By aligning themselves firmly with the rebel liberal provinces of Canada and the US, the bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church have placed in peril once more the hard-won but fragile peace over gays in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The statement, posted on the Church’s website, was a response to the communique issued by last month’s meeting in Newry, Northern Ireland, of the primates. They called for a moratorium on same-sex blessings and gay consecrations and asked the Churches of Canada and the US to withdraw voluntarily from the Anglican Consultative Council, the communion’s central management body, until 2008.

The Scottish bishops lead a Church with just 45,000 members. The first openly gay bishop in the British Isles, Derek Rawcliffe, was Bishop of Glasgow, but he did not “come out” publicly until retirement. The Scottish Church has also agreed to consecrate women bishops, and the UK’s first woman bishop is expected to be in Scotland.

The crisis comes after the authorisation of same-sex blessing services by the New Westminster diocese in Canada and the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in the US.

The Scottish bishops’ statement makes clear that they value the unity of the Anglican Church but that their prerogative as Christians is justice for the minority communities that make up a substantial part of their congregations. They leave little doubt that were the Church to split, they would walk the path taken by the North American Churches.

The Scottish bishops also distance themselves from the See of Canterbury and the legacy of British imperialism that haunts the Anglican Church in its worldwide mission. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has argued that truth and unity are inseparable in the debate over gays.

But the Scottish bishops say: “We are conscious . . . that within Scotland there is perhaps a greater ‘scepticism’ about the importance of the Anglican Communion than may exist elsewhere and provincial autonomy is highly rated.” They emphasise that Dr Williams has no authority in Scotland.

The Most Rev Bruce Cameron, the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney and the Scottish Primus, said: “The statement recognised the difficult decisions we are all involved in and it committed our own Church to work to preserve the unity of that community, and the other point was, it recognised differences of opinion within our province.”

The Rev Richard Kirker, the general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said: “I hope that other Churches in the Anglican Communion will embrace such an inclusive and honest policy and do so with as much confidence as the Scottish bishops have shown that the Church will not collapse as a result.”

The Bishop of Edinburgh, the Right Rev Brian Smith, said that the Episcopal Church in Scotland had special links with that in the US, but he hoped that the Scottish Church would not have to decide which part of the communion to go with. He added: “This ought not to be a communion dividing issue.”

He also indicated that the vacancy for a bishop of Brechin would not be filled by a practising homosexual, suggesting that the College of Bishops in Scotland would feel the time was not right.

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