Anglican Church of Australia

The Anglican Church of Australia, an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion, was previously officially known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania (renamed in 1981).   It is the second largest church in Australia (3,718,241 members, 18% of the population), after the Roman Catholic Church.

When the First Fleet was sent to New South Wales in 1787, the Rev'd Richard Johnson was licensed as chaplain to the Fleet and the settlement.   In 1825, the Australian continent was proclaimed an Archdeaconry of the Diocese of Calcutta with the Rev'd Thomas Scott appointed Archdeacon of Australia.   The Rev'd William Grant Broughton succeeded Scott in 1829.   In 1836, when the Diocese of Australia came into being, Broughton was appointed the first (and only) Bishop of Australia.   In 1842, the Diocese of Tasmania was also created.   In 1847, the rest of the Diocese of Australia was divided into the four separate dioceses of Sydney, Adelaide, Newcastle and Melbourne.   Over the following eighty years the number of dioceses increased to twenty-five.   Since 1 January 1962, the Australian church has been headed by its own primate.   The current primate is the Archbishop of Brisbane, the Most Reverend Phillip Aspinall.

The Australian church consists of twenty-three dioceses arranged into five provinces (except for Tasmania) with the metropolitical sees in the states' capital cities.   Broughton Publishing is the church's national publishing arm.

		Protestant Church   Prev | Next				Anglican Christians Community     << Prev  |   Hub | Sites | Join | Random  |   Next >>

Dioceses