Skip over main navigation
  • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
The Anglican Centre in Rome
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Donate
Menu
  • About us
    • Our Director
      • Director's Blog
    • Our story
    • Our partners
    • Our governance
    • The Anglican Communion
    • Where we are
    • Service times
  • Support us
    • Support The Centre
    • Become a Friend
      • Join the ACR Friends network
      • The UK Friends
      • American Friends
      • Worldwide Friends
    • Donate
    • Making a bequest
  • Learn with us
    • Courses
    • Scholarship
    • Archives
  • Visit us
    • Where we are
    • Rome
    • Pilgrims
      • Sabbaticals
      • Parishes
  • News about us
    • News
    • Centro
  • Pray with us
    • We pray together
    • Tuesday Eucharist
    • Prayer for Christian unity
    • Request prayer
  • An Urgent Appeal
  • Admin
    • Log in
  • Basket: (0 items)
  • Our story

Our story

The Archbishop of Canterbury and His Holiness Pope Francis

The Anglican Centre in Rome is the permanent Anglican Communion presence in Rome. It is the living reality of our Communion’s commitment to the full visible unity of the Church, working collaboratively with all Christians for justice and peace in the world. It is also the base of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Personal Representative to the Holy See, who is also the Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome. He liaises between Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby and works with Anglican Communion and Vatican bodies on joint projects for education, ecumenism, and shared mission. 
 
The Centre was integral to the establishment of a multi-faith anti-slavery network, working to combat human trafficking, engaging with churches and agencies in Italy. In 2015 the Centre received a Lampedusa Cross, made from a boat which sank off Lampedusa island in the Mediterranean, which lies on the altar of our chapel reminding us of people who are displaced. The Centre works closely with the Catholic lay community, St. Egidio in Rome, who minister to the poor and disadvantaged, and is helping facilitate a similar mission in England. The Centre seeks to bring down barriers of misunderstanding between Anglicans and Catholics; hosting scholars, art exhibitions, specialised courses, creating a space for hospitality and encounter. We also encourage choirs from around the Anglican Communion to come to Rome to celebrate the Anglican choral tradition in the Eternal City.

Fifty Years and More of Service and Witness

St Paul VI and Archbishop Michael RamseyThe Anglican Centre in Rome was founded in 1966 following the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. Famously, as they parted, the Pope took off his Episcopal ring and placed it on the ring finger of the Archbishop. This gesture symbolised the friendship between the two Christian leaders and the hope they cherished that this same love would also come to transform the relationship between their churches. The Anglican Centre was to play a fundamental part in this transformation.
 
The Centre was charged with developing a new relationship of friendship and deeper understanding between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church, focussing on three main areas; areas which have continued to develop and flourish to this day.

What difference has the Anglican Centre made?

If we measure the growth in mutual awareness, understanding, trust and cooperation between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church in decades, we can see five great steps forward:

  • Since Vatican II and its decree on ecumenism we have totally embraced each other’s baptism: we are members one of another in the mystical body of Christ, in the life and community of the triune God;
  • It is now possible for Anglican and Roman Catholic priests to co-preside at the marriage of Anglican and Roman Catholic partners;
  • We have witnessed agreement on the meaning of the great thanksgiving in the Eucharist as well as baptism. We have witnessed agreement on 'the Church as Communion', on the meaning of Christian marriage;
  • In principle, we concur on the crucial doctrine of justification by faith in Christ, unto good works. This means that the main theological reason for the Reformation has been resolved;
  • We are working hard on doctrines about authority, Mary, the way global and local church holds together, and the way the global and local church discerns right ethical teaching.

The Anglican Centre in Rome has been an embodiment of this progress and this journey in hope for 50 years. The Centre has sought to demonstrate that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion are totally serious and fully committed to the belief that Jesus held up before us in John’s Gospel “that they may all be one”.

May they all be one; Even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; may they be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. [John 17:21]

The Anglican Centre has sought to live this hope by being a presence, by encouraging conversation, by worship, hospitality and education, by the exchange of gifts and by initiating and encouraging: communicating fresh ideas and best practice.

Published: 1st February, 2019

Updated: 25th April, 2019

Author:

Share this page
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest

  • MARTYRS; MONKS AND MYSTERIES

    MARTYRS; MONKS AND MYSTERIES

    Understanding the early Church - Lord Rowan Williams

  • World Day of Prayer 2023

    World Day of Prayer 2023

    I Have Heard About Your Faith

  • Four Lenten Studies

    Four Lenten Studies

  • The Director and Governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome seek to appoint a Priest Associate

    The Director and Governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome seek to appoint a Priest Associate

    This is a part-time (c 20 hours per week), house-for-duty post

Related

  • Centro and stories 1

    Replace this with your content

Most read

  • An Urgent Appeal

    An Urgent Appeal

    The Anglican Centre in Rome launches an urgent appeal for funds. Please support us as we begin to emerge from this exceptional time, and as we prepare for an exciting new phase in the Centre’s life.

  • Exploring the Vision and Learning Together - 2023

    Exploring the Vision and Learning Together - 2023

  • Our Director

    Our Director

  • Where we are

    How to find the Anglican Centre in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj

  • Our story

    Our story

    The Anglican Centre in Rome is the permanent Anglican Communion presence in Rome.

  • A Reflection on Illness by The Reverend Mark Birch, Minor Canon and Precentor, Westminster Abbey.

    A Reflection on Illness by The Reverend Mark Birch, Minor Canon and Precentor, Westminster Abbey.

    Here, Canon Birch reflects, in a passage written for young people at this time of the coronavirus pandemic, on medieval and modern experiences of illness, and how we as a society react when we are unwell.

  • Director's Blog

    Director's Blog

    A blog from our Director - September 2021

  • Sabbaticals

    Sabbaticals

    Sabbatical Studies - How we can help

  • ARCIC I, II and III

    ARCIC I, II and III

    For many years, building relations and understanding between Anglican and Roman Catholic Christians depended on personal, informal and unofficial contacts and friendships...

  • Our governance

    Who and how we are governed

Please make a donation

Please select a donation amount (required)
Set up a regular payment Donate

Visit us

The Anglican Centre in Rome,
Palazzo Doria Pamphilj,
Piazza del Collegio Romano 2,
00186 Roma, Italy.

Registered Charity: 1003666

Contact us

Contact us by phone on:
+39 06 678 0302

Send your enquiries to:
[email protected]

Useful links

  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Admin login
  • My details
  • Log out

Sign up for our newsletter

Newsletters are sent out periodically. Your details will not be shared with any third parties. Please see our privacy policy.

Please enter your first name
Please enter your last name
Please enter your email address Please enter a valid email address (e.g. [email protected])
Please go to our our News section to read our tribute to the late Monsignor Mark Langham.