The chairman of GAFCON has used his Advent letter to warn orthodox Anglicans that the threat of false teaching is as real as ever.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, who is also Primate of All Nigeria, said Advent was a time for the GAFCON movement to renew its courage 10 years on from its founding.

'A decade later, we thank Almighty God that the Gafcon movement continues to expand and to gather those who are committed to proclaiming Christ faithfully to the nations,' he wrote.

'But we still need the same courage as in those pioneering days because the temptation to compromise with false teaching has not gone away.

'On the contrary, it has become greater as the number of provinces rejecting the authority of Scripture grows.'

GAFCON - which stands for Global Anglican Future Conference - was established in 2008 as a response to parts of the Anglican Communion departing from orthodox Anglicanism.

Recalling the movement's beginnings in 2008, Archbishop Okoh said its founding members had been 'prepared to be unpopular and break with the abuse of tradition'.

As the worldwide Anglican Communion prepares for the next leadership gathering, the Lambeth Conference, in 2020, Archbishop Okoh said he wanted to 'congratulate' the provinces of Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda in declining to attend 'unless the Archbishop of Canterbury includes all faithful bishops of the Communion, and declines to invite those who continue to accept the jurisdiction of provinces which have stepped outside the boundaries of apostolic faith'.

The Archbishop also praised Anglicans living out their faith in places where they face severe restrictions as he claimed that others, including 'most notoriously' those in North America, are being persecuted from within the Church.

He criticised the Episcopal Church in the USA for ordering all dioceses to permit same sex marriage rites - a mandate the Bishop of Albany has rejected - and for 'relentlessly pursuing' the dioceses of South Carolina and Fort Worth in the courts over property ownership.

He said the next GAFCON conference taking place in Dubai in February 2019 would be a chance to encourage Anglicans in such contexts.

He continued: 'This season of Advent is a time to renew our courage as we look up and look forward...May we take this lesson to heart and know that whatever losses we may risk in this life, nothing can take away the glory to come.'