PLANO (AP) — Conservative Episcopalians are gathering Monday to establish an unprecedented nationwide organization to unite opponents of last year’s consecration of their denomination’s first openly gay bishop.

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.