Anglican Communion
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The Anglican Communion is an international association of churches that share roots in the Church of England and follow similar traditions and practices. It matters because it represents millions of Christians worldwide who are connected through this common heritage and coordinate on religious matters of shared importance.
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The Anglican Communion (AC) is a Christian communion consisting of the autocephalous national and regional churches historically in full communion with the See of Canterbury. Member churches exercise jurisdictional independence but share a common heritage concerning Anglican identity and commitment to scripture, tradition, and reason as sources of authority. The Archbishop of Canterbury acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares ("first among equals"), but without formal authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.
With approximately 85–110 million members in 2025, among its 47 member churches, it is the third or fourth largest Christian communion of churches globally, after the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and, possibly, World Communion of Reformed Churches. In 2021, excluding the United and Uniting churches, research published in the World Christian Database estimated that the Anglican Communion had approximately 97,399,000 members. The Anglican Communion considers baptism to be "the traditional gauge" or definition for membership.