London, England - Conservative Anglicans have drawn up detailed plans to set up their own church within a church, with their own constitution and decision-making synods, according to a document seen by the Guardian.
The move, days before representatives from the church's 38 provinces meet in Nottingham to discuss the state of Anglicanism, appears to be the latest stage in the 77 million-strong communion's widening split over homosexuality within the priesthood.
The draft organising constitution for a group to be called the Anglican Global Initiative envisages that it would operate within the Anglican communion. The document proposes that it should be headed by two conservative primate archbishops from the developing world "to affiliate and unite in love, holiness and true godly fellowship through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Anglicans in [the] global south with Anglicans in North America and the United Kingdom".
The AGI would form an umbrella body to represent American Episcopalians, Canadian Anglicans and English conservative Evangelicals who have vociferously defended the church's traditional opposition to homosexual practice and castigated bishops who have taken a more liberal line on the issue.
The constitution proposes that the group should organise its own synods and triennial convocations, that its leading bishops should hold regular teleconferencing meetings and says that it will promote unity through common action. It will still respect the historical role and authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who heads the communion.
One of the archbishops, the Most Rev Drexel Gomez, primate of the West Indies, said yesterday: "There is a group which is supposed to be meeting here in July to discuss the possibility of forming something but I was not aware of the name."
Contextual evidence suggests the document was drawn up this year, before the church's primates met in Northern Ireland and agreed to suspend the US and Canadian churches from meetings for three years.
Anglican communion sources suggested the plans may have been placed on hold because of the suspensions but have resurfaced in advance of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting next week.
Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Canadian diocese of New Westminster whose decision to authorise a service for same-sex blessings has led to his condemnation by conservatives, said: "The existence of this constitution is scandalous. It suggests there is no willingness to engage in the conversations or the listening process called for by the primates at the Northern Ireland meeting."
American conservative Episcopalians denied knowledge of the Anglican Global Initiative as did a spokesman for Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.