left the national church over same-sex blessings. The realignment's Australian door, seated on the council. verified 09-21
Bishop · Church of Confessing Anglicans in Aotearoa NZ · Council regional advisor
Leads the body that left the New Zealand church in 2019 over blessings; on the Abuja council as the Pacific's advisor . Tamihere (4♠) and he preach on the same islands under two flags. verified 09-21
Presiding Bishop · EKKIOS · Council regional advisor
The Council's second European seat alongside Lines (K♣): a confessing Anglican body on the continent. Carded on the strength of the official list; the deck knows the office and not yet the man — the next audit owes him a proper file. one source · verified 09-21
3♦Photo: The original uploader was Davidcannon at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0 · credit
Peter Akinola
Emeritus Archbishop of All Nigeria · Council guarantor
The man who convened the first GAFCON in Jerusalem, 2008 , and made the African church a power Canterbury had to reckon with. Retired from Abuja's throne in 2010 — and Abuja's new council wrote him in as a guarantor . ⚠︎ Born 1944: the first name to re-verify at every audit. Guarantor · verified 09-21
First primate of the Province of Sudan, from 30 July 2017 , leading a church inside a country at war — in December 2025 he renewed his appeal to both sides to stop. Not on the Council's list, but Sudan was one of the five provinces that did not come to Belfast , and a GSFA province besides. Carded low because the deck can place the province and not the man's own vote. Absent from Belfast · verified 09-21
★READ THIS SUIT AS A STRUCTURE, NOT A ROSTER. There is no Ace above the Ace here — no rival
Archbishop of Canterbury — and that is the single most important fact in this deck. Offered the votes,
the grievance and the moment at Abuja, GAFCON declined to elect a rival “first among equals” and
built a council instead: chair, deputy, general secretary, seven primates, five advisors, three guarantors.
A♦ is a chairmanship, not a throne. See Field D —
it is the most directly useful decision in this hall for our own house. And note the rule the Council set itself:
its officers may not attend Canterbury's Primates' Meeting, Lambeth, or the ACC. Kaziimba (10♦) is the test of whether that rule holds.
♥The Third Waythe Global South Fellowship · a confessing covenant signed by provinces that stayed in the room · 13 cards
A♥JB
Justin Badi Arama
Archbishop of South Sudan · Chairman, Global South Fellowship
★ The most important Anglican this hall had not carded. Chairs the GSFA — the covenant structure inaugurated June 2024 — and led its primates in the Seychelles, 14–17 January 2026 . Then went to Belfast , signed the GSFA statement that structural reform cannot settle a doctrinal quarrel, and won an amendment on the floor : the communion's divisions are "partly caused by disagreements about the one faith". Abuja walked out; he stayed and made them write it down. verified 09-21
2021– · Archbishop of Alexandria · GSFA deputy chairman
Born Cairo 1963; second primate of the communion's 41st province , spanning Egypt, North Africa and the Horn. Signed the Belfast statement as GSFA's deputy. An Anglican archbishop who congratulates the Egyptian president at Eid and hosts Sudanese refugee clergy in the same month — the church of a minority inside a minority. verified 09-21
2024– · Archbishop of South East Asia · Bishop of Singapore · GSFA secretary
Installed 7th Archbishop at St Andrew's, Singapore, 23 January 2024 ; Bishop of Singapore since 2020. Publicly raised concerns about GAFCON's new body — the clearest statement from the confessing side that Abuja was not the only orthodox road. Signed the Belfast statement as GSFA's honorary secretary. verified 09-21
Sixth Archbishop of Kenya, installed 3 July 2016 ; a GAFCON primate from his first month. And in August 2026 he received the Archbishop of Canterbury at his own residence in Nairobi, exchanged gifts, and planted a tree with her. Kenya was in Belfast. The largest GAFCON province that did not walk out — the deck's clearest case of a foot on each side. verified 09-21
The newest primate in Africa. Elected 21 May 2026 , installed at Holy Trinity, Bujumbura, 23 August 2026 — with Sarah Mullally preaching . Four months earlier Burundi had become the latest province to assent to the GSFA covenant. A confessing province that had Canterbury preach its installation: that is the third way in one service. Installed 08-23 · verified 09-21
2023– · Archbishop in Jerusalem · Primate, Jerusalem & the Middle East
Palestinian Anglican, primate since 2023, and keeper of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City — struck in October 2023, still serving in a health system in collapse. Issued a joint letter with Mullally on 24 June 2026 at the end of her pilgrimage. The one throne in this deck that the wars without (⚔) reach directly. verified 09-21
Primate since 2022 of a GSFA province — and Congo was one of the five absent from Belfast . Not on the Abuja council's list. The one province this pass could not place : absent like ♦, covenanted like ♥. Carded here on the covenant, with the absence written on the card. Absent from Belfast · verified 09-21
Primate since 2018. Named in Uganda's own account as present at Abuja — and Tanzania was in the room at Belfast four months later. The pattern of the whole suit in one province: turns up to both, signs for neither. verified 09-21
Primate since 2008 , born 1958 — eighteen years leading a church under a junta and then a civil war . A GSFA province that kept its seat at Canterbury's table. ⚠︎ Long tenure and a hard country: re-verify first. verified 09-21
2018– · Moderator, Church of Bangladesh · Bishop of Dhaka
Leads a united church — Anglican and Presbyterian in one body since 1971 — that is nevertheless a full province of the communion and a signatory of the GSFA covenant. The suit's reminder that "Anglican" is a family, not a rite. one source · verified 09-21
2024– · Archbishop of the Indian Ocean · Bishop of Fianarantsoa
Primate since 2024 of the province spanning Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles — the ground on which the GSFA primates met in January 2026 . A covenant province. one source · verified 09-21
2022– · Primate of West Africa · Archbishop of Ghana
Primate and Metropolitan since 2022 of a province — Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Cameroon — that is orthodox by temperament, was in the room at Belfast, and is on neither list . Carded on the office; the position is his to declare. one source · verified 09-21
The newest primate in the communion — installed 2 September 2026 , nineteen days before this deal, at St Andrew's, Tokyo, elected on the first ballot. Bishop of Chubu; a Rikkyo University academic. Not a GSFA member — carded here because Japan is the middle by geography and by temperament, and because a deck of the living should hold the newest hand dealt. Installed 09-02 · verified 09-21
♥ THE SUIT THAT WAS NOT DEALT IN JULY, AND WHY IT MATTERS MOST. The July deal said Anglicanism had two communions.
It has two and a half. The Global South Fellowship signed a confessing covenant in June 2024, sends its primates
to Belfast, sits on Canterbury's commissions, and argues the orthodox case from inside. Its chairman is not on the
Abuja council; its treasurer is. Whether the third way survives, or is squeezed out of existence by the other two, is
the open question of the next five years — and the question this house should watch, because a federation that
keeps its dissenters in the room is the model we are building.
♣The Overlap & the VoicesNorth America, Europe & South America, where two structures claim the same ground · and the voices both sides read · 13 cards
Dean of the Province & Acting Archbishop · Anglican Church in North America
⚠︎ Holding ACNA together through its own crisis. As dean he inhibited Archbishop Steve Wood on 16 November 2025 — suspending his own primate. The church trial on three charges (violation of vows, abuse of power, sexual immorality) concluded 11 September 2026 ; the court may take 101 days , so a verdict could come around 21 December. On 14 September he told the province to meet the wait with prayer, not speculation. He also sits on the Abuja council as a primate. Acting · verdict pending · verified 09-21
Presiding Bishop · Anglican Network in Europe · Council regional advisor
The GAFCON-aligned structure on the Church of England's own doorstep . He called the Mullally appointment "the imposition of the worldview of elites from the Western world." ANiE is the realignment operating inside England itself — the clearest case of the cross-border oversight the Dossier's ⚔ section flags — and he holds a seat on the Abuja council for it. verified 09-21
Archbishop Emeritus of ACNA · GAFCON chairman 2018–2023
Led ACNA for a decade and chaired the GAFCON Primates Council until Mbanda succeeded him in April 2023. Out of office, carded as the elder voice — as the Roman deck cards Sarah — because the North American realignment was built to his plan, and with Wood suspended, his is the voice the province's clergy still quote. Emeritus · voice · verified 09-21
2016– · Presiding Bishop, Reformed Episcopal Church
Heads the Reformed Episcopal Church — the 1873 secession from the Episcopal Church that became a founding jurisdiction of ACNA — and is Ordinary of its Diocese of Mid-America from Dallas. The oldest Anglican breakaway in America, now a pillar of the newest. verified 09-21
2022– · Primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil · Bishop of the Amazon
The Canterbury province of Brazil , led by a woman bishop of the Amazon — on the same ground as Uchôa's Anglican Church in Brazil (Q♦) , which recognises neither her orders nor her church. Two Anglican Brazils, one country. one source · verified 09-21
2023– · Presiding Bishop, Anglican Church of South America · Bishop of Argentina
Leads what remains of the old Southern Cone after Chile (Lago, 9♦) left to be a province of its own in 2018 — a Canterbury province whose delegates were in Belfast. South America is where the schism runs through a single historic province, and both halves are carded. one source · verified 09-21
104th Archbishop of Canterbury, 2002–2012 · elder voice
The last archbishop who tried to hold the whole communion in one covenant, and failed. Still the most-read living Anglican theologian: Solidarity at the Oxford Literary Festival, 26 March 2026 ; the Manchester 500th-anniversary lecture on humanist learning, 5 June 2026 . Carded as a voice, not a throne — the deck's rule is power now, and his is the power of being quoted by every side. Voice · verified 09-21
Retired Bishop of Durham · New Testament scholar · voice
The most widely read Anglican New Testament scholar alive; God's Homecoming , 17 February 2026 , tracing one promise from Genesis to Revelation. Read by ♠ and ♦ alike, which almost no one else in this deck can claim. Voice · verified 09-21
2023– · National Director, Church of England Evangelical Council
Runs the CEEC — the evangelical caucus inside the Church of England that has spent three years organising against the Prayers of Love and Faith. In February 2026 he resigned his honorary canonry over those prayers rather than resign from the church. The overlap inside England is not ANiE's alone; it is a party that has stayed, and is armed. verified 09-21
The best-known face of the Alliance — the umbrella of orthodox Anglicans across evangelical and catholic wings — who has pressed the bishops to negotiate structural provision face to face. Not a bishop. Carded because the English overlap is being negotiated by rectors, not primates. verified 09-21
2022– · President of the House of Deputies, The Episcopal Church
The elected lay head of the Episcopal Church's lower house — co-equal with the Presiding Bishop in General Convention — and the first Latina to hold it. Represented the deputies at Mullally's installation on 25 March 2026. The one card in the deck where the laity outrank the bishops by constitution. verified 09-21
One of the three guarantors written into the Abuja council's constitution — an American layman standing surety for a global body. Carded low not because the office is minor but because it is six months old and untested. What a guarantor can actually do, no one has yet had to find out. one source · verified 09-21
Lay guarantor · Global Anglican Council · Church of Nigeria
The Nigerian laywoman named alongside Akinola and Kampouris as a guarantor of the new communion. Three guarantors: an emeritus primate, an American layman, a Nigerian laywoman — the council's own description of who it answers to. one source · verified 09-21 ⚠︎ Re-checked 2026-10-11: Gafcon lists "Mr Olayinka Fisher, Gafcon Guarantor and Trustee", and the Living Church describes him as a former Nigerian diplomat and tech entrepreneur. The card's "Nigerian laywoman" is wrong: the guarantor is a man.
♣ WHY THE VOICES SHARE A SUIT WITH THE OVERLAP. In the Roman deck the voices got their own half-suit because Rome
has one hierarchy and the voices sit outside it. Anglicanism's voices are the overlap: Williams and Wright are read on
both sides of the fracture, Dunnett and Roberts are the fracture inside England, and Beach built the North American
half of it. A deck that separated them would be pretending the ground is not shared.
Figures Deck for Dossier XVII · Anglicanism · dealt 2026-07-27 · re-dealt in full 2026-09-21 · every card checked online the same day. ♠ thirteen Canterbury thrones · ♦ thirteen of the Abuja realignment · ♥ thirteen of the third way · ♣ thirteen on the overlapping ground. ✠ The dead belong in the dossier, not the deck ✠
