Plans for an Anglican Gathering in South Africa in place of the 2008 Lambeth Conference have been shelved in favor of a bishops-only meeting to be held at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ announcement Dec. 10 came after the Lambeth Design Group, an appointed body chaired by Archbishop Ellison Pogo of Melanesia, recommended the traditional venue and format.

The idea of an “Anglican Gathering” of bishops, clerical and lay representatives from across the Communion instead of a bishops-only Lambeth Conference was raised at ACC-11 in Dundee (the 11th triennial meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council) in 1999 and formalized at ACC-12 in Hong Kong in 2002. ACC-12 requested the Archbishop of Canterbury “give consideration to ways in which” an Anglican Gathering “might be held in association with the next Lambeth Conference in Cape Town in 2008,” asking that he “consider the participation of clergy and lay people.”

The Rev. Ian T. Douglas, professor of mission and world Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and the American member of the design group, said the decision was due to financial, not political, considerations.

Last February, the Design Group was asked to examine the viability of holding “back-to-back conferences” in Capetown in 2008: an Anglican Gathering and a Lambeth Conference. They found that there was “not sufficient time available to raise the financial resources for Capetown in 2008.”