Anglican Communion News Service

Just to complicate Christmas preparations a bit more this year, I'll be off to Bethlehem on Wednesday with some of my colleagues. We're planning to be there for a few days just before Christmas, and with luck - we'll be back in time for Christmas Eve. Like most people, I guess, when I hear the name 'Bethlehem' I think warm and comforting thoughts. It's somehow a warm and comforting word. And most people of my generation anyway think of 'O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie'

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'He comes the prisoners to release, In Satan's bondage held.' These are words from one of my favourite Advent hymns, 'Hark the glad sound!' And they draw our minds towards an aspect of Christmas that is often neglected because we prefer some of the 'softer' elements in the story

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As Christians we pray this day in the light of a global disaster the momentum of which has built for 25 years. Since the first appearance of the pandemic an estimated 65 million people have been infected with HIV, of whom 25 million have died. In 2005 alone an estimated 4.1 million people became infected with HIV and an estimated 2.8 million people have died of AIDS related illnesses

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His Holiness Pope Benedict XVIth and the Archbishop of Canterbury today shared worship together at the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The worship followed a formal Audience in the Papal Library. Earlier, in a Common Declaration signed by Pope Benedict and Dr Williams, the two leaders expressed thanks for forty years of cooperation and dialogue between the Roman Catholic church and the churches of the Anglican Communion and renewed the historic commitment to the goal of 'full visible communion in the truth of Christ'

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The Anglican and Roman Catholic delegations in Rome for the historic meeting of the Archbishop and the Pope and celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Anglican Centre in Rome, visited the Sistine Chapel today for prayers, marking the visit of Archbishop Michael Ramsey to Pope Paul VI in 1966. Cardinal Kaspar and the Archbishop will meet today for 'informal talks' and then worship with the St Egidio community at St Bartholomews Church

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has dismissed as 'wilfully misleading' newspaper reports that he is doubtful over the ordination of women to the priesthood, has ever felt that the ordination of women priests had been 'wrong' or believes that a revisiting of the question is likely, necessary or desirable

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Dear brothers and sisters; it is a great privilege for me to be able to greet you in the name of Jesus Christ and to greet you from all of your brothers and sisters in the Church of England. They thank God for your witness and they pray for you constantly. I must also say a word of thanks at this point to all those who have helped us in our two weeks in China. We've been welcomed with great generosity by all

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has spoken of China's immense potential in working to solve the world's problems. Speaking at a reception for a Chevening scholars reunion in Nanjing on the 10th October, Dr Williams emphasised that China had its place in a future which will require nations to work together more than ever

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has spoken of his prayers for ordinary churchgoers who are 'puzzled, wearied, or disoriented' by the present controversies within the Anglican Communion. In a Pastoral Letter to the Anglican Communion's Primates and presiding bishops, Dr Williams says that the 'ordinary people of God' do not want to see division as the consequence of the Anglican Communion's difficulties

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has responded to the statement issued earlier today from the meeting of bishops of The Episcopal Church (TEC) being held in New York

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger today signed a joint Declaration which sets out a framework for continuing dialogue between them. Dr Williams described the agreement as historic

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams is to visit China this autumn. The visit is at the invitation of the senior leadership of the post-denominational Protestant Churches in China. It will take in five cities, including the capital, Beijing. Dr Williams' visit will take place from 8-23rd October, starting in Shanghai before continuing inland. It is intended to provide a deeper understanding of the Church in China and the varied context in which it is developing

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Writing to the Heads of Churches in the Lebanon, Dr Williams said 'I have been alarmed at the spiral of violence, the vicious circle of attack and retaliation, that has developed over the last few days. My prayers and sympathy are with the principal victims, the innocent civilians on both sides of the border, who now live in terror and are powerless to prevent the collective suffering at the hands of Hizballah and the Israeli military

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has sent a message of sympathy for victims of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai earlier this week. In a message to be read at an inter faith memorial gathering this evening, Dr Williams says that the anniversary of the 7/7 attacks have led people in the UK to a determination to stand with victims and assured all involved of his continuing prayers

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I am glad to have the opportunity of offering in these few minutes a very brief update on the current situation in the Anglican Communion, particularly in the light of the recent session of the Episcopal Church's General Convention - which was, of course, attended by my brother Archbishop, who made an outstanding contribution to its discussions

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has set out his thinking on the future of the Anglican Communion in the wake of the deliberations in the United States on the Windsor Report and the Anglican Communion at the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (USA). 'The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today, A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion', has been sent to Primates with a covering letter, published more widely and made available as audio on the internet

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'I am grateful to the Bishops and Deputies of the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church (USA) for the exceptional seriousness with which they have responded to the request of the Primates of the Anglican Communion that they should address the recommendations of the Windsor Report relating to the tensions arising from the decisions associated with the 74th General Convention in 2003

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has issued a statement on the election of the Rt Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori as the next Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, in succession to the Most Revd Frank Griswold

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Greetings to you all in Christ's name as you meet to pray and deliberate about the life and witness of your church and the demands of God's Kingdom. May God grant you discernment as you meet and listen to each other in patience and love

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said that faith communities need to promote confidence and earn trust in order to face the common problems that confront the world . Speaking at a dinner in Washington during a Christian-Muslim conference, Dr Williams told the guests that coming together meant addressing their differences seriously, but always in the context of their shared challenges.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to visit Pope Benedict XVI in Rome later this year. The visit will mark the fortieth anniversary of the Archbishop Michael Ramsey's meeting with Pope Paul VI in 1966 and the founding of the Anglican Centre in Rome in the same year

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When it was fashionable to decry Cranmer's liturgical rhetoric as overblown and repetitive, people often held up as typical the echoing sequences of which he and his colleagues were so fond. 'A full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction; 'Have mercy upon us, miserable offenders; Spare thou them which confess their faults; Restore thou them that are penitent'

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has written a pastoral letter to the 38 Primates of the Anglican Communion and Moderators of the United Churches, setting out some thinking on the Lambeth Conference in 2008 and asking them to use Lent as a period of reflection about their own journeys and the challenges facing the worldwide Anglican Communion

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has begun an 8 day visit to Sudan by telling the Christian community that they have been very much in his prayers. 'Day by day we remember you in our prayers. You are not forgotten here and when I return it will be a joy to share with fellow Christians in Britain what I have seen here and what I have learnt from you'

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If someone says to you 'Identify yourself!' you will probably answer first by giving your name - then perhaps describing the work you do, the place you come from, the relations in which you stand. In many cultures, you would give the name of your parents or your extended family

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It is impossible to speak about these things just at present without mentioning the events of the past week. The controversies over free speech versus blasphemy and offence have cast quite a shadow over the prospects of increased trust between different cultures and faiths

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in no way a theologian who wished to be defined by negations. In his prison letters, he deplores the tendency of religious apologists to concentrate on the weaknesses of the secular world-view

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It is essential for each generation to be able to enter into the terrible events of the Holocaust at the level of knowledge and of feeling and I welcome the Government's grant to the Holocaust Educational Trust to enable more schools to make a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau

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Prime Minister, friends it's a very great delight to be able to welcome you here on this, I hope, historic occasion. Although today is overshadowed very seriously for all of us by our great loss in the death of Zaki Badawi earlier today, this event also helps to focus something of what we might hope for in the work of this forum.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has urged Christians throughout the world to make efforts to visit Bethlehem as a place of pilgrimage and to remember the 'struggling' town in their prayers

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