The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to hold a secret Communion service for gay clergy and their partners in London.

Dr Williams will celebrate the eucharist at St Peter’s, Eaton Square – the Church of England parish that is known as the spiritual home to some of the country’s most liberal and wealthy Anglican elite. There he will give an address titled “Present realities and future possibilities for lesbians and gay men in the Church”.

The event has been organised under Chatham House rules, which prevent any disclosure of the discussions. The event will take place at 10am on November 29. A list of the names of those who will be present will be seen only by Dr Williams. It will be shredded afterwards.

Among those attending will be the convenor, Chris Newlands, the chaplain to the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Rev John Gladwin. Also present will be the Vicar of St Peter’s, the Rev Nicholas Papadopulos, and the former chaplain to the Bishop of Salisbury, the Right Rev David Stancliffe.

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BACKGROUND

• Gay weddings flourish in a religious stronghold

• Pope to discuss influx of Anglicans

• US Church pledges not to consecrate gay bishops

• Bishop defects to Catholic Church in gay row

BACKGROUND

• Pro-gay agenda pushes Church closer to schism

• Archbishop of Canterbury's 'secret gay communion'

• Archbishop faces clash over gay marriages of 50 priests

Dr Williams’s mission to maintain the unity of the Anglican Communion, rent with schism since the 2003 ordination of the gay Bishop Gene Robinson in the US, has never appeared less likely to succeed. The disclosure of the event could not have come at a time more likely to destabilise him. This week he is due to attend a meeting of US Episcopal bishops to discuss the crisis. He has returned from three months on holiday and sabbatical, working on a study of the Russian writer Dostoevsky. His return has been marked by a Church in disarray.

African archbishops from the Global South group of churches have been consecrating like-minded evangelical bishops from the US to pastor parishes alienated by the Episcopal Church’s liberal drift. A new structure is in place to facilitate a breakaway province in the US. There is speculation that at least one African province could be close to consecrating a missionary bishop in England.

The Rev Richard Kirker, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, criticised Dr Williams for trying to hold a Communion service in secret.

“I don’t think it is a good thing in many ways. The conditions of secrecy are quite at variance with the openness of his meetings with a panoply of antigay church leaders. We are astonished at the attempts to make the meeting clandestine when it would be far better to have this in the open. The fact that he wants to go there without anyone knowing he’s going there makes it quite clear that he has an attitude towards the event that he doesn’t have at any other meetings.”

Details of the event were published on a website of the Church Society, evangelical.org. The Rev David Phillips, its general secretary, said: “The secretive nature and circumstances of the meeting suggest they have something to hide. Moreover, as is well known, there are clergy in the Church of England who have refused to give assurances that they are celibate and bishops who, contrary to their own agreed policy, apparently refuse to ask for such assurances.

“The Archbishop might have defended the meeting with such a group on the grounds that he is engaged in a listening process. However, by leading the Communion service he is clearly doing far more than just listening.”

Chris Sugden, of the evangelical group Anglican Mainstream, said: “It is understandable that the Archbishop of Canterbury would wish to express support and understanding for people who struggle with same-sex attraction. Many Christian churches and organisations do that.” He said that to do so in the context of a service of Holy Communion was “problematic”. He said: “The teaching of the Bible, of the Anglican Communion and of the Church of England is that active same-sex behaviour is contrary to the will of God for human behaviour.”

A spokesman for Dr Williams said: “It should come as no surprise that the Archbishop is meeting pastorally with clergy and others affected by the current debates in the Church. Such encounters extend right across the range of opinions within the Church. Few of these encounters ever reach the public domain. That is as it should be.”