With pain, joy, anger and in some cases, relief, Episcopalians across the nation reacted Tuesday to a stern directive from Anglican leaders that the American wing of the church refrain from sanctioning blessings for same-sex unions and take other steps to heal tensions that may yet splinter the global Anglican Communion.
In a crucial meeting in Tanzania that ended Monday, Anglican leaders gave the U.S. Episcopal Church until Sept. 30 to state unequivocally that its bishops will not authorize blessings for homosexual couples and will stop consecrating gay bishops.
The three dozen Anglican leaders, or primates, also set up a special council and vicar to oversee, at least temporarily, conservative American dioceses that have rebelled against the Episcopal Church's relatively liberal views on homosexuality and Scriptural teachings.
Many conservatives said they were happy that the primates had given the divided U.S. branch of the church an ultimatum; many liberals expressed sadness.
Others wondered if the demands made this week would push the historic Anglican Church, founded by King Henry VIII of England after he broke with Catholicism, toward a schism -- or help save it from such a fate.
"No one should underestimate the depth of the divisions," said John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C.
"Looking at the subtext here, you can see the threat if a resolution isn't found. But at the same time, there appears to be a real effort not to have that happen," Green said.
Conflict between liberal and orthodox church members in the United States and abroad reached crisis in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated its first gay bishop.
The tensions with conservatives grew last year when the American church elected a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori, as presiding bishop.
Late Tuesday, after her return to the United States from Dar es Salaam, Jefferts Schori released a statement asking church members for patience and understanding as they -- and the institution itself -- seek solutions to the thorny issues before them. The text appears at \o7episcopalchurch.org.\f7
In calm, measured language, Jefferts Schori noted that the Tanzania meeting's final communique had made requests not just of the U.S. church, but of conservative bishops outside the United States, who have taken dissenting Episcopal parishes and dioceses under their auspices. They were asked to refrain from that practice.
