06/08/2025
Response of the Church of Nigeria to the Election of Bishop Cherry Vann as Archbishop of Wales.
The recent election of The Rt. Rev. Cherry Vann on Wednesday, 30th July, 2025 as Archbishop of Wales is a further indication and abandonment of the faith once delivered to the saints, Bishop Vann being a practising homosexual.
We recall with sadness, her passive and complicit role in the same-sex crisis that tore the Anglican Communion apart. The story of Rt. Rev. Vann reminds us of the sad tenure of Most Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori, the 26th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church in the United States (2006-2015), under whose tenure faithful Anglicans in the United States of America suffered severe persecution and opposition. Celebrating the election of Bishop Vann, the Dean of Newport Cathedral, The Very Rev. Ian Black was quick to say, “Cherry is the right person for the moment in the Church in Wales’ life.” That celebration shows the level of spiritual decadence and outright departure of the Church of Wales from credal orthodoxy.
Aside being a further authentication of the choice of the Church of Wales walking away from the truth, it is a signal that some sections of the global Anglican world have resolved to abandon the truth of God’s word by sacrificing the authority of the Scripture for a postmodern agenda that has no divine backing. What is at stake in the election of Bishop Vann as Archbishop of Wales are: salvation of the souls of men, biblical ethics, identity of Anglicans globally, impairment of our credibility to do missions and evangelism, and salvaging the very soul of Anglican orthodoxy. We have come to the point where a clarion call must be sounded: ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’ Like the early Church Apologists and Martyrs of old, faithful church believers must reject heretics and apostates from our midst, strive to redeem our holy scriptures, defend our historic creeds, uphold our Articles of Faith and Catechism, and expel the ‘wolves amongst our sheep.’
Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion Issues Guidelines for Receiving Guests During Services and ProgrammesCertainly, we are in the end time when many in the Church are opposed to “…the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” This recent election of Bishop Vann is a clear revelation that many who claim to be members of the body of Christ cannot, “…endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Today, enemies of the Christian faith are collaborating, employing a combination of instruments of secularism, communism, Islam, paganism, liberal theology, syncretism and biblical revisionism to perpetrate the decline of Christianity in many parts of the world.
Looking at the events of the past few years in the Church of Wales, beginning from the leadership of Bishop Rowan Williams who was also bishop of Monmouth, then Archbishop of Wales before becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury; the immediate past Archbishop of Wales, Archbishop Andrew John who ended in a most shameful circumstance, and the recent election of Bishop Vann, it may be said that biblical and godly leaders are now few in the leadership of the Church of Wales.
Thus, that an openly le***an woman is the “right leader for the moment” in the Church of Wales shows how deep the church has sunk. Rather than advocating reconciliation as being championed by the new Archbishop of Wales, the important matter of the moment should be a call for genuine repentance. It is becoming clearer as echoed by Paul in Romans 1:28 in view of what had just happened in the Church of Wales that some in the global Anglican world have ultimately chosen not, “…to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.”
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) condemns, unequivocally rejects and will not recognize the election of Rt. Rev. Cherry Vann as Archbishop of Wales. We will strive to uphold the authority of the Scriptures, our historic creeds, evangelism and holy Christian living. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ will build His Church and “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16 :18). We call upon faithful Christians of the Anglican fold to denounce, reject, condemn and expel the rebels in our midst, while we realign ourselves with Anglican remnants scattered in troubled dioceses all over the world, under the umbrella of faithful Anglican Christian bodies like GAFCON.
Therefore, as a matter of urgency, the Church of Nigeria believes that this moment calls for prayer for the Church of Wales, hoping that the Church of England will not follow in her steps. We should hold them in our prayers with a clear message that hope lies only in true repentance and godliness, otherwise this church will lose complete relevance in the divine scheme for the people of Wales, and the leaders in compromise shall not be spared in time of judgment.
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen” (Jude 1:24-25).
The Most Rev’d Henry C. Ndukuba, DD.
Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of Church of Nigeria
©️ Korede Akintunde
