Letter From London

Early on the crisp morning of October 15, the archbishops of thirty-seven of the thirty-eight provinces of the Anglican Communion (known as primates) gathered in closed session at Lambeth Palace for two days of meetings. The unusual conference was called by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of 70 million Anglicans worldwide. Williams acted after conservative provinces in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean--the "global South"--and the vocal, well-organized conservative minority of the American Episcopal Church (the US Anglican Church) threatened schism this past summer in response to the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, as Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, and the decision of the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster to bless same-sex unions.

"I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don't hear of such things," Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper in an interview that was widely quoted in the British press. "When we sit down globally as a communion, I am going to sit in a meeting with a man who is marrying a fellow man.... I cannot see myself doing it."

Feelings were so intense and press coverage so relentless that the purple-and-black-clad archbishops were bused secretly from their Brixton hotel and ushered through a back gate into the turreted palace, as police stood at yellow barricades set up at its grand entrance on the Thames.

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