The Hindu : International : Split in Anglican Church widens

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 17, 2005

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International

Split in Anglican Church widens

Stephen Bates

LONDON: Conservative Anglicans have drawn up detailed plans to set up their own church within a church, with their own constitution and decision-making synods, according to a document seen by this correspondent.

The move, days before representatives from the Church's 38 provinces meet in Nottingham to discuss the state of Anglicanism, appears to be the latest stage in the 77 million-strong communion's widening split over homosexuality within the priesthood. The draft organising constitution for a group to be called the Anglican Global Initiative envisages that it would operate within the Anglican Communion.

The document proposes that it should be headed by two conservative primate archbishops from the developing world ``to affiliate and unite in love, holiness and true godly fellowship through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Anglicans in [the] global south with Anglicans in North America and the United Kingdom.''

The AGI would form an umbrella body to represent American Episcopalians, Canadian Anglicans and English conservative Evangelicals who have defended the Church's traditional opposition to homosexual practice and castigated bishops who have taken a more liberal line on the issue. It will respect the role and authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who heads the communion.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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