By Camillus Eboh and Elisha Bala-Gbogbo
ABUJA, March 5 (Reuters) - A group of conservative Anglicans said at a conference in Nigeria on Thursday that they were setting up a council to lead the global Anglican Communion, in a direct challenge to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The council will include bishops, clergy and lay members, each with voting privileges, the group announced.
It unanimously elected Rwandan archbishop Laurent Mbanda as the chairman of the new council but said he would not be "primus inter pares" (first among equals) but rather share power.
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"Believing the current instruments of communion no longer meet the needs of the majority of Anglicans around the world, the global Anglican Communion is to be led by a conciliar structure," Bishop Paul Donison told the conference.
"I am also pleased to announce that Archbishop Laurent Mbanda was unanimously elected chairman of the Global Anglican Council," Donison added.
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) brings together conservative churches mainly in Africa and Asia and claims to now represent the majority of Anglicans worldwide.
It opposes liberal shifts in parts of the Communion, including the ordination of women and greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ members. The group strongly criticised the Church of England's appointment last October of Sarah Mullally as its first female Archbishop of Canterbury.
(Additional reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe in Lagos and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg)
