The worldwide Anglican church headed down the road to schism on Friday after U.S. and Canadian clerics were asked to withdraw from key Anglican meetings in a deepening row over gay bishops.In what was widely seen as a victory for traditionalists in the 77 million-strong church, the pro-gay North American liberals were asked by their fellow primates to bow out for the time being from one of its leading bodies.
At the end of a four-day crisis meeting in Northern Ireland, church leaders said: "We request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC)."
They said the withdrawal of the two churches should be reviewed in 2008 at the Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly meeting of all Anglican bishops.
Australian Archbisop Peter Carnley sought to put a positive gloss on the decision, insisting that the Anglican church was not splitting up over the issue. "What we are doing is creating a space," he said.
But the conservatives were in no mood to compromise.
Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola was reported to have held a celebration dinner with fellow conservatives after the late night communique dealt a severe blow to liberals in a broad church that has always been run by consensus.
Nigeria, home to almost a quarter of the world's Anglicans, abhors the idea of gay bishops as does much of Africa.
African church leaders fear that if Anglicanism takes a lenient line on homosexuality, its followers will desert its pews for more conservative Christian churches or Islam.
"People harvest what they have sown," said Peter Karanja of the Anglican church in Kenya who saw the decision as moving Anglicans toward a split.
Any chance of compromise appears to have vanished as the row deepened over the blessing of same-sex marriages in Canada and the decision of the U.S. Episcopal Church to ordain openly gay Gene Robinson as a bishop.