In a defining moment in the Anglican Communion’s civil war over homosexuality, the archbishop of Canterbury proposed a plan on Tuesday that could force the Episcopal Church in the United States to either renounce gay bishops and same-sex unions, or to give up full membership in the Communion.
The archbishop, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, said the “best way forward” is to devise a shared theological “covenant,” and ask each province, as the geographical divisions of the church are called, to agree to abide by it.
Provinces that agree would retain full status as “constituent churches,” and those that do not would become “churches in association,” without decision-making status in the Communion, the world’s third-largest body of churches.
Conservatives hailed the archbishop’s move as an affirmation that the American church had stepped outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy when it ordained a gay bishop three years ago.
The archbishop wrote: “No member church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship.”
Leaders of the Episcopal Church – the Communion’s American province, long dominated by theological liberals – sought to play down the statement’s import, saying it was just one more exchange in a long dialogue they expect to continue within the Communion.
The archbishop said his proposal could allow local churches in the United States to separate from the Episcopal Church and join the American wing that stays in the Communion. But that process could take years, and some American parishes are already planning to break from the Episcopal Church. Some entire dioceses may announce their intention to depart, as soon as today.
The 38 provinces that make up the global Communion have been at odds since 2003, when the Episcopal Church ordained Bishop V. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives with his partner, as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire.
The archbishop’s statement is the most solid official step yet in a long march toward schism.
Twenty-two of the 38 provinces had already declared their ties with the American church to be “broken” or “impaired,” but until now the Communion had hung together waiting for guidance from the archbishop of Canterbury, who is considered “the first among equals” in the Communion.
For the proposal to be enacted, it would take at least half a dozen major church meetings spread out over at least the next four years, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, said in a telephone interview.