But analysis of numerous proposals released in the past week still signals just how serious the divisions are. Among them:

World Anglicanism should recognize that Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first bishop living openly with a gay partner, cannot uphold church tradition or "act as a focus of unity" and therefore was not a validly consecrated bishop.

Since Robinson is no bishop, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the primates who lead the world's Anglican provinces should ask the Episcopal Church, Anglicanism's U.S. branch, to replace Robinson and censure the bishops who consecrated him.

If the Episcopal Church doesn't change its policies, the primates should ask Williams to appoint new bishops to re-establish a truly Anglican church in the United States.

The unrepentant Episcopal Church would be outside Anglicanism, but its bishops might be granted observer status without voice or vote at Anglican meetings.

Those suggestions came variously from primates and other bishops, prominent theologians, heads of seminaries, 700 U.S. priests and the Anglican Communion Institute, a Colorado-based think tank that filed a 50-page treatise.

Robinson had no comment on the proposals, which were released last week by the 17-member Lambeth Commission following a private meeting June 14-18 in North Carolina. The panel holds one more meeting in September, then must report to Williams and the other 37 primates.

The commission posted many of the 105 submissions it has received on its Web site, representing hundreds of printed pages.

A summary reported that many texts said the Episcopal Church has removed itself from Anglicanism by abandoning sexual morals in the Bible - some regarded schism as inevitable.

Fewer submissions advocated other Anglican traditions - tolerance and the autonomy of national churches that trace their roots back to the Church of England.

Meanwhile, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church led a delegation that testified before the commission and stressed tolerance within the U.S. church.

Griswold said his group sought to "dispel a number of isapprehensions" and "make clear that the overwhelming reality of the Episcopal Church is the diverse center in which different views are held in tension because of our common desire to live together." Church headquarters declined to release further details.

Also testifying were rival representatives from the Network of Anglican
Communion Dioceses and Parishes, which is carving out an enclave within the Episcopal Church for supporters of traditional beliefs.

They said world Anglican leaders should: Provide "immediate protection" for U.S. conservatives; discipline the Episcopal Church in hopes of returning it to "recognizable Anglicanism"; and, define the limits for churches to be considered Anglican.

Could world Anglicanism intervene in ways conservatives want?

Lionel Diemel, lay president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh,
thinks it will be difficult for the commission "to do anything more than slap the Episcopal Church on the wrist in an inconsequential way."

Historian Robert Bruce Mullin of General Theological Seminary predicts that Williams will try to acknowledge concerns of the majority of Anglican bishops, who believe gay relationships are forbidden by Scripture, but nonetheless avoid taking any "action that excludes anybody."

The Rev. Robert Prichard, author of "A History of the Episcopal Church," notes that the Archbishop of Canterbury does have the power to refuse recognition to the U.S. church and its bishops, which previous archbishops of Canterbury did with Scotland's church for 116 years.

But, Prichard said, "there is no centralized authority that could remove a bishop or tell any province what to do." So sanctions aimed at Robinson or the Episcopal Church would be unenforceable.

END