The Right Reverend Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, will pay his first visit to Jamaica from May 2-14.

The archbishop will be travelling to the island in his capacity as president of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and some 150 delegates representing 164 nations will gather in Kingston for the meeting.

The Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands has begun planning for the visit.

The ACC is one of the three instruments of communion which serves the worldwide family of Anglican/Episcopal churches. It was formed following a resolution of the Lambeth Conference of 1968 which identified the need for more frequent and more representative contact among the churches than was possible through a once-a-decade conference of bishops.

The council, which was established in October 1969, held its first meeting in 1971, and facilitates co-operative work among the churches of the Anglican Communion as well as the exchange of information between the 38 Provinces and churches in the communion.

Missionary activities

It also facilitates coordination of common missionary activities common to all, advises on the organisation and structures of the communion, and seeks to develop common policies with respect to the world mission of the church, including ecumenical matters.

The ACC meets every three years and its present policy is to meet in different parts of the world. This is the council's second meeting in the Caribbean since delegates gathered for the third ACC meeting in Trinidad in 1976.

Other meetings have been held in Kenya, the Republic of Ireland, Canada, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England, Nigeria, Singapore, Wales, South Africa, Panama, Scotland, Hong Kong and Nottingham, England.

Because it includes represen-tatives from the laity as well as the ordained ministry, in addition to the primates who are non-voting members, it is the most represen-tative instrument of the Anglican Communion. Some 90 voting members representing the 38 provinces in the Anglican Com-munion will attend the Kingston meeting. Spouses, media personnel and staff of the council will also be included among the 150 participants.

Invitation

The current chairman of the ACC is the Rt Rev John Paterson, Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand. The Secretary General, Rev Canon Kenneth Kearon, also serves as the general secretary of the ACC meetings.

The invitation to hold the meeting in Jamaica was extended by the Rt Rev Dr Alfred Reid, Bishop of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands, and received support from the other seven dioceses within the province of the West Indies. A local design group, chaired by the Bishop of Kingston, has been meeting since April 2008 to coordinate the activities for this historic meeting.

Schedule

The ACC meetings will be conducted in private sessions involving the official delegates but the occasion will be taken to enable the archbishop and the delegates to meet the membership of the Jamaican Church and the wider community.

An opening service is being planned for Sunday, May 3, at the National Arena, while on Sunday, May 10, teams of delegates will participate in services at various churches across the diocese.

The closing event will be a service to be held at the Cathedral of St Jago de la Vega, Spanish Town, on May 12.