New York, USA - Another group of Anglican leaders is planning to boycott the fellowship's once-a-decade assembly as divisions over the Bible and homosexuality threaten to split the world Anglican Communion.
The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda said June 19 that its members won't attend the Lambeth Conference next year in England because some Rwandan bishops weren't invited.
A few Rwandan bishops oversee the Anglican Mission in America, a breakaway group of theologically conservative parishes that are not recognized by the Anglican Communion.
The communion's spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, has said that he did not invite bishops connected to the Rwanda-led mission or to other breakaway groups because he believed it would disrupt efforts at the conference to keep Anglicans together.
The world fellowship has been in an uproar since the liberal-leaning U.S. Episcopal Church, which is the Anglican body in the U.S., consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene. Robinson of New Hampshire.
Williams also did not invite Robinson to next year's gathering. The archbishop also did not invite Bishop Martyn Minns, a former U.S. Episcopal priest who is overseeing a group of breakaway conservative Episcopal parishes overseen by the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola has said that not inviting Minns "will be viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria."
On May 30, the head of the Anglican Church of Uganda, Archbishop Henry Orombi, said he will not attend the Lambeth gathering because Williams invited U.S. bishops who had participated in Robinson's consecration.