The first All African Bishops Conference (AABC) begins in Lagos on Wednesday to address the problems facing the Anglican Communion. Over 300 bishops from all over the continent will come together to discuss the major challenges that the Church faces such as Aids, war and poverty.

Peter Akinola, Archbishop of the Nigerian Anglican Communion, told a press conference in Lagos Monday: "Primates and Bishops from the 12 provinces of Africa including Madagascar and Egypt would be in attendance."

“We expect about 300 participants including some of our counterparts from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America and other parts of the world,” he added.

According to him, the conference under the theme: “Africa come of age - An Anglican self-evaluation,” would be opened by the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

For many the key issue will be the reactions to the Windsor Report released last week regarding the ordination of gay clergy. A large majority of African bishops have made their opposition to the issue well-known and stated it as unbiblical.

Archbishop Akinola, who will host the conference, has made his position very clear on the issue. He said, “The bible says that this is an abomination and therefore we shall honour the integrity and sanctity of the word of God. But when church leaders begin to see that what people say is not right, their experience and culture is more important, that's where we differ.”

The African bishops’ reaction could end up being vital to the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and Africa itself has a huge Anglican population with Nigeria alone containing approximately a quarter of all the Church membership. Out of the Anglican Church’s 70 million followers worldwide, 26 million are in Africa, and 17.5 million alone from Nigeria.

Akinola said, “The Church must develop collaborative efforts in dealing with various problems facing Africa and must be largely self-motivated and self-reliant in order to engender sustained progress”.

“The Western world is embroiled in new religion which we (Africans) cannot associate with, we need to find ways and means of developing our own theological education and establish our own training centres for the training of our workers for the Church on the continent,” he stressed.

He continued, “Man-to-man, same sex co-habitation is a taboo in Africa. Now we know that same sex is taking place there (in Western) nations, we have to develop our own theological education."

The issue of gay marriage and the ordination of a gay bishop in America has split the Anglican Church.

Akinola also said the crisis in Sudan`s western region of Darfur would be discussed at the Lagos conference, as well as "ethnic cleansing" in Africa.

The Lagos conference will continue until 1st November 2004.