Parishes in B.C. have begun breaking away from the national Church over the issue and a wider schism is feared. Debate on a motion affirming that each diocese can decide whether to bless same-sex unions begins at the meeting tomorrow. A vote on the motion takes place next week.

''There's a good deal of anxiety within the Church,'' said Rev. Canon Eric Beresford, consultant for ethics and interfaith relations for the Anglican Church of Canada. ''The emotional temperature of this debate seems very, very high.''

The Anglican Church in Canada has faced the threat of schism before. Numerous parishes broke away after the decision in the 1970s to ordain women. Although many parishioners subsequently returned, others remain estranged to this day.

Veterans of those days say the climate over the blessing of same-sex unions is even more charged.

In B.C., three churches have broken away from the Anglican Church of Canada and are instead under the direction of an Anglican Church leader in Southeast Asia.

Holy Cross, in Abbotsford, B.C., was ordered closed by Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Diocese of New Westminster, after the parish refused to fall in line with his decision to allow blessings of same-sex unions. The church's funding, including the priest's salary, was withdrawn.

Since then, parishioners have continued to meet weekly, supporting themselves financially with the help of sympathetic Anglicans from other parishes.

''In some ways it's been freeing,'' said acting church warden Bill Glasgow. ''We feel that we've stood up for what we believe in.''

Says Mr. Glasgow, 48, a graphic designer and father of six: ''If we go along with all of this, then what's our sense of what's right; what do we use as an authority; what's the purpose of the Bible anyway; does it have any purpose in our life at all?''

The closed church's priest, Reverend James Wagner, his wife, a part-time physician, and their three children, ages nine, five and 20 months, have had to cut back on household expenses to compensate for the loss of his salary. He used to receive $24,000 a year plus $1,000 a month in housing allowance. Mr. Wagner believes an important principle is at stake.

''What I think we're doing is creating a right that we don't really have the permission to create, biblically or even traditionally,'' he says of same-sex unions.

One priest has left the Church over the matter. Timothy Cooke, 44, was the rector of Saint Martin's Church in North Vancouver when the issue of blessing same-sex marriages emerged in New Westminster. He quit in 2002.

''I don't doubt the sincerity or the compassion of the proponents of the same-sex blessings, but it seems to me unmistakable that the fabric of Anglicanism in Canada and globally has been torn apart over this issue. Mediators, legal panels and synods will not weave it back together because the underlying issues of scriptural authority and the moral tradition of the Church cannot be brokered,'' he wrote in an e-mail to the National Post.

Mr. Cooke decided to follow his Swiss-born wife back to her country, where he is now a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church.

Bishop Ingham did not respond to a request for an interview from the National Post. But he has described opposition to homosexuals as ''irrational'' and ''based on a history of discrimination.''

The motion to be debated at the general synod -- the Church's chief governing and legislative body -- this week and next, will not create any new powers. There is nothing to prevent any diocese from allowing same-sex blessings now -- but if the motion passes at the meeting, the feeling is that dioceses that may have been waiting for some kind of official word on the issue may follow in the footsteps of New Westminster.

The diocese of Toronto has a motion coming up at a special synod in November, and the dioceses of Niagara and Ottawa are considering similar actions, Mr. Beresford said.

Meanwhile, at least 13 bishops of the 30 dioceses in Canada have repeatedly expressed opposition to the idea of blessing same-sex unions.

''In a time of tension and division, we ask all Anglicans to stay loyal to the truth of the Scripture and to the Church,'' they wrote together in a letter, bearing the names of the bishops of Caledonia, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, and Fredericton, among others.

Representatives from each of the 30 dioceses across the country are taking part in the general synod, including lay people, priests and bishops. The synod runs to June 4.

© National Post 2004