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CofE unity threatened by conference split

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Michael Nasir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury

The Bishop of Rochester could be heading for a confrontation with the Archbishop of Canterbury over the ordination of gay bishops.

The issue has threatened to cause the biggest split in the Anglican Church’s history, which the archbishop has so far managed to narrowly avoid.

Dr Rowan Williams flew out to New Orleans in September for last-ditch talks to persuade the American Episcopal Church to abandon its decision to ordain gay bishops, as it had done in 2003 with the ordination of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire.

Several diocese split from the American church as a result of the ordination, which also prompted some conservative clergymen, particularly in Africa, to call for the Americans to be cast out of its international body, the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has previously warned he may boycott next year’s Lambeth Conference, which happens once every decade and is one of the biggest events in the Church calendar, over the issue.

It is due to take place at the University of Kent at Canterbury next July, but some conservative bishops have planned a rival conference to take place in Israel and Palestine in June.

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), was agreed at a meeting of senior clergy in Nairobi before Christmas. The Bishop of Rochester was consulted by telephone.

Bishops attending the rival event will still be free to attend Lambeth, and it is understood Dr Nazir-Ali will make his position clear in February.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said: “My difficulty at the moment is not with a particular person, such as Gene Robinson, but with those who felt it right to approve and officiate at his ordination.

“Unless they are willing to say that what they did was contrary to the Gospel, and we all of us from time to time need to repent about what we have done wrong, I would find it very difficult to be with them in a council of bishops.”

Many bishops have yet to formally accept their invitations to the Lambeth Conference.

GAFCON spokesman Canon Chris Sugden would not be drawn on whether or not Dr Williams would be invited to the rival conference. He said: “Of course, the Archbishop will be preoccupied with the Lambeth Conference, but no decisions have been made yet.”

A spokeswoman for Lambeth Palace said the Archbishop of Canterbury would not be making any comment on the alternative conference.

However, in his Advent letter to bishops, Dr Williams warned that refusal to meet at the conference would be “a refusal of the cross – and so of the resurrection”. He said: “It is historically an aspect of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury to articulate the mind of the Communion, in moments of tension and controversy.

"I do so out of the profound conviction that the existence of our Communion is truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church and that all of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our Communion fractures any further; but also out of the no less profound conviction that our identity as Anglicans is not something without boundaries.”

POSTED: 29/12/2007 09:00:00