The first Church of England service on record in the country was conducted by a Naval Chaplain in 1749. After the British occupation of the Cape in 1806, congregations were formed and churches were built.

The formation of the Church of the Province of South Africa In 1847, Robert Gray was appointed as the first Bishop of Cape Town, an appointment which was to have significant consequences for the Church of England already in the Cape Colony. Gray was an admirable pioneer, but was also authoritarian in temperament and Anglo-Catholic by conviction, determined to impose an Anglo-Catholic pattern and none other on the Church as he found it and as he wanted it to develop. His contemporary, A C Tait, Bishop of London, later Archbishop of Canterbury, commented in Convocation that, if Bishop Gray's power were equal to his will, he would drive away all those whose views were evangelical. Conflict duly followed, and Bishop Gray decided that the way forward was in a new denomination free from what he chose to call "the bands and fetters of the reformation". In 1870 he brought into being the Church of the Province of South Africa.

The Bishops of Grahamstown and Bloemfontein followed Gray's lead. But the Bishop of Natal did not and there were congregations, laity and clergy, who similarly declined to leave the Church of England in South Africa. They continued to hold to that position with the result that South Africa became the only part of the world, its seems, to have two separate Anglican churches existing in the same country. But was the CPSA the same as the Church of England, or was it a new denomination?

This issue was tested both by the Supreme Court of South Africa and by the Privy Council on Appeal. Both courts held that the CPSA was separate from the Church of England on the grounds of there not being "identity in standards of faith and doctrine". It was further laid down that the divergence was "real and actual", not merely potential. It was "root and branch", not merely trivial. The CPSA had lost legally, historically and doctrinally by secession, but for all practical purposes it could afford to ignore all these factors. It had taken over the great majority of churches, church properties, the cathedrals, the church schools and training institutions and endowments. Above all, from 1883 it had all the Bishops, while the Church of England in South Africa had none and was fragmented into individual churches or loose groupings of churches.

Parallel Anglican churches From 1870 until 1932, Bishop Gray's successors had no difficulty in acknowledging the existence of the members of the Church of England in South Africa, both in theory and in practice. They acknowledged themselves to be in a dual position. Consecrated in the Church of England in England, they were Bishops of the Church of England. As such they could minister to congregations of the Church of England in South Africa, and did so minister. Elected as Bishops of the CPSA, they duly ministered as such to that Church.

But the dual position came to an end when the CPSA, in 1932, elected as Archbishop, Francis Phelps, who had not been consecrated in the Church of England in England and was therefore solely a CPSA Bishop. Faced with litigation, the congregations of the Church of England in South Africa and Archbishop Phelps unsuccessfully sought for a concordat safeguarding the position of both parties. The congregations of the Church of England in South Africa then pleaded, also unsuccessfully, with the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Bishop for it. When these pleas came to nothing, it was left to carry on as it had between 1806 and 1847, before Bishop Gray's arrival.

The election of a Bishop The state of affairs continued until 1955. In that year, Bishop G F B Morris, who had recently retired from the position of Bishop of the Church of England in North Africa, agreed to fill the vacancy created in 1870 by Robert Gray. But the treatment accorded to Bishop Morris and the congregations of the Church of England in South Africa (which, in 1938, had drawn up a constitution designed expressly to avoid any secession from the Church of England) was to be very different from that meted out to Bishop Gray and the CPSA. Bishop Morris, having notified the Archbishop of Canterbury in advance of the legal, doctrinal and historical reasons which would conscientiously cause him to accept election as Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa if he were to be elected, was severely and with calculated publicity denounced for his acceptance.

Yet, due respect for the Archbishop's high office notwithstanding, the sole force of the Archbishop's remarks was to put on record his own personal opinion. By church law, his jurisdiction did not extend out of his own Province unless specifically extended, but it had not been so extended to South Africa. Accordingly, Bishop Morris was under no obligation to obey an unlawful demand not to accept the position of Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa, his own oath of canonical obedience being restricted to those matters which the law ordained. In essence therefore, the Archbishop of Canterbury's statement amounted to no more than an indignant objection that Bishop Morris had acted against his advice and broken what Crockford's Clerical Directory aptly called the "united Episcopal front" or, to use a more recent phrase of the Anglican Communion's, "the collegiality of bishops".

Bishop Morris and the Church of England in South Africa were, however, to be punished further. As Bishop in North Africa, Bishop Morris had been a member of the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference in 1948. As Bishop in South Africa, he was not invited in 1958 nor was any invitation extended to his successor, Bishop S C Bradley, in 1968 and 1978. The Church of England in South Africa had, it appears, been tried, judged and expelled from the Anglican Communion, all this in its absence, without opportunity for representation, defence or appeal.

With the election of Bishop Morris, the Church of England in South Africa was able to consolidate. The backlog of ordinations and confirmations was dealt with. Bishop Morris confirmed over 1,000 members at a single service alone. The Church expanded in South Africa and spread into Zimbabwe and Namibia. In 1983, Canon Dudley Foord of Sydney was elected to succeed Bishop Bradley, and in 1984 he was consecrated by the Archbishop of Sydney with the Anglican Primate of Australia and the Bishop of Kimberly, a Bishop of the CPSA, participating in a gesture of goodwill.

The response of the Anglican Communion, however, was lukewarm and unenthusiastic. Instead of welcoming Bishop Foord's consecration, the Anglican Consultative Council criticised it at its next meeting.

What lies behind CESA's exclusion? What, it may be supposed, lies behind this attitude? Is it that the critics were closer to the doctrinal position of the CPSA than the evangelical position of the CESA? Is it that the CPSA, by virtue of its much greater size, had commanded all the attention and publicity? Were the seemingly impeccable historical, doctrinal and legal credentials of the CESA unknown or were they ignored in the corridors of power of the Anglican Communion? Was it that the presence of two Anglican Churches in the same country was regarded as an inconvenient, untidy feature which should be swept under the carpet?

These are open questions and the answers can only be surmised. Two things, however, are certain. As CESA is in conformity with the faith and doctrine of the Church of England, it is unclear on what basis it can validly be excluded from the Anglican Communion. Despite this fact, second, Bishop Foord's successors have not been invited to succeeding Lambeth Conferences, neither as Bishops in the Anglican Communion, nor as Bishops of a Church in full Communion with the Anglican Communion, nor as guests, nor in any other capacity.

If the Anglican Communion were to abide by its own standards, the CESA, it seems, should be one of its component parts - contributing to the Anglican Communion and receiving a contribution from the Anglican Communion. One can only hope that, when invitations are sent out for the 2008 Lambeth Conference, a spirit of truth and love will prevail.

END

This article has been compiled by Stephen Hofmeyr QC, a barrister based in London. Stephen was brought up in the CESA. As a student, he joined the CPSA, with whom he retains links.

FOOTNOTE: The article is an updated and amended version of a pamphlet, "Ghost at the Feast", distributed in advance of the Lambeth Conference in 1988 and written by Herbert Hammond, a Cambridge graduate, who served as Secretary and Registrar of CESA from 1955 to 1985.

---The article includes material drawn from the following sources:
* The Anglican Church in South Africa, an account of the history and development of the Church of the Province of South Africa, by Peter Hinchliff, formerly Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Rhodes University.
* The Church on the Hill, St John's Parish, Wynberg, by K Vos
* The Church of England and the Church of the Province of S. Africa: How the latter seceded, by Robert A C Kearns.
* In search of the truth, a history of the Church of England in South Africa, by Rev Norman Bennet
* A candle burns in Africa, the story of the Church of England in South Africa, by Anthony Ive.
* Constitution of the Church of England in South Africa.