Anglican Church of India

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Anglican Church of India" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Anglican Church of India (ACI) is a union of independent Anglican churches in India. It is not currently a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion whose titular leader is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In 1947, the Church of South India (CSI) was formed in newly independent India as a united church of Anglicans, Baptists, Basel Mission, Lutherans and Presbyterians. The Church of South India accepted an order of uniformity in worship and practice which was at odds with some aspects of Anglican tradition. Traditional Anglicans in the CSI did not accept this and there was a provision for separation within a period of 30 years from the CSI. Therefore, in 1964, some Anglicans decided to withdraw from the CSI and re-established the Anglican Church of India on 24 August 1964.

V. J. Stephen was consecrated as a bishop by Anglican bishops from the United States and Africa and also by an "Anglicanised" Evangelical bishop from Kerala, India, on 5 May 1966.

Even though the church was re-established in 1964, the synod of the Anglican Church of India was only formed in 1990 at Kottayam. The synod consists of all the diocesan bishops, clergy secretaries, lay leaders of the dioceses and church-related organisations and representatives of each diocese and independent churches. Independent churches function where there are not enough congregations to form a diocese and are also given representation in the synod. Archbishop Stephen Vattappara serves as the chairman of the synod and also as the Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of India.