The Church of the Province of South East Asia embraces three orders of ministry: deacon, priest, and bishop. The Church in the Straits Settlement was separated from the See of Calcutta by an Act of Parliament in 1869 and positioned underneath the episcopal care of the Bishop of Labuan because the United Diocese of Singapore, Labuan and Sarawak. In 1996, autocephaly was attained when the Province of the Anglican Church in Southeast Asia consisting of the Dioceses of West Malaysia, Singapore, Kuching and Sabah was established by the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. Moses Tay, Bishop of Singapore, was put in as the first Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province the identical 12 months. Letters patent was issued in 1855 to establish the Bishopric of Labuan and McDougall was appointed the primary Bishop of Labuan. Following the devastation of the Second World Conflict, the Diocese of Labuan and the Bishopric of Sarawak was joined together because the Diocese of Borneo and the first bishop, Nigel Cornwall, was consecrated in 1949. In 1962, the Diocese was once more divided into the Diocese of Jesselton (later Diocese of Sabah) which included Labuan, and the Diocese of Kuching which included Brunei.

Work in British Borneo after the division of the United Diocese until the outbreak of the Second World Warfare followed a similar pattern to the work in Malaya and Singapore. The interval between the division of the United Diocese and the outbreak of the Second World Struggle in the Pacific, missionary work continued with growing ordination of native clergy and planting of churches all all through the Malaya and Singapore. In 1970, the churches in West Malaysia had been separated from the Diocese and reconstituted because the Diocese of West Malaysia by an Act of Parliament and the Diocese was renamed the Diocese of Singapore. Malaya gained her independence from British rule in 1957. Following this, in 1960, the Diocese was renamed the Diocese of Singapore and Malaya. Anglicanism was first introduced with the institution of the British East India Firm’s settlement of Penang Island in 1786. George Caunter, an area magistrate, was appointed as a Lay Clerk/Appearing Chaplain in 1799 under the jurisdiction of the See of Calcutta. The polity of the Church of the Province of South East Asia is episcopalian church governance, which is the same as different Anglican churches.

The Anglican churches in Penang, Malacca and Singapore were organised into the Church within the Straits Settlement whereas remaining below the jurisdiction of the See of Calcutta. Nonetheless, not like many other Anglican churches, the Church of the Province of South East Asia just isn’t a member of the World Council of Churches in its own proper. Along with the Church of the Province of Rwanda, the Church of the Province of South East Asia maintained a missionary organisation, the Anglican Mission within the Americas, within the United States and Canada, from 2000 to 2011. The Church of the Province of South East Asia has been lively within the Anglican realignment, as member of the worldwide South and the worldwide Anglican Future Convention. The Church of the Province of South East Asia is an autonomous member of the Anglican Communion, created in 1996 with the four dioceses of Kuching, Sabah, Singapore and West Malaysia. In 1851, this church was consecrated by Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta in honour of St. Thomas the Apostle. In 1819, the primary Anglican church building, the Church of St. George the Martyr, was consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta, Thomas Fanshawe Middleton.

In 1826, the Mission Chapel of the London Missionary Society (LMS) started providers in Singapore and the first church constructing in Singapore was inbuilt 1837. In 1842, a missionary of the LMS started the primary ladies faculty in Singapore, now referred to as St. Margaret’s College. With out the advantage of its expatriate clergy, the work of the church fell on the shoulders of native clergy and church employees. A neighborhood variant of the Book of Widespread Prayer is used. The province was represented at the GAFCON III, held on 17-22 June 2018, in Jerusalem, by a 18 members delegation, coming from Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. In 1985, the four Dioceses of West Malaysia, Singapore, Kuching and Sabah requested the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, to create a new province for the area. The 3 separate Dioceses developed independently from then onwards till the creation of the Province. Moreover, the Dioceses of Kuching, West Malaysia and Singapore are further subdivided into archdeaconries and deaneries. Anglican missionaries had been nonetheless extra profitable than their counterparts in Malaya and Singapore in evangelising the indigenous peoples.