Since its founding more than two centuries ago, the Episcopal Church has often struggled to keep disparate factions unified under its diverse umbrella.
Repeated controversies -- over slavery, the ordination of women and even the role of children in church life -- have threatened to tear at its religious fabric.
Now, the church faces one of its most daunting challenges yet, with hundreds of conservative congregations forming a separate North American church amid a dispute with liberal Episcopalians over homosexuality and Scripture.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sees the latest discord in historical terms, a view that sheds light on Episcopalians' religious and cultural DNA.
Similar controversies have come and gone, she told Times reporters earlier this month, but the 2.4-million-member church has remained largely intact -- even if unity has sometimes come at a steep price.
"The place of gay and lesbian people in the church is the latest expression of the ancient human struggle over who is 'the other,' " Jefferts Schori said. "There will be another group. I don't know who it is going to be."
Slaves were one of these first "other" groups to cast a long shadow over the church.
During the Civil War the church held together loosely, as Methodists and other denominations split over the issue of slavery. Southern Episcopalians formed their own branch but were marked absent during the church's 1862 general convention, returning to the fold after the war.
The church may have emerged from slavery intact, but many contemporary Episcopalians believe it lost its moral compass along the way. Episcopal leaders, acting at their national convention in 2006, apologized for the church's "complicity" in slavery. Church officials also have acknowledged that Southern and Northern Episcopalians alike benefited from the slave trade.
Modern disputes have similarly engulfed the church. Its decision in 1976 to ordain women raised new tensions, prompting the departure of some congregations while transforming the Episcopalian landscape, ultimately leading to Jefferts Schori's election to the top church office.
Revisions to the Book of Common Prayer in 1979 led to further dissension. The changes made baptism more central to the practice of the faith, empowering lay people and challenging the historical power of the clergy. The updates also made the Eucharist a regular act of Sunday worship and allowed children to receive Communion before they were confirmed, further challenging established practice.
