Conservatives Break With Anglican Church

Traditionalist Anglican bishops, most of them representing the developing world, have broken away from the Anglican communion and formed their own global church. Galvanized by the consecration of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, the disgruntled clergymen have formed the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, which rejects the supremacy of the Church of England and adheres to hardline doctrine.

The leaders of the breakaway movement deny that they are splitting from the Anglican communion. But the Guardian reports that FOCA is a schism in all but name; in a statement, they said that "we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury." The new church will follow a strict 17th century teaching without modern traditions, and it will break ties with the American Episcopal Church. (More Anglican Church stories.)