The primates of the worldwide Anglican communion appeared on Thursday night to have stepped back from moves to exclude the US Episcopal Church over its liberal position towards homosexuals.
A report by a group headed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, given to archbishops and presiding bishops at their meeting in Tanzania on Thursday said the US Episcopalians had largely done everything required of them in reining back on consecrating gay bishops and expressing their regret for straining relations with other Anglicans.
Reverend Colin Coward, a gay English Anglican who was lobbying at the meeting on behalf of the pressure group Changing Attitude, said: "We are very pleased and delighted ... The archbishops have come up with a surprisingly realistic assessment of the reality of life in the communion for gay and lesbian people."
The seven-page report, written by a group chaired by Williams, was a rebuff to conservative Anglicans, including a number of English bishops, who have been asserting that the US Episcopalians have been insufficiently compliant with Anglican restrictions on gay people.
The bishops of Winchester and Rochester in the UK, Michael Scott-Joynt and Michael Nazir-Ali, have said recently that the US Episcopalians are effectively no longer Christians.
But the report criticized conservative provinces within the communion -- mainly Nigeria -- for trespassing on US territory to recruit conservative members unhappy with the US Church.
Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, the leader of a breakaway faction that had wanted the communion to recognize his supporters as the genuine representatives of the US Church, left for the airport without commenting.
The report left US conservatives fuming.
Kendall Harmon, a canon theologian from South Carolina, said: "It's a really poor report. It is shocking that a report like this could have been written at this stage. It's way too soft."
Speaking for the primates, Phillip Aspinall, the Archbishop of Australia, said: "There was very intensive listening, characterized by graciousness, patience and care."
The report was commissioned after the US Church's 2003 election of Gene Robinson, a gay bishop, and the knowledge that many parishes, with the support of diocesan bishops, have been conducting blessing services for same sex couples.
Conservatives have been demanding that the Episcopalians be required to publicly repent their actions or be thrown out of the 78-million member worldwide Church.
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