Mercia? I wonder how many of those who read this blog realise that the ‘third province’ which some conservative evangelicals are promoting already has a name, even though it doesn’t exist? These conservatives say they are willing to remain in the Church of England but only under certain conditions, the main one being that our Church would comprise the three provinces of York, Canterbury and … Mercia. Mercia would not be a geographical province in the way that the current provinces are, but it would have the same structures. In this post I want to look into the history of the idea of a third province, and to explain the very different sense in which that is currently being mooted.

As I write this, I am waiting for the minutes of the October 2025 House of Bishops meeting to be released. Recently, they have come out once the following meeting – in this case, the December 2025 meeting – has agreed them as a correct record. October was when the bishops resisted the proposals for Delegated Episcopal Ministry (DEM), an informal system by which those who disagreed with their diocesan bishop’s position on same-sex marriage could have ordinations and confirmations carried out by a different bishop nominated by their diocesan. The DEM proposals were an attempt to respond to conservative concerns, but managed to panic not only those who found this model of the role of the bishop within the church entirely alien to Anglicanism, but also those who call themselves ‘orthodox’ (see this video from Revd Charlie Skrine, who is someone in the latter group). DEM was supposed to be accompanied by a Code of Practice, intended to protect those who disagreed with their bishop on same-sex marriage (from either direction). When DEM was thrown out, the Code of Practice also bit the dust; after all, why would it be needed, as the bishops were not recommending any further movement on either allowing clergy to be in same-sex civil marriages or extending use of the Prayers of Love and Faith to standalone services? 

DEM was not enough for conservatives because it was not sufficiently formal, not sufficiently enshrined in law. And they are quite clear that what they want instead is that ‘third province’. Details of what this would mean, in terms not only of episcopal oversight but selection for ordination training and the provision of such training, were laid out in the 2020 CEEC document Visibly Different, put together from earlier CEEC documents by Stephen Hofmeyr and Martin Davie. 

For example, the decision to join Mercia would be made by parishes. The boundaries of those parishes would be unchanged but they could plant churches in other parishes (Visibly Different, 7.5.10). Mercia’s doctrine would be that of the C of E “at the point of its formation minus any elements that were supportive of same-sex relationships and gender transition” (7.5.13). What about the ordination of women, previously the issue that was going to split the Church, and for which – as we will see shortly – a third province was also proposed? In Mercia, women would remain eligible to serve in both lay and ordained roles, although parishes could opt out of that and have “a male bishop who shared their convictions” (7.15.16) (as they already can, of course). Those on the third province’s Convocation and in its elected House of Laity would also be on General Synod but could not vote on anything that concerned the other two provinces (7.5.22). In July 2024, Martin Davie imagined further how Mercia would work, here.

The most conservative members of the C of E already have their Provincial Episcopal Visitors (‘flying bishops’), both Anglo-Catholic and conservative evangelical, but this only covers those who cannot accept the ordination of women. That isn’t the issue any longer; the focus of panic has shifted to those in same-sex relationships but, as that quote on doctrine from Visibly Different shows, this has been extended to include gender identity. Different alliances have been made over recent history between groups within the C of E who may disagree on much, but who are prepared to come together briefly on those areas where they agree. At the moment, it’s The Alliance, although I often find it hard to tell the difference between The Alliance and one of its constituent groups, the Church of England Evangelical Council(CEEC). 

The Alliance includes not only CEEC, HTB and New Wine but also the traditional Catholics. Writing in 2000 about the forms of evangelicalism around at the time, Monica Furlong quoted W.R. Matthews who in 1969 described “the unholy alliance between the extreme Protestants and the extreme Anglo-Catholics” around the moves to update the Prayer Book – and that was nearly a century ago, in 1927. Extreme Protestants “feared the Mass” while extreme Anglo-Catholics “feared they might be prevented from saying the Latin Mass in their churches”. Furlong’s own comment is that “Such alliances, based not on shared principle but on expediency, seem rather ignoble”. [1] 

Of the partners in The Alliance, it seems to me that it’s CEEC currently leading the calls for a third province. But this term has meant different things over the last century.

How many dioceses per province?

In its twentieth-century manifestations, the possibility of a third province had been raised in the 1920s. The place of the county of Nottingham was under discussion in the Convocation of Canterbury: should it be moved from Canterbury to York? It was pointed out that if the province of Mercia ever came into being, “a further transplantation would be necessary” (Church Times 11 May 1923). Why Mercia? Because there had briefly been a province of Mercia at the end of the eighth century (788-802) although that was rather different from anything being proposed then (or now) because it had a clear geography – basically, the Midlands – and it was focused on Lichfield.

In the 1960s, calls for a third province again began as a purely pragmatic idea, based on Gregory the Great (an example of finding something in church history to support what you want to do now). Briefly, this is how it happened. The 1969 Synodical Government Measure set up our present General Synod in which the House of Laity votes on all matters that come before Synod. As part of the discussions leading up to that, in October 1962 the Convocation of York discussed the different ways in which the laity could be involved in church government. The bishops had supported the Majority report to create a General Synod, but the York Convocation voted for the Minority report which kept the Convocations (Convocation just means a separate meeting of the House of Clergy of either York or Canterbury province). This was about whether Convocations should continue to have the final say on doctrine. The Bishop of Manchester (Rt Revd William Greer) noted that: “When Convocation had acquired its exclusive rights in matters of doctrine, the laity could no longer read or write. This was no longer true.” At this meeting of the Convocation of York, a third province was proposed, to be the archbishopric of Lichfield, formed from half of the dioceses of Canterbury province, in keeping with Gregory the Great “who had limited a province to twelve dioceses”. 

So the original ‘third province’ idea was about how many dioceses should be in any one province. This was also the sense of debates in early 1965 when the creation of more dioceses was mooted; if that happened “would it be possible to avoid the creation of a third province in the Church of England?” The report in the Church Times of 22 January 1965 included this reaction against such a development: “the thought of three separate Convocations, each going its own way, is frightful to contemplate”. Yet when the proposal for synodical government eventually went to the dioceses, Carlisle – for example – voted 273 to 77 in favour of a third province. It didn’t happen. Administrative reasons were also why, in the 1980s, the Bishop of London (Dr Graham Leonard) suggested that London could be a third province, replacing the area scheme there.

Getting ethical: the Third Province Movement

It was only in the 1990s that calls for a third province began to be linked not with administrative effectiveness but with ethics. ‘The Third Province Movement’ was set up in 1992 under the aegis of the Church Society: another of the groups currently in The Alliance. A simple majority on the PCC was considered sufficient for joining the third province. Adverts began to appear in the church press, with those interested asked to send a stamped addressed envelope (remember those?) to an address in Mayfield, East Sussex. This was the home of Margaret Brown, a General Synod member who was the Chairman of the Movement, although rather than giving her name the ads focused on the eminent male patrons. Brown, whose first speech in the Synod was about being called to uphold the Bible – and having been in the debating chamber at the time I can bear witness to the fact that she held one up as she said that – was also a co-founder of Women Against the Ordination of Women. She died in August 2018, but there is a useful profile of her in the Church Times for 28 September 1990.

Looking at these ads in the Church Times, in 1993 the only issue mentioned by those wanting a third province was the ordination of women, although unspecified “liberal changes” were mentioned in passing. The women priests legislation had passed in 1992, so the Movement was one way of reacting against that, but not everyone had the same sort of structure in mind. In Sept 1994, Forward in Faith (also now part of The Alliance) was also asking for a third province for those opposed to women priests but their chairman Revd John Broadhurst said “This is nothing to do with the Third Province Movement. Our ultimate aim has always been for a parallel Church”. It’s not clear how far this was about two different models of what a ‘third province’ could be, and how far it was about ownership of the Movement. It is interesting that, in 2014, when women bishops were being proposed, the Movement was again in opposition to the traditional Catholic position.

By 1994, Third Province Movement ads had moved towards offering a third province as better than other options which were now being named as: the ‘Rome’ option, the ‘Orthodox’ option, a ‘Continuing Church’ or stay at home on Sundays (e.g. Church Times 25 Nov 1994).

In 1998 the Church Society issued an editorial saying a third province was the only solution, and in this editorial it unpacked that “liberal changes” remark further; it was becoming clear, the editor – Gerald Bray – stated, that the ordination of women was linked to “the push for the ordination of practising homosexuals, and also to the desire for ‘inclusive-language’ liturgy”. Bray raised questions about whether bishops in the third province would “be on a par with the others, or would they be suffragans only? Above all, what would happen to the quota system?” As so often, it all goes back to money. Possibly the most bizarre suggestion in the 1998 editorial was that, while “Liberals would not be welcome in the new province”, there was no way in which they could be kept out, and “one can be sure that liberal elements would flock to it, as parasites always seek the fattest body to suck blood from”.

Over the following decade, the range of concerns continued to expand well beyond that initial objection to women’s ordination. In 2001, the Third Province Movement was also wanting to stop divorced people “becoming churchwardens or general synod members”. Two years later, the Movement was inviting people to send in their s.a.e. if they were concerned about respect for Scripture, the ordination of women to the priesthood and women in episcopacy, the laxity of morals in the C of E or the C of E’s alleged failure to proclaim the uniqueness of Jesus Christ (Church Times 28 Nov 2003). The aim of the Movement was to have their own Province, Archbishop and Bishops “exercising both pastoral oversight and full jurisdiction over all parishes, whatever their churchmanship that do not accept the Ordination of women to the Priesthood and liberal innovations, if all else fails”. They would have their own governing body and Canon Law and “an equitable share of the buildings and financial resources of the Church of England”. Money, again…

Unilateral action

The Movement’s 2003 ad also stated that they rejected “unilateral action” but such rejection ended in 2009, when Brown was still holding out for “dioceses for traditionalists” but wrote, “It’s come to the point where we shall have to say, with great reluctance and after very careful thought, that if something more is not done on [sic] our favour, we shall seriously consider cutting quota payments and consecrating our own bishops” (Church Times 16 Oct 2009). The initial proposal of the Movement was that a simple majority on the PCC was all that would be needed for a parish to join; this was not an occasion when the importance of a two-thirds vote was suggested.

And this is pretty much where we are today, with The Alliance. The CEEC promotes the Ephesian fund, a way for conservative parishes to make sure that their quota money does not go to parishes of which they do not approve. “Consecrating our own bishops”? Well, the conservative churches have now commissioned some ‘overseers’ and leaders. And I’ve already written about the Alliance’s Action Day, when members were supposed to send letters to their bishops saying they no longer recognise their authority, and to withhold their funds from their dioceses. It was postponed from 1 December after the bishops unexpectedly decided against any movement at that October meeting – but rather than being taken off the table this was described as a “pivot”, meaning it could move from ‘off’ to ‘on’ at short notice.

Although a surprising amount of time has been spent fleshing it out, the promotion of a third province as the solution to a range of perceived problems is nothing new. Nor are temporary alliances between parts of the C of E which, on key issues of theology and practice, are normally far apart. Those are simply historical facts. As for vampire liberals sucking out the blood from the parishes of the third province… All hypothetical, like Mercia itself. Why look to the hypothetical when the reality is already bloody enough?

[1] Furlong, The C of E: the state it’s in, p.337, citing Matthews, Memories and Meanings, p.149.