LAMBETH CONFERENCES, the name given to the periodical assemblies of bishops of the Anglican Communion (Pan Anglican synods), which since 1867 have met at Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the archbishop of Canterbury. The idea of these meetings was first suggested in a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury by Bishop Hopkins of Vermont in 1851, but the immediate impulse came from the colonial Church in Canada. In 1865 the synod of that province, in an urgent letter to the archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Longley), represented the unsettle ment of members of the Canadian Church caused by recent legal decisions of the Privy Council, and their alarm lest the revived action of Convocation "should leave us governed by canons different from those in force in England and Ireland, and thus cause us to drift into the status of an independent branch of the Catholic Church." They therefore requested him to call a "national synod of the bishops of the Anglican Church at home and abroad," to meet under his leadership. After consulting both houses of the Convocation of Canterbury, Archbishop Longley assented, and convened all the bishops of the Anglican Com munion (then 144 in number) to meet at Lambeth in 1867. Many Anglican bishops (amongst them the archbishop of York and most of his suffragans) felt so doubtful as to the wisdom of such an assembly that they refused to attend it, and Dean Stanley declined to allow Westminster Abbey to be used for the closing service, giving as his reasons the partial character of the assembly, uncertainty as to the effect of its measures and "the presence of prelates not belonging to our Church." Archbishop Longley said
in his opening address, however, that they had no desire to assume "the functions of a general synod of all the churches in full communion with the Church of England," but merely to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expe dient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action." Experience has shown how valuable and wise this course was. The resolutions of the Lambeth Conferences have never been regarded as synodical decrees, but their weight has increased with each conference. Apprehensions such as those which possessed the mind of Dean Stanley have long passed away.