Nairobi — The Anglican Church in Africa is hoping to "move forward" from the controversies and arguments of the recent past concerning homosexuality in the church.

Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told the press on Friday that the Anglican Church's purpose in the world was to glorify God and proclaim His word. He tried to brush aside questions from reporters on the one issue that has threatened to split the Anglican communion right down the middle.

The head of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, addresses the press in Nairobi yesterday. Photo by Joan Pereruan.

However, the position taken by 16 primates from Africa, South East Asia and Latin America who met in Nairobi to discuss the issue of homosexual clergy amongst other matters, does not seem to be unanimous.

Asked whether all the African primates were united on this front, Archbishop Akinola admitted that the South Africans could not be said to be fully on board. There were no representatives from South Africa at the just-ended Nairobi conference.

South Africa's Archbishop Njongokulu Ndungane, the only publicly pro-gay voice in Africa, skipped the week-long Nairobi conference, a move which seemed to annoy the Nigerian who addressed journalists at the end of the meeting.

Some African church leaders, including Archbishop Ndungane and Nobel Peace prize winner, retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have questioned why the Anglican church is spending so much time on the issue of homosexuality, when there are pressing issues such as war, Aids and poverty to be addressed on the continent.

But annoyed at the prolonged questioning on this one issue, Archbishop Akinola, who has led the fight against acceptance of gays in the church and the ordination of gay clergy, said: "I didn't create poverty. This church didn't create poverty. Poverty is not an issue, human suffering is not an issue at all, they were there before the creation of mankind."

Archbishop Akinola and a host of other Anglican leaders from Africa, South East Asia and Latin America, also known as the Global South, had been in Nairobi since Monday at a meeting organised and hosted by the Kenyan chapter of CAPA, the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa.

The meeting's agenda was ostensibly to prepare what the Nigerian primate referred to as the 3rd South-South Encounter of the Global South Provinces of the Anglican Communion to be held in October this year at Ein El-Sukhna in Egypt.

However, the Archbishop conceded that the forthcoming meeting of Anglican bishops to be held in Ireland in two weeks to discuss the Windsor Report, and last year's report from the Lambeth Commission on Communion (also known as the Eames Commission) had been discussed.

The main agenda of the Windsor Report was to chart the way forward for the Anglican Communion that was on the verge of fracturing after the controversial consecration of the openly homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire in Canada.

African church leaders have been among the most vocal in criticising the consecration of a gay bishop. Some have even broken ties with individual American and Canadian churches.

Part of the agenda of the Nairobi meeting was for members of the Global South to come up with a common agenda for the primates' meeting in Ireland to be held in a fortnight from now to discuss the Windsor report.

However, yesterday, Archbishop Akinola said he would not want to "pre-empt or pre-judge" what the result of the crucial meeting would be.

Dr John Chew, Bishop of Singapore and President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore, who was also at the media briefing, categorically said that a split in the Anglican Communion was "not on the agenda".

Rejecting an apology made last week by the American Episcopal Church over the ordination of a homosexual bishop and the blessing of gay relationships, the clerics, representing over 70 million adherents, asked their American counterparts to repent instead.

"They have only apologised and not repented," said Archbishop Bernard Malango of Zambia.

"Apology does not make sense to us, the biblical word is repentance," said Kenya's Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi.

The Episcopalians met last week in Salt Lake City and issued an apology to the Anglican Churches "for the hurt" caused by the ordination of Bishop Robinson.

The 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church is the US branch of Anglicanism.

The Windsor Report was seen as an important moment in the life of the worldwide Anglican communion. It attempted to steer a middle road in the whole affair and so only gently admonished both sides in the gay clergy debate.

Some opponents accused the writers of the document of taking a somewhat paternalistic tone that in the words of one commentator "seems more suitable for scolding errant children than addressing the Church."

One of the suggestions in the report reads: "The Episcopal Church (USA) be invited to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican communion emerges."

In his reaction immediately after the report was released in October last year, Dr Akinola said: "I welcome the sincerity and hard work of those who have prepared the Windsor Report.