The editorial of the latest Church of Ireland Gazette is, sadly, almost out of date.
It articulates the traditional and (insofar as anything Anglican can be) official understanding of the polity of the Anglican Communion.
In this picture government is by synod of bishops, priests and laity together, Instruments of Unity (not Communion) are consultative and advisory, the Communion itself is an afiliation of autonomous churches not a single Church.
But for the last 10 years or more in ways largely unnoticed till long after the event the Anglican Communion has moved to breach each and all of these working assumptions. Under Rowan Williams' ecclesiology it is becoming a Church (albeit shorn of those who won't play - an acceptable price of organzational change?). Its governance is legally with the provinces and yet political conditions are being created to remove governance - especially of doctrine - from provinces to international bodies. A few unelected lay people may serve as advisors but synodical government seems doomed.
Crucially the editorial calls on the General Synod of the Church of Ireland to defend itself as an autonomous province. By implication he is calling for a rejection of the Anglican Covenant when it arrives for ratification. May it be so.
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