Leading Anglican clerics have charged North American clergy with threatening to tear the church apart by defying its policy over homosexuality.
But after two days' of crisis talks in London, the 37 clerics stopped short of expelling the rebels as some conservatives had sought.
In a statement, the clerics said they "deeply regret" the actions of US and Canadian Anglicans for electing an openly gay cleric as bishop and voting to allow same-sex unions.
"These actions threaten the unity of our own communion," the clerics said in a statement issued at the 12th century Lambeth Palace.
"We recognise that we have reached a crucial and critical point in the life of the Anglican communion and we have had to conclude that the future of the communion itself will be put in jeopardy," they added.
The clerics urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who heads the world's 70 million Anglicans, to set up a commission to consider how the church can solve crises such as the homosexuality issue.
The crisis came to a head with the decision of US Anglicans, known as Episcopalians, to appoint, Rev Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two as the first openly practising homosexual bishop in the history of Anglicanism.
That decision contravened church policy, agreed at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, which says the Anglican communion cannot support "the legitimising or blessing of same-sex unions or ordaining of those involved in same-sex unions".
The Anglican communion unites 38 churches spread over 160 countries from Africa to Australia.
By failing to take stricter action against the rebel Episcopalians, there is now a risk that conservative Anglicans - notably in Africa and South America - will leave the communion.
The row over the US bishop followed a decision earlier in the year by Canadian Anglicans to sanction same-sex unions, in direct contravention of church policy on sexuality.