What Work Does the Anglican Communion Office Do?

The Anglican Communion Office (ACO) is the standing secretariat of the Anglican Communion — the permanent body that supports a global family of churches described on anglicancommunion.org as spanning 42 provinces across more than 165 countries. Its work is enabling and coordinating rather than governing: it serves the Instruments of Communion, links the provinces to one another, and carries out shared programmes that no single province could run alone. The site presents this through its news, resources, and "pillars" sections, which together map the Office's ongoing activity.

The Office's role within the Communion's structure

The Communion is a family of autonomous churches, not a single organisation with a central authority. Each province governs itself. The ACO exists to support the relationships and common structures that hold the family together, and it is the body behind the website's news and resources. That distinction matters for anyone using the site: the ACO is the coordinating hub, while the provinces remain the decision-making churches.

Types of work highlighted on the site

The website groups the Communion's shared life around pillars and ongoing work. Broadly, the activity falls into these areas:

• Relationships between provinces — supporting the networks and instruments that connect member churches, including the periodic gatherings of bishops and the standing bodies that meet between them.
• News and communication — publishing stories from across the provinces so that member churches can see what is happening elsewhere in the family.
• Resources — providing material for prayer, study, and shared observance that provinces and local congregations can use.
• Shared programmes and commissions — the ongoing work of Communion-wide bodies tasked with particular areas of mission, dialogue, and common concern.

The site's own framing — "news, resources, pillars, and the work of the Communion Office" — is the most reliable guide to what it currently covers. Because the specific programmes and their names change over time, check the pillars and news sections directly rather than relying on a fixed list.

How this work relates to member provinces

The relationship runs in both directions. Provinces supply the people, stories, and funding that make Communion-wide work possible; the Office, in turn, gives them a shared platform, a channel for news, and common resources they can draw on locally. For a reader trying to understand the Communion, the practical takeaway is that the ACO is where the shared work lives, while doctrine, worship, and governance remain with each province.

Using the site to follow the work

If you want to track what the Office is doing, start with the news section for current activity, then the pillars section for the standing areas of work, and the resources section for material you can actually use. These three entry points correspond to the site's own description of its content and are the most direct way to see the Office's work as it develops.