Sydney Archbishop Kanishka Raffel says the Anglican Communion is devoted to the Lordship of Christ, to the authority and sufficiency of his word, and to the priority of mission in the world.

'This is the heartbeat,' said Archbishop Raffel

'It's not a matter of institutional structures or even our much loved historical structures that have so devastatingly disappointed us in recent years,' he said.

'We have a long history of the institutes of communion failing to take action against those who have walked away from the Scriptures,' he said.

Archbishop Raffel will be visiting Tanzania next week to check out work done by Sydney's Anglican Aid (www.anglicanaid.org.au)