Activists say the new Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes will not be a schism but will be a “church within a church.” Nonetheless, it’s a potentially serious challenge to the Episcopal Church.
The two-day meeting to form the network involves bishops, clergy and lay delegates from 12 dioceses representing 235,000 members, a tenth of the nation’s Episcopaians.
The network’s temporary leader, Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, says the meeting will give the denomination’s traditionalist wing “some sense there is a future.”
The American Anglican Council, which helped organize the group, has denied that the network’s goal is to be a replacement for the Episcopal Church. That claim started in a confidential network memo that was leaked to the media last week.
