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with a primacy of honour, generally referred to as Primus Inter Pares “first
among equals” accorded to the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. To this
primacy of honour belongs the function of calling together councils of the
church, such as the ten-yearly Lambeth Conferences of Bishops, which began
in 1867, and continue to today – the last such Conference meeting in 2008. It is
no accident in Anglican history that these conferences began in the second half
of the nineteenth century – a time which saw the rise of a multiplicity of
European national identities, and the consequent rise in national consciousness
and identities of the different Provinces of the Anglican Communion.
Orthodoxy too developed in a similar direction in this period, with the
multiplication of autocephalous Patriarchates and trauma surrounding the long
drawn out breaking up of the Ottoman Empire, including the not unrelated
condemnation of phyletism by the Pan-Orthodox Synod of Constantinople in
1872. While articulating the early church concept of the local church expressing
itself through the vernacular, an abiding question remains in the close
relationship of autocephaly to national identity, and in this sense can be
regarded both as a strength and a weakness. The obvious weakness of national
identity was seen particularly clearly at the end of the nineteenth century and
in the first half of the twentieth, when competing national interests led to two
catastrophic World Wars and many more regional conflicts. Perhaps, in this
context, it was a blessing that the Church of England never had aspirations to
become the British Church – you will not see a Union Flag flying from
buildings of the Church of England, though being the Church of England
doubtless you will know of one or two exceptions! Rather, the four countries of
the United Kingdom have developed their own national church structures and
identities. Indeed the office of the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church as
well as the Archbishop in Wales are models of Primacy that are particularly
resonant of Apostolic tradition. For the twenty first century, the relationship
between ecclesiastical and national identity will remain an important issue for
both Anglicans and Orthodox, particularly in the globalised contexts in which
we live, together with the development of diaspora identities.

Diaspora and Dispersion

I have described the characteristics of the Church of the Ecumenical Councils
as one of dispersed authority. This was an appropriate missionary model for the
growth of the Church into new areas, where local traditions could be
incorporated and maintained, and I have further described this quality as being

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