Lambeth Palace has released one of the key documents used last fall at the emergency primates’ meeting. A Legal Advisor’s Report, written by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s chancellor, the Rev. John Rees, and presented to the primates on Oct. 15, states there is currently no canonical solution to the threatened unraveling of the Anglican Communion.

The paper was included in the packet of materials distributed to participants of the Anglican Communion Institute seminar on “The Future of Anglicanism,” held Jan. 8-9 at St. Phillip’s Church, Charleston, S.C.

The report “represents the legal starting point for the [Primates’] Commission’s work, from which further ideas concerning communion between the churches can be explored,” said the Rev. Jonathan Jennings, press officer for the Archbishop of Canterbury, in an interview with The Living Church on Jan. 5. The report “simply sets out the legal background for examining the proposals put forward by some of the primates.”

“The purpose of this paper” notes Mr. Rees, “is to consider the legal and constitutional framework — not as it might be, but as it is — that order the relations of the Anglican Communion.”