A report backed by the heads of all the Anglican provinces around the world has put forward the innovative proposal as a way to settle the dispute between conservatives, who oppose the ordination of homosexual clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions, and liberals.The external mediators will try to reconcile differences between the Common Cause Partnership, a group of orthodox Anglicans in America and Canada who want to set up a new province, and the national churches from which they have split.
At the end of a week-long gathering of the leaders of the 38 Anglican provinces in Alexandria, Egypt, known as the Primates Meeting, they said in a joint communique: "We request the Archbishop of Canterbury to initiate a professionally mediated conversation which engages all parties at the earliest opportunity. We commit ourselves to support these processes and to participate as appropriate.
"We earnestly desire reconciliation with these dear sisters and brothers for whom we understand membership of the Anglican Communion is profoundly important.
"We recognise that these processes cannot be rushed, but neither should they be postponed."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said external mediators had already been used, with some success, to settle a dispute between rival Anglican churches in Brazil.
He insisted there was no schism in the 80 million-strong communion but acknowledged there was "deep division".
This week's meeting was the first of the Primates since leading conservatives formed a breakaway movement at the Gafcon summit in Jerusalem last June, then boycotted the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference the following month.
The Primates also reiterated the call for a moratorium on clergy crossing borders to serve in different provinces, a tactic employed by several conservative churches, as well as a halt to liberal innovations of same-sex unions being blessed in church and homosexual bishops being consecrated.
Dr Williams conceded that the "moratoria are holding rather badly on both sides" but added that they were not "completely ignored" as there had been no new gay bishops since the ordination in 2003 of the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire, which triggered the ongoing crisis.
"We are trying to see the glass as half-full and not half-empty," the Archbishop said.
He believes the way forward is for each province to sign up to an Anglican Covenant that will set out shared beliefs and the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
"Unless the Covenant is robust and accepted," he said, "the federal model is on the horizon" for the Anglican Communion.
Leading conservatives insist the communion remains broken but said there had been open and honest discussion at this week's meeting and that Dr Williams had chaired it "very wisely".
They pledged to continue with the process to establish the Covenant.
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(Source: TTUK)