Tuesday night, the Most Rev. Nathan Kyamanywa will hold a confirmation service for about 30 people, many of them ex-Episcopalians. Apostles Anglican Church, where Kyamanywa preached yesterday, and St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Versailles, where he will preach Sunday, are both affiliated with the Church of Uganda.

In an interview, Kyamanywa said his diocese came to Kentucky to not to fight, but to "rescue" Anglicans who have been abandoned.

Some liberals back a looser, federal structure for the Anglican Communion.

Dr Williams said he feared any split would run too deep to make this possible.

The archbishop, who is visiting Sudan, was speaking in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

"If there is a rupture, it's going to be a more visible rupture, it is not going to settle down quietly to being a federation," he said.

The South African-born dean, a protégé of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is a director of the Hutchinson Center, and spent two years as chairman of the Commission to End Homelessness in King County.

He is also gay, with a partner of long standing. So is another finalist in California, the Rev. Bonnie Perry, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Chicago.

The General Convention would need to give consent to the May 6 election.

About 20 Muslims were killed in revenge attacks by Christians last week
after riots in Borno state left nearly 50 people dead, including a Roman
Catholic priest, and destroyed around 30 churches. The riots broke out after a peaceful demonstration against the Danish Muhammad cartoons turned violent in Maiduguri, the state capital (news, 24 February).