The Saints and Martyrs 		November 8
of the Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion was in many respects a totally unplanned and fortuitous development. It grew out of the spread of the influence of the Church of England, mainly in the nineteenth century. Anglicanism reached America in the seventeenth century with the colonists. The vigorous missionary thrust of the evangelical societies of the church in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries planted elements of the Anglican way in many parts of the world. British commercial and colonial expansion in the nineteenth century accelerated this and led to the formal establishment of numerous Anglican Churches.
The emergence of an Anglican Communion is most appropriately dated from the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. Even so, the acceptance of such a communion was not without misgivings in some circles about the relationships of the various components of the now world-wide Anglican Church to each other. What has emerged is a communion of autonomous churches, who nevertheless value their family association as parts of a world-wide communion.
The growth of the Anglican Communion has produced its own significant contributors to the witness of faith. Some of these people are commemorated individually in our Calendar, including some from Aotearoa/New Zealand who would have a claim to recognition by the whole Anglican Communion: Janani Luwum (17 February); Kereopa and Manihera (13 March); Frederick Denison Maurice (1 April); George Augustus Selwyn (11 April); Apolo Kivebulaya (30 May); The Martyrs of Uganda (3 June); Sadhu Sundar Singh (19 June); William Wilberforce (29 July); Mary Sumner (9 August); John Coleridge Patteson (20 September); Henry Martyn (20 October); Charles Simeon (12 November); Josephine Butler (30 December).
There are also others who played important roles in the growth of the church and the spread of the gospel. Among the missionaries of the church there were Thomas Bray (1656-1730), priest and missionary and the inspiration behind both The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (1699) and The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (1701); Robert Machray (1831-1904), one of the great organisers of the church in Canada, notably in Rupert’s Land, where he promoted its indigenous nature vigorously; and James Hannington (1847-1885), bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa and linked with the Ugandan martyrs. In England itself there were examples of saintly characters, like Edward King (1829-1910), bishop of Lincoln. The leadership of Archbishop William Temple (1881-1944) and the international scholarship of J.B. Lightfoot (1828-1889), B.F. Westcott (1825-1901), and F.J.A. Hort (1828-1892) were significant. In the ecumenical movement, C.H. Brent (1862-1929), bishop of the Philippines, was an outstanding figure, especially in relation to the “Faith and Order” movement.
Then there are the others who patiently and faithfully served Christ in their day, some of whom suffered for their commitment. All these are commemorated for their part in the life and witness of the Anglican Communion.
For Liturgical Use
The exciting thing about the Anglican Communion has been its emergence out of the national Church of England into a world-wide fellowship involving people of widely different origins and cultures. In the four hundred years or so in which the modern Anglican tradition has existed, God has changed the Church beyond recognition. In the process of growth and development, the Anglican Communion has produced its own heroes, who have borne witness to Christ, sometimes at the cost of their life. 
Sentence
The Lord is our God; we are the Lord’s people, the flock that God shepherds.	Psalm 95:7
Collects
God of all the earth,
we praise you for those of our Anglican heritage
who have borne witness to Christ
in life and in death;
strengthen us to build well
on the foundations they have laid,
that your name may be glorified
in all the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Holy Spirit, ever living, ever new and unexpected,
we remember with pride and affection
those who by their lives and by their deaths
have served our Anglican Communion;
help us in our turn to follow you
wherever you send us.
Psalms	65:1-8	113
Readings
Ecclesiasticus 34:14-17	Those who trust in God
Ephesians 3:8-12		God’s age-old purpose
Matthew 12:46-50		The family of Jesus
Post Communion Sentence
You are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.	
				Ephesians 2:19,20