Conservatives Break With Anglican Church

Debate over homosexuality leads to schism 'in all but name'
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 30, 2008 10:30 AM CDT
Conservatives Break With Anglican Church
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, leader of the Episcopal Church, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, walk into a press conference in New Orleans.    (AP Photo/Judi Bottoni, FILE)

Traditionalist Anglican bishops, most of them representing the developing world, have broken away from the Anglican communion and formed their own global church. Galvanized by the consecration of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, the disgruntled clergymen have formed the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, which rejects the supremacy of the Church of England and adheres to hardline doctrine.

The leaders of the breakaway movement deny that they are splitting from the Anglican communion. But the Guardian reports that FOCA is a schism in all but name; in a statement, they said that "we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury." The new church will follow a strict 17th century teaching without modern traditions, and it will break ties with the American Episcopal Church. (More Anglican Church stories.)

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