They said they would raise and defend the decision by African churches to sever ties and reject funding from their counterpart in the United States, the US Episcopal church, over its consecration of a gay bishop in 2003.

"Our position is very clear; we have nothing to do with anybody who supports homosexuality," Githinji said, a position echoed by another senior church official.

"The issue of gay bishops is not on the agenda, but we shall bring it up now that the head of the Anglican church is here," said the official on condition of anonymity.

"It's a difficult time for the church, especially in dealing with issues like Aids, because we cannot work or co-ordinate with our colleagues who are backing homosexuality," the official said.

"We will sit with him and hear what he has to say," the ACK official said.

Severing ties over gay bishop

In November 2003, the ACK severed ties with the US Episcopal church and subsequently rejected funding after the consecration of Gene Robinson, an openly gay pastor, as bishop of New Hampshire.

The move by the US church came despite fierce objections from dissenting conservative clergy, particularly in Africa and has increased fears of a permanent schism within the Anglican faith worldwide.

The threat of a split in the Anglican church is especially great in developing countries, where many church leaders believe and preach that the practice of homosexuality is a sin.

In Kenya, as in much of Africa, homosexual acts are criminal.

END

SECOND STORY

Anglican Church Head to Visit Kenya

July 18, 2005

By Mugumo Munene And Claire Gatheru Nairobi
The Nation (Nairobi) NEWS

The Archbishop of Canterbury - the world leader of the Anglican Church - is expected to jet into the country on Wednesday, the Nation has learnt.

Archbishop Rowan Williams will be making his first visit to East Africa at a time when the global Anglican Communion is threatened with a split over the highly controversial gay marriage debate.

Already, a number of the church's African provinces, Kenya included, have in the past few months rejected millions of dollars in funding from the American Episcopal Church to protest at the church's decision to elect gay bishops and allow same-sex marriages in the Church.

Yesterday, the Nation learnt that funding is among the major issues that the Archbishop of Canterbury who heads the world's 72 million Anglicans will address at a meeting with all the bishops from the Lake region in Nairobi, during his one day visit.

Archbishop Williams is reportedly concerned about funding of the young Church in Sudan, which has also threatened to reject the funding even as the southern region begins to recover from the two-decade conflict.

But contacted yesterday, the Provincial Secretary of the ACK Bishop William Waqo said that funding would not be on the agenda of the meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"The main agenda of the meeting will be HIV/Aids and the conflicts in the Great Lakes region. We want to see how the church can be more effective in fighting the scourge and bringing warring parties to a truce. Concerning funding, we have already made our stand clear and anyway, we receive very little funding from the Episcopal Church of USA here in Kenya," Bishops Waqo said.

The bishops expected at the meeting when the Archbishop of Canterbury stops over in Nairobi are from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Sudan. He will be in transit from Burundi where he attended the enthronement of the country's archbishop yesterday.

But a source who did not want to be named told the Nation that the Archbishop is expected to address issues of funding from the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and issues such as the coming Lambeth Conference - a meeting of the Anglican Communion's top organ - which is set to take place in South Africa.

Another issue likely to take centre stage is funding from the mother church to Africa in countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda Sudan and others.

END