The openly homosexual bishop whose ordination sparked the split in the Anglican Communion has claimed that the Church of England would come close to shutting down if it was forced to manage without gay clergy.

The Bishop of New Hampshire in the US, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, who is divorced and lives openly in partnership with a gay man, said that he found it mystifying that the mother Church of the Anglican Communion was unable to be honest about the number of gay clergy in its ranks.

He said that many of the English Church’s clergy lived openly in their rectories with gay partners, with the full knowledge of their bishops. But he criticised the stance of bishops who threaten the clergy with enmity should their relationships become public. Speaking in an interview in London, Bishop Roninson said: “I have met so many gay-partnered clergy here and it is so troubling to hear them tell me that their bishop comes to their house for dinner, knows fully about their relationship, is wonderfully supportive but has also said, ‘If this ever becomes public then I’m your worst enemy.’

“It’s a terrible way to live your life and I think it’s a terrible way to be a Church. I think integrity is so important. What does it mean for a clergy-person to be in a pulpit calling the parishioners to a life of integrity when they can’t even live a life of integrity with their own bishop and their own Church? So I would feel better about the Church of England’s stance, its reluctance to support the Episcopal Church in what it has done, if it would at least admit that this not just an American challenge. If all the gay people stayed away from church on a given Sunday the Church of England would be close to shut down, between its organists, its clergy, its wardens . . . it just seems less than humble not to admit that.”

He said that the Episcopal Church, under threat of sanctions from the Communion’s Primates if it does not modify its liberal agenda at a meeting of its bishops in September, had been ordaining gay priests “for many, many years”. He said: “Not every bishop will do that, but many do. I will and have. Many make a requirement that the person be celibate, but many do not make such a requirement. It’s interesting that the wider Anglican Communion has either not known that or has not chosen to make an issue of it before now.”

He was surprised that this did not become an issue until his election, and argued that if the principle of gay ordination is wrong, it should be wrong for priests and bishops, not just bishops.

Speaking of his recent meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is currently on study leave, Bishop Robinson said: “It was very private and I was eager and willing to accommodate him and when he asked me not to function liturgically or to preach. I was saddened by that but I want to help him as much as I can. I’m limited in what I can do and I won’t step down, but other than that I am eager to try and help him any way that I can. I certainly would not do so [celebrate or preach] without his permission.”

He said that bishops in the Church of England had backed him but declined to name them. “I have received huge support from the Church of England, both from the clergy and from the pews. Hardly a day goes by, never mind a week, that I don’t receive encouraging words of support. I think the thing that is the most mystifying to me and the most troubling about the Church of England is its refusal to be honest about just how many gay clergy it has – many of them partnered and many of them living in rectories.”

He attacked the proposals to discipline the Episcopal Church for its actions in consecrating him. “The whole notion of punishment being meted out to provinces of the Anglican Communion that are somehow noncompliant is somehow antithetical to the whole Anglican tradition; positing some sort of centralised Curia that has the ability and the authority to do such a thing is about as unAnglican as you can imagine. After all, our Church was founded in resistance to a centralised authority in Rome. And so to pose the possibility of such a centralised Curia with those kinds of authorities seems to me to be as untraditional as it could be.”

He also emphasised his roots in evangelicalism. “As a matter of fact I’m more evangelical than almost anyone you would run into in the Episcopal Church . . . When I speak to gay and lesbian groups I don’t talk to them about gay rights, I talk to them about their souls. My goal is to get them to church and bring them to Jesus.”

Anglican crisis

— In 1998 the Lambeth Conference rejects homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture" and advises against “ordaining those involved in same gender unions”

— In 2003 Vicky Imogene “Gene” Robinson, a gay divorced father of two, is elected and consecrated as ninth bishop of New Hampshire

—Later that year the Archbishop of Canterbury sets up Lambeth Commission to look into the crisis

— In 2004 it publishes the Windsor report which calls for the US church to “repent” for consecrating an openly gay bishop In June 2006 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the US rejects a motion that would have brought it in line with the Windsor report

—The Archbishop of Canterbury demands all Churches sign a covenant maintaining “biblical standards” of Anglican doctrine