Conger

The Church of Nigeria has surpassed the Episcopal Church in the United States as the Province with the largest number of dioceses, following the creation of 19 dioceses at a joint meeting of the Church’s House of Bishops and Standing Committee on March 26-29 in Nnewi.

“Plans and funds are now in place for the creation of one full-fledged and eighteen new missionary dioceses,” the Church reported, and twenty new bishops were elected to fill a vacant post and the new sees. The Nigerian Church will now boast 131 dioceses and missionary jurisdictions.

“The creation of new dioceses as a deliberate evangelistic strategy is bearing remarkable fruit,” the final communiqué said, as “those missionary dioceses created twelve months ago have reported that they have already planted over three hundred new congregations.”

In other business the meeting addressed the issue of polygamy in Nigerian culture. “While there are complex pastoral issues that must be addressed, we as a Church stand against it” the bishops wrote and affirmed as the “biblical norm for holy matrimony” life-long monogamy.

The Church of Nigeria had set out to become “known around the world as a champion for Biblical Sexual Morality. We recognize that we cannot simply ask others to conform to biblical norms if we ourselves are unwilling to look inward especially on the issue of the sanctity of marriage,” they said.

The Nigerian Church also affirmed its participation in the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem. The bishops affirmed the importance of the Lambeth Conference within the life of the Communion, but said that its present configuration prevented them from attending.

GAFCON will “provide a unique opportunity for those who hold to the historic teachings of the Church to meet and discern God’s call for our common future as Anglican Christians,” they wrote, noting that “in the last few days God has shown his favor on these plans by sovereignly providing the funds necessary for all of the Bishops, their wives, the clergy and lay delegates of the Church of Nigeria to attend” the June gathering in Jerusalem.