The Church In The Province Of The West Indies (CPWI) is a member church of the Anglican Communion (AC). The AC is comprised of thirty-eight (38) member churches throughout the global community, and constitutes the third largest grouping of Christians in the world, after the Roman Catholic Communion, and the Orthodox Churches. The AC membership is ordinarily defined by churches being in full communion with the See of Canterbury, and which recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as Primus Inter Pares (Chief Among Equals) amongst the Primates of the member churches. The AC is essentially a member of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which was instituted by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and is sustained by the Apostolic Tradition of Faith, Order, Mission, Message, and Ministry.
It is the fertile and effective convergence of these five dimensions of the Apostolic Tradition that must constitute the contextual and authentic implementation of the Apostolic Succession through ecclesial norms and practices, as well as through the collective engagement in the Apostolic Progression of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its Mission throughout the world. This radical commitment to the triadic legacy of Apostolic Tradition, Succession, and Progression, is what essentially serves to undergird not only the characteristics of Anglicanism itself, but also provides for it the ongoing and unswerving allegiance to some Misisonal Imperatives, without which the Church would fail to become the Church, driven and sustained by God’s convulsive and enlivening Spirit.
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