U.S. Episcopal bishops, fighting fallout from their consecration of the church's first openly gay bishop, decided last month to also withdraw from official participation in the council.

But like the Canadian church, they will send representatives when the body meets in Nottingham, England.

Worldwide Anglican leaders asked the church's North American branches in February to voluntarily withdraw their members from the council. The request followed the consecration of gay U.S. bishop Gene Robinson in 2003 and the blessing of same-sex unions in Canada.

The actions of the North American churches have enraged conservative Anglicans, particularly in Africa, and threaten to break up the Anglican Church after more than four centuries.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican Church's spiritual leader, has been struggling to keep the fractured communion together. The church lacks the rigid hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and operates on a more decentralized model.

LEAVING THE TABLE

The head of the Canadian church, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, warned Canadian church leaders before the vote that failure to voluntarily withdraw could spur a crisis.

"In my mind is the worry of our members taking their place at the table and a significant number of African delegates leaving the table," he told the group meeting near Toronto.

The controversial issue of blessing same-sex unions arose in Canada in 2002 when Michael Ingham, an Anglican bishop for the diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia, authorized the rite. The first blessings took place in 2003.

Ingham told the gathering on Saturday that if they gave in to the request to sit out the Anglican Consultative Council, they could expect later requests to repent and "turn our backs on gay and lesbian people and the advances that have been made for them in our church."

"It's a bad decision," he told Reuters after the vote. "What it will communicate to the world is that we are susceptible to pressure, and that what we are now going to get is more pressure ... I can't understand how staying away from something contributes to unity."

Canada's bishops agreed last month not to encourage the blessing of same-sex unions for now but stopped short of pledging a moratorium on the ceremonies, which are only officially practiced in New Westminster.

The blessings are not the same as civil same-sex marriages. Courts in seven of Canada's 10 provinces have already ruled in favor of same-sex marriages.

END