...In a letter to the primates of Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and the Southern Cone, the bishops said they longed to “stay with you in fellowship and in celebration at Lambeth.”

Bishop Mauricio Andrade, the primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church in Brazil, also expressed regret at the primates’ boycott and said in a letter to members of his church that the bishops of his province are participating “because we are certain that this is the space for unity, and we know that unity does not mean uniformity.”

The primates, however, responded in a letter that they could not accede to the request. They said that since 2003 they have chosen not to take communion with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States because of the American bishops’ decision to consecrate an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. It is, the primates said, “an action of which they have not repented.”

The Church Times reported that the evangelical bishops’ letter said that staying away from the conference, scheduled July 16 to Aug. 3 in Canterbury, England, “would inevitably split apart those who share an equally high regard for scriptures [sic] and for the historic faith of the church.”

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