Chasing Archbishop Akinola
Julia Duin
Belief Blog
December 14, 2007

Archbishop Peter Akinola stood solemnly on a dias, wearing a deep purple and bright red cape threaded with glittering gold thread and gold embroidered stars. Another brilliant star was stitched onto his miter.

I was sitting in a crowd of several hundred people last Sunday afternoon at Church of the Epiphany's new sanctuary near Dulles airport in northern Virginia. The leader of 18 million Nigerian Anglicans and the one man in the world capable of challenging the archbishop of Canterbury was in town to consecrate four new missionary bishops.

His presence was an in-your-face challenge to the Episcopal Church, from which the Nigerian archbishop has extracted some 8,600 Episcopalians, who are now attending one of 60+ churches in his Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). the rest