The Bishop of Durham Tom Wright says this will push the Anglican Communion of more than 70 million followers into unchartered waters.

Toni Hassan has our story.

TONI HASSAN: The Bishop of Durham Tom Wright is a renowned New Testament scholar and something of a pop star in Anglican circles.

It's his first visit to Australia, and big audiences are preparing to hear him speak at a series of lectures in Sydney about a range of things, including his fresh perspective on the tradition and authority of St Paul.

Bishop Wright shot to prominence when he helped author what's called the Windsor Report, sparked by the 2003 appointment in the United States of the first openly gay bishop.

The Windsor Report urged its dissenting arm to take time out, repent the appointment and return to the fold.

But many months later, Bishop Wright is not hopeful American Anglicans will express regret for the sake of Anglican unity.

TOM WRIGHT: If they vote to go with the Windsor Report then that will pull the whole thing back from the brink.

But my friends in America tell me on many different sides of this issue that that's actually very unlikely, that it looks as though, the way they are at the moment, they are going to ratify what they did last time in electing Gene Robinson, which means that, if the Windsor Report was followed and if the Primate's (inaudible) were followed, that ought to mean that the American Church is voting to stay away from the next Lambeth Conference.

And we've never been in this position before, so there is no roadmap. And if anyone out there listening to this ever says their prayers, please pray for Rowan Williams because he needs prayers right now. He's got some very difficult decisions to make.

TONI HASSAN: Well, it wouldn't come as a surprise. For at least three years now Sydney Anglicans at least in this town have warned of a split in the communion. And just last week the Archbishop of Canterbury was saying that the worldwide movement was heading for schism. He feared that, anyway.

So do you believe that it is inevitable now?

TOM WRIGHT: I think it is quite possible, and indeed has already happened in some quarters, that people who insist on not only the permissibility but the goodness and to-be-celebrated-ness of homosexual behaviour, people who believe in that are going in a particular direction which they know perfectly well is not where the majority of the Anglican Communion is.

And I came upon a quote from a leading American clergyman just recently basically saying it's time to show our colours, and if that means we're going to be independent we're going to be independent.

And I think there's a lot of people in America who don't really realise that, who can't quite take it in that there are millions of people who are Anglicans out there.

TONI HASSAN: Might it be symbolic of where America's at, at the moment - it sort of works in a bubble?

TOM WRIGHT: There are many people, not least in the American Church themselves, who've seen that very clearly.

Frank Griswold, the presiding bishop, said to his House of Bishops three year ago "We must not do as American Anglicans what we Americans do in the rest of the world." That is, behave with an imperial sovereignty where we do what we want, we drop bombs on who we want and who cares.

And most of the American Anglicans are very cross with their own government for behaving like that. And then there's a danger that they're doing exactly the same ecclesially. That is a problem.

And I have to say it's an issue in Australia because some people in Australia have a very similarly independent-minded ecclesiology - way of doing church.

TONI HASSAN: There's no doubt Tom Wright is talking here about Sydney's Anglicans. He'd be very aware that for some year Anglicans around Australia have expressed concern that Sydney is threatening national church unity by going it alone and closing down debate on a range of thorny theological issues, namely the ordination of women.

Still, the willingness of the Bishop of Durham to take a gentle whack to members of the most influential and wealthy diocese in Australia, if not the world, is a surprise, given many in this town revere his conservatism on some issues.

TOM WRIGHT: You have within Australia a sense that most of the Anglican Church in Australia has gone in one particular direction - well that's an oversimplification - but Sydney has rather struck out against that. So Sydney has developed a kind of defensive mechanism as a way of saying: "we have the right to be independent."

And I think I want to say: just beware of that instinct, because I know why you want to do that but there's a price to be paid for it.

ELEANOR HALL: That's the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, speaking to Toni Hassan.

END