LONDON (By Laurie Goodstein, NYTimes) October 19, 2004 - An Anglican Church commission rebuked the Episcopal Church USA yesterday for ordaining an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and for blessing same-sex unions, and called for a moratorium on both practices "until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges."

In a report issued in London, the commission asked the Episcopal Church to apologize for causing pain and division in the global Anglican Communion, the second-largest church body in the world, with 77 million members in 164 countries.

The report also calls for the bishops who consecrated the gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, to consider withdrawing from Anglican "functions" until they offer "an expression of regret." The current and former presiding bishops of the Episcopal Church were among the more than three dozen bishops who encircled Bishop Robinson last November and consecrated him with a laying on of hands.

The report puts the onus on the Episcopal Church to apologize for the consecration of Bishop Robinson and to stop blessing same-sex couples or risk severing ties with other members of the Communion. Commission members said such a step was also necessary to maintain the Anglican Church's relationships with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and with Muslims in countries like Nigeria, home to 17 million Anglicans.

"The report says no to unilateralism," said Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, one of few African bishops who has expressed support for the Episcopal Church's decisions. "What the commission is saying is, Let's move together."

The report stops short of saying what would occur if the Episcopal Church did not offer an apology or continued to bless same-sex couples, and it concludes, "There remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together."

Conservatives expressed anger, and some liberals relief, that the commission did not call for harsher consequences, like the resignation of Bishop Robinson or the expulsion of the Episcopal Church and the Canadian diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia, which has also approved the blessing of same-sex unions. The commission said in effect that the answer to the conflict was not discipline, but dialogue.

The report calls for more accountability among the church's autonomous provinces, urging that all of the geographic regions eventually adopt a "common Anglican covenant" - a new set of principles to strengthen "the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between the churches of the Communion." But it acknowledges that such a covenant "would have no binding authority."

The conservatives come in for criticism, too. The report strongly repudiates bishops who have violated the church's traditional lines of authority by intervening in conservative parishes that have disavowed their more liberal bishops.

The commission also faulted the 18 provinces in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have declared "broken or impaired communion" with the Americans. It asks these conservative bishops to desist and "express regret for the consequences of their actions."

The Episcopal Church faces a revolt by some of its own parishes and dioceses. The report rules out the formation of a "parallel jurisdiction" for conservative Episcopalians, instead urging conservative parishes to work with the Episcopal Church to find alternative pastoral oversight, preferably by retired bishops from within their own dioceses.

Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh is moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, an alliance of 10 American dioceses that reject the Episcopal Church's governance. Bishop Duncan said he was disappointed in the report because it gave the Episcopal Church responsibility to police itself, and merely postponed the crisis.

"The Communion is in for a very rough ride," he said.

The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, said in a telephone interview from London that he found the report "nuanced and balanced." Asked if he planned to apologize, Bishop Griswold pointed out that the report never used that word. He said the report asked only for an "expression of regret" that the American church's decisions caused such dissension.

"I can regret the effects of something, but at the same time be clear about the integrity of what I've done," Bishop Griswold said.

The Anglican panel, known as the Lambeth Commission, was convened a year ago by the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to seek ways to heal the church in the face of growing schism. He appointed as chairman the church's longest-serving primate, Archbishop Robin Eames of Armagh, Northern Ireland, a veteran of reconciliation efforts in both his church and his country. The commission included 17 theologians and bishops who ranged from liberal to conservative, but who managed to approve their 88-page report unanimously.

Archbishop Eames said at a news conference that the commission concluded that each of the 38 provinces of the church had a right to autonomy, "Yet they are not free to depart unilaterally from a shared faith of discipline without this affecting our ties as a family," he said.

He said the commission heard testimony from many sides, some "quite vicious." He said he was "troubled" by expressions of homophobia within the church.

One side, Archbishop Eames said, argued that the openness to gay Christians "should be embraced," while the other "urged a course of discipline or punishment." Imposing discipline was "problematic," he said, because of the Anglican Communion's lack of a central authority. The archbishop of Canterbury is considered "first among equals," but a distinguishing feature of Anglicanism is its rejection of a pope in the Roman Catholic tradition.

The report says that given the "widespread unacceptability" of Bishop Robinson's ministry in provinces around the world, the archbishop of Canterbury should "exercise very considerable caution in inviting or admitting him to the councils of the Communion."

The next international meetings to which Bishop Robinson would be invited are the Anglican Gathering, planned for 2008 in South Africa, and the Lambeth Conference that same year, said the Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, a professor of mission and world Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.

Bishop Robinson did not respond to the report, and spent the day meeting with leaders of his diocese.

"We want some time today to prayerfully consider the report," said Michael Barwell, a spokesman for Bishop Robinson and the Diocese of New Hampshire. "This report is the beginning of a fairly long process. It's not a judgment, it's the beginning of a discussion."

Bishop John Bryson Chane of Washington, who helped consecrate Bishop Robinson and has blessed same-sex couples, issued a defiant response to the report's call to express his regrets.

"It remains puzzling to me that no one objects to my baptizing the children of gay parents, blessing their home, their car and their dog, yet I cannot bless the loving relationship which makes this family's life possible without upsetting so many of our Anglican brothers and sisters,'' Bishop Chane said in a statement. "Yet the Commission has determined that this is the case, and so, again, I want to express my regret for breaching the Communion's bonds of affection."

The recommendations will now be considered by various meetings of national and international church leaders. Bishop Griswold said that the executive council of the Episcopal church would meet next month, and the council of bishops in January to decide how to respond to the recommendations.

The report catalogs the chaos and confusion that have torn the Communion.

Eighteen of 38 provinces issued statements condemning the decisions in North America. Parishes that disagree with their bishops' stances have broken with their dioceses and placed themselves under the authority of foreign bishops - as happened when three Los Angeles churches pledged themselves to the archbishop of Uganda.

"All these developments have now contributed materially to a tit-for-tat standoff in which, tragically in line with analogous political disasters in the wider world, each side now accuses the other of atrocities, and blames the other for the need to react further in turn," the report said.

It concludes: "There remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present Communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart."