Anglican unity under renewed pressure by conservative gathering

Anglican unity under renewed pressure by conservative gathering

The Boston Globe

ATHENS, Greece --The agenda for an upcoming gathering of conservative Anglican clerics includes discussions about dialogue with Islam and fighting poverty. But the wider message is expected to be protest: Another frontal attack against gay clergy and same-sex unions that threaten to break apart the world's 77 million-member Anglican communion.

The six-day meeting, beginning Tuesday in Egypt, will bring together some of the leading opponents of liberalizing trends and highlight the growing strength of Africa and other places outside the traditional Anglican spheres of influence in England and North America.

More than 120 conservative clerics and loyalists are expected from across the so-called Anglican "south" -- Africa, Asia and Latin America -- who have increasingly warned they could form independent, breakaway churches. The tensions have become so alarming that the leader of the Anglican communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, plans to travel to Egypt in an apparent attempt to calm dissent led by powerful Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola.

"The establishment is desperate to keep together the communion," said George Curry, chairman of the Church Society, a conservative lay and clergy Anglican group based in Watford, England. "But the liberals are unwilling to revisit or invalidate the movements that the conservatives find intolerable. This tolerance has been stretched to the breaking point."

An eventual breakup would be the most stunning fallout from struggles over homosexual issues that also have gripped Roman Catholics, Lutherans and other churches. It would create a range of new congregations able to veer in even greater conservative or liberal directions and end the English guidance over a church founded in the 16th century by King Henry VIII and spread around the world by the British Empire.

The divisions reached serious proportions in 2003 over the consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire by the U.S. Episcopal Church, as members of the Anglican communion are called in the United States. Conservative Anglicans also were outraged by the toleration of same-sex blessing ceremonies in some places.

In July, bishops in England -- the Anglican birthplace -- decided that gay priests can register for same-sex partnerships under a new civil law and stay in good standing if they remain celibate. The bishops also said that lay Anglicans who register civil unions will not be denied the sacraments.

Some conservatives bishops have broken ties with more liberal branches or cut financial links. In Brazil, the dispute led to the dismissal of a conservative bishop in Recife and more than 30 clergymen.

On Wednesday, Anglican leaders in Sydney, Australia, voted to consider changing its ties with the Church of England in protest of its failure to oppose gay priests and same-sex unions. Traditionalists in Europe and North America also have threatened to intensify breakaway efforts.

In September, the Nigerian archbishop warned that the Anglican communion will splinter unless the liberals back down and accept the traditional interpretations of Anglican teachings.

"Let there be no illusions," Akinola told a news conference in New York. "The communion is broken and fragmented. The communion will break."

Akinola's voice carries huge weight and is supported by Ugandan Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi. Together their churches have 26 million members, nearly a third of the world's Anglicans and equal to the Church of England. Africa is home to half of the world's Anglicans and is dominated by conservative leaders.

Both Akinola and Orombi are expected at next week's meeting in Ain Sukhna, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Cairo.

"The demographic center of gravity for the Anglicans has moved to Africa and Asia," said Rev. Gerald Bray, a professor of Anglican studies at the Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. "If the first world churches don't accommodate the (Africans and Asians), they will simply go and establish churches of their own. It seems to be getting closer and closer to that point."