BRITAIN: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has expressed "deep regret" at divisions arising in the worldwide Anglican Communion following the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson in the US last Sunday.
The divisions would now be "all too visible", he said, "in the fact that it will not be possible for Gene Robinson's ministry as a bishop to be accepted in every province in the communion".
He spoke as Anglican bishops in Nigeria, Uganda, Egypt, Kenya, Australia and New Zealand reacted robustly to the consecration of Bishop Robinson.
In a statement yesterday, Archbishop Williams said it was clear that those who consecrated Bishop Robinson "acted in good faith on their understanding of what the constitution of the American Church permits". Its effects however on "the overwhelming majority of Anglicans, particularly in the non-western world", had to be confronted honestly.
He continued that it was recognised fully at last month's meeting of Anglican primates in London that the consecration "would have very serious consequences for the cohesion of the Anglican Communion" and so they decided to set up a commission to examine such consequences in depth. The commission was formed last week, with the Church of Ireland Primate Archbishop Robin Eames as its chairman.
"The autonomy of Anglican provinces is an important principle. But precisely because we rely on relations more than rules, consultation and interdependence are essential for our health," Archbishop Williams said.
At last month's meeting the primates expressed a desire "to continue as 'a communion where what we hold in common is much greater than that which divides us'. We need now to work very hard to giving new substance to this," he said.
However yesterday the Anglican Church in Nigeria, one of the biggest in the communion with 17 million members, said it was refusing to recognise the consecration. Archbishop Peter Akinola said it demonstrated that parts of the US Church "consider their cultural-based agenda is of far greater importance than obedience to the word of God".
The head of the Kenyan Anglican Church Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said it was severing all ties with Bishop Robinson and all bishops involved in his consecration. A spokesman for Ugandan Anglicans Mr Stanley Ntagari said they too would "break communion with the New Hampshire diocese" and did not "recognise that man as a bishop."
Archbishop Peter Jensen in Sydney, Australia, said the word of God taught clearly the standards for Christian behaviour in leaders and that "Canon" Robinson did not fulfil those requirements. The Bishop of Wellington, the Right Rev Thomas Brown, wrote that homosexual practice was "incompatible with scripture". Bishop Mounee Hanna Anis, head of the Episcopal Church in Egypt and North Africa, condemned the consecration and those who took part in it.
