Dateline Zanzibar Cathedral: Akinola is odd man out

Archbishop of Canterbury leads Sunday service with all but one primate attending--Akinola too "ill" to attend

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the other primates appear to have worked successfully to keep the primates working and worshiping together despite repeated and coordinated attempts to divide them and the Communion.

Akinola of Nigeria went into Tanzania early last week with a list of demands aimed at dividing the group and the Communion itself, but his claims appear to have fallen on deaf ears at every turn. If anything, Akinola's demands and threats to weaken Canterbury appear to have rallied the rest of the Communion, including The Episcopal Church, to Canterbury.

Based on the Zanzibar Cathedral service this morning, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is Akinola and his plans for division and schism that are the odd man out. Akinola was too "ill" to attend the Cathedral service, an unnamed official said.

All the other primates attended mass at the Zanzibar Cathedral, which stands over a former slave post, Reuters and The Associated Press report.

The Archbishop told the assembled primates:

"Very early in the history of the church there was a great saint who said God was evident when bishops were silent," Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said to some laughter in a packed cathedral in the predominantly Muslim Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar.

"There is one thing a bishop should say to another bishop ... that I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great saviour."

The Reuters story with dateline "Zanzibar" is all here.