Anglican Demand for Change Is Rebuffed by Episcopalians

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
New York Times
Published: June 15, 2007

The executive council of the Episcopal Church announced yesterday that it would not comply with demands from leaders of the global Anglican Communion to retract the church's liberal position on homosexuality and create alternative supervision for disaffected conservative Episcopalians.

The announcement came a day after the Anglican archbishop of Kenya said he would consecrate an American bishop in Texas to minister to alienated Episcopalians in the United States. In May, the archbishop of Nigeria installed a bishop in Virginia, a step considered by many to be outside the bounds of Anglicanism’s traditional lines of authority.

The churches in the Anglican Communion, which trace their heritage to the Church of England, have been brought to the brink of schism over the issue of homosexuality. The executive council’s action makes clear that the Episcopal Church, Anglicanism’s American branch, does not intend to back down.

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Bonnie Anderson, president of the church’s House of Deputies, composed of clergy and lay representatives, said: "The Episcopal Church has spoken quite clearly as to where we are on this."

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