The Right Reverend Clarence C Pope, Jr, second Bishop of Fort Worth, was the Convener of the first International Bishops’ Conference, which took place in London in 1991. Now retired, he looks back to the early days of the IBC:

‘In June of 1989 a large gathering of bishops, priests, and many prominent laymen from throughout the Anglican Communion, met in Fort Worth to confer and make plans to reverse the decline and outright destruction of Catholic Faith and Order within Anglicanism, in America particularly. There were 2,500 registered participants with bishops from around the communion in attendance, some of whom were speakers. It was obvious to us then, and even more now, that something terribly wrong was afoot within Anglicanism. In years leading up to this gathering, various Provinces of the Church had taken steps which not only removed us from the Anglican Way but from universal Catholic doctrine. Provincial synods, such as the American General Convention, had decreed in 1976 that women were to be admitted to all orders of the Church.

The prior offence from that body was the extreme weakening of the Marriage Canon. Provincial "house keeping" meetings such as the General Convention and the various Synods of the Communion, were not and are not General Councils of the Church which could make such doctrinal changes. It soon became clear, having viewed the extreme political behaviour of General Convention, that nothing short of reform and recovery of our roots would stop the invasion and acceptance of what secular, politically correct, society dictated. The years since the founding of the Synod in the United States have proven this to be exactly the case. The iconographic images from Holy Scripture, undergirded by The Tradition, have been shattered in the American Church with more offences to follow. It would seem that this affliction is internationally rampant. The sense of the Holy has been replaced with " who has the votes." Thus the vision of Paul Vl and Archbishop Ramsey would come to naught.

With a strong belief in Bishops as teachers and missioners of the Church it seemed right and proper to enlist the international Anglican bishops to the cause. Hence a call from the bishops of the Episcopal Synod of America to their brothers throughout the world to come together to consider how best to confront the secularizing of the Church. The first International Conference of Bishops on Faith and Order met in plenary session at Church House, London, 30 April through 1 May 1991. It was my privilege, as President of ESA, to serve as Convener and to set matters in motion. Lively discussions were held and at the conclusion of this first meeting the Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness, the Right Reverend George Sessford, was elected President for the coming year. We dutifully sent a letter of greeting and concern to the Archbishop of Canterbury and concluded our meeting with anticipation of more work and the annual meeting on the year next.'

                                   

It met again in London in the summer of 1992, at the time of the great Festival of Faith at Wembley Arena, under the presidency of Bishop John Klyberg, the then Bishop of Fulham, and then in Canterbury in 1995, under the Presidency of the Bishop of Sodor & Man, the Right Reverend Noel Jones.

                                   

During the Lambeth Conference of 1998, and under the Presidency of Bishop Jones, it held a series of very successful meetings, which enabled the bishops of orthodox belief to network, to support each other and to make common cause when needed. A further Day Conference took place in London in June, 2000, as bishops gathered for Forward in Faith’s great millennial celebration Christ our Future.