Anglican Communion News Service

On 30 September 2003, the Director of Communications for the Anglican Communion was contacted by a journalist in connection with a claim that Dr Paul Zahl, Dean of the Cathedral of the Advent, Birmingham, Alabama, had acquired details of the programme for the forthcoming Primates' Meeting to be held next week (15-16 October).

The Anglican Communion Office can confirm that Dr Zahl was briefly handed two documents in error at the recent meeting of the Inter-Anglican Theological Doctrinal Commission in Virginia Theological Seminary at the beginning of September.

Dr Zahl’s comments on the nature and contents of these documents are misleading, and quotations that appeared in a recent newspaper report are incorrect. The documents were early draft versions of proposals being developed for a planning meeting in the ACO in preparation for the Primates’ Meeting.

The Anglican Communion Office has an official role to advise on the structure of the Primates’ Meetings in a way which will facilitate all primates to have an equal voice in all discussions.