Leaders of the (Anglican) Church of England have warned the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden that if it agrees to expand the concept of marriage to include same-sex couples, it risks creating “immediate and negative” consequences for ecumenical relations.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has suggested that the Episcopal Church may have to accept a secondary role in the Anglican Communion after voting to allow the ordination of gay bishops and blessings for same-sex unions.
Williams, the spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, said in a statement from England that “very serious anxieties have already been expressed” about the pro-gay resolutions approved by the Episcopal Church at its General Convention in Anaheim, California.
Only days after Archbishop Rowan Williams of the worldwide Anglican Communion cautioned Episcopalians against making decisions “that could push us further apart,” delegates at their July 8-17 convention in California voted—swiftly and by a large majority—to open the doors for gay and lesbian bishops.
The 2003 Episcopal convention’s approval of an openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, had fueled anger in the many Anglican churches in the global South that consider it unbiblical and heretical for homosexuals to serve as clergy.