[10][11][12][13] The Anglican Communion was officially and formally organised and recognised as such at the Lambeth Conference in 1867 in London under the leadership of Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury.

[14] Each national or regional church is fully independent, retaining its own legislative process and episcopal polity under the leadership of local primates.

After the American Revolution, the parishes in the newly independent country found it necessary to break formally from a church whose supreme governor was (and remains) the British monarch.

By 1840 there were still only ten colonial bishops for the Church of England; but even this small beginning greatly facilitated the growth of Anglicanism around the world.

Some bishops were initially reluctant to attend, fearing that the meeting would declare itself a council with power to legislate for the church; but it agreed to pass only advisory resolutions.

At this 1998 conference for the first time in centuries the Christians of developing regions, especially, Africa, Asia and Latin America, prevailed over the bishops of more prosperous countries (many from the US, Canada and the UK) who supported a redefinition of Anglican doctrine.

[27] Many of the provinces in developed countries have continued to adopt more liberal stances on sexuality and other issues, resulting in a number of de facto schisms, such the series of splits which led to the creation of the Anglican Church in North America.

[30] Disputes that had been confined to the Church of England could be dealt with legislatively in that realm, but as the communion spread out into new countries and territories, and disparate cultures, controversies often multiplied and intensified.

[31] Rapid social change and the dissipation of British cultural hegemony over its former colonies contributed to disputes over the role of women, and the parameters of marriage and divorce.

In the late 1970s, the Continuing Anglican movement produced a number of new church bodies in opposition to women's ordination, prayer book changes, and the new understandings concerning marriage.

While individual Anglicans and member churches within the communion differ in good faith over the circumstances in which abortion should or should not be permitted, Lambeth Conference resolutions have consistently held to a conservative view on the issue.

"[36] In the context of debates around and proposals for the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide, the 1998 conference affirmed that "life is God-given and has intrinsic sanctity, significance and worth".

[45] In 2024, the Church of England's General Synod voted to support allowing clergy to enter in civil same-sex marriages.

There is an Anglican Communion Office in London, under the aegis of the archbishop of Canterbury, but it serves only in a supporting and organisational role.

The communion is held together by a shared history, expressed in its ecclesiology, polity and ethos, and also by participation in international consultative bodies.

Three elements have been important in holding the communion together: first, the shared ecclesial structure of the component churches, manifested in an episcopal polity maintained through the apostolic succession of bishops and synodical government; second, the principle of belief expressed in worship, investing importance in approved prayer books and their rubrics; and third, the historical documents and the writings of early Anglican divines that have influenced the ethos of the communion.

Unlike other traditions, Anglicanism has never been governed by a magisterium nor by appeal to one founding theologian, nor by an extra-credal summary of doctrine (such as the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian churches).

Protracted conflict through the 17th century, with radical Protestants on the one hand and Roman Catholics who recognised the primacy of the Pope on the other, resulted in an association of churches that was both deliberately vague about doctrinal principles, yet bold in developing parameters of acceptable deviation.

With the expansion of the British Empire and the growth of Anglicanism outside Great Britain and Ireland, the communion sought to establish new vehicles of unity.

From the beginning, these were not intended to displace the autonomy of the emerging provinces of the communion, but to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action".

Its intent was to provide the basis for discussions of reunion with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, but it had the ancillary effect of establishing parameters of Anglican identity.

It establishes four principles with these words:[61] That, in the opinion of this Conference, the following Articles supply a basis on which approach may be by God's blessing made towards Home Reunion: (a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as "containing all things necessary to salvation," and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

(d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.As mentioned above, the Anglican Communion has no international juridical organisation.

In line with the suggestion of the Windsor Report, Rowan Williams (the then archbishop of Canterbury) established a working group to examine the feasibility of an Anglican covenant which would articulate the conditions for communion in some fashion.