Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man elevated to that rank in any major Christian body, said Tuesday that the church will survive the tumult surrounding his election. But overseas Anglican leaders have already moved closer to a break with the denomination.
Robinson acknowledged that some who oppose ordaining gays would leave the Episcopal Church, but held out hope they would return in the future.
"I think we'll have a few bumpy years. It's nothing to be afraid of," Robinson said in an interview on NBC's "Today." "The church is always in some sort of crisis ... (but) this is a crisis that's going to get us somewhere."
On Monday, overseas bishops who said they represented 50 million of the world's 77 million Anglicans jointly announced that they were in a "state of impaired communion" with the Episcopal Church — a step short of declaring a full schism. Episcopalians form the U.S. branch of Anglicanism.
Archbishop Peter Akinola, head of the 17.5 million-member Anglican Church of Nigeria, the largest Anglican province outside of England, went even further in an interview on Nigeria state radio. He said he would boycott all meetings at the global level attended by the Episcopal Church.
"We can no longer claim to be in the same communion," Akinola said. "We cannot go to them and they cannot come to us. We will not share communion. ... We have come to the end of the road."
Anglican leaders in Asia, Africa and Latin America who believe gay sex violates Scripture have been warning for months that consecrating Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire would fracture the Anglican Communion. The ceremony was held Sunday, and Robinson, who has lived openly with a male partner for 14 years, will take leadership of the diocese on March 7.
Robinson appeared on "Today" with his partner, Mark Andrew, and one of his daughters, Ella Robinson. "I feel unbelievably blessed," the bishop said.
Jim Naughton, a Robinson supporter and spokesman for the Diocese of Washington, D.C., said the phrase "impaired communion" had little significance for the U.S. church or Anglicans worldwide. The communion is an association of autonomous provinces with almost no centralized authority.
"One could argue that we've been in impaired communion for 30 years with all of those provinces that don't ordain women as priests or bishops," Naughton said. "That impairment doesn't seem to have troubled anyone a great deal."
Canon Bill Atwood, general secretary of the Ekklesia Society, a Texas-based mission to evangelical Anglican bishops, said international church leaders will not announce a permanent break until a commission formed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion's spiritual leader, reports next year on whether a split can be averted.
But, said Atwood, "functionally, we're not together. Functionally, the Episcopal Church has created a separation. Relationally, it's a disaster."
Akinola issued the joint statement on behalf of the evangelical primates, asking Williams to create new structures that would allow conservative dioceses worldwide to work together — even if their national churches object — and remain within the communion.
"The overwhelming majority of the primates of the global south cannot and will not recognize the office or ministry of Canon Gene Robinson as a bishop," Akinola's statement said.
The signers on the statement were not immediately identified, but the Rev. Kendall Harmon, a U.S. conservative who works with overseas Anglican leaders, said he believed about 18 primates endorsed it.
Other protests Monday came from the Anglican Church of Egypt, the Anglican Church of Uganda and the Anglican Church of Kenya, whose leader Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi said, "the devil has clearly entered our church."