Orthodox Anglicans hint schism

Conservative bishops debating the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion have issued dramatic warnings about a looming parting of the ways with liberal churches, but stopped short of outlining steps towards a schism.

Leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), who moved a strategy session from Amman to Jerusalem after a top bishop could not enter Jordan to join them, discussed the issues yesterday after receiving a guidebook for their "pilgrimage".

"There is no longer any hope... for a unified Communion," Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinole, leader of the conservative movement in the 77-million-strong Communion, wrote in the guidebook. "All journeys must end some day."

"We know we are at a turning point in Anglican history, a place where two roads diverge," Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, told the pre-conference meeting, according to a text released late on Thursday.

But Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen denied a schism was in the works. "I am not hearing about breaking up the Communion," he told journalists, according to the conservative Anglican website VirtueOnline. "We are trying to renew the Communion."

The conservatives, who claim to represent 35 million Anglicans mostly in developing countries, have been hinting at a split within the Communion at least since Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop was consecrated in the US in 2003.

Many of the 280 bishops attending the full Gafcon meeting next week will boycott next month's Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly Anglican summit hosted by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that agrees guidelines for member churches. About 800 other bishops are due to attend that meeting.

The boycotts would end the Lambeth conference's role in uniting Anglicans and make "highly questionable" the unifying role that Williams is supposed to play, Archbishop Akinola wrote.

The conservatives were true Anglicans, he said, while liberals - especially in the US and Canada - "have chosen to walk away" by allowing gay clergy, blessing same-sex unions and questioning biblical authority.