Conservative Episcopalians form group

NEW YORK – Theological conservatives upset by liberal views of U.S. Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans formed a rival North American province Wednesday, in a long-developing rift over the Bible that erupted when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop.

The announcement represents a new challenge to the already splintering, 77-million-member world Anglican fellowship and the authority of its spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The new Anglican Church in North America includes four breakaway Episcopal dioceses, dozens of individual parishes in the U.S. and Canada, and splinter groups that left the Anglican family years, or in one case, more than a century ago.

Its future status in the Anglican Communion is unclear.

It is unprecedented for an Anglican national province to be created where any other such national church already exists. But traditionalists say the new group is needed to represent the true historic tradition of Anglican Christianity.

Bishop Robert Duncan, who leads the breakaway Diocese of Pittsburgh, is the proposed new leader of the new North American province, which says it has 100,000 members.

The Rev. Charles Robertson, adviser to Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in a statement that “there is room within The Episcopal Church for people with different views and we regret that some have felt the need to depart from the diversity of our common life in Christ.”

The Anglican Communion links 38 self-governing provinces that trace their roots to the missionary work of the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the U.S., while the Anglican Church in Canada represents the communion in that country.