The Vatican expressed regret yesterday at the Church of England’s move to consecrate women bishops, which threatens to drive some traditionalists into the arms of Rome.

Dozens of Anglo-Catholics are expected to seek refuge in the Roman Catholic Church but most, despite threatening defections, will remain within the Anglican fold and attempt to defeat women bishops at the final vote in about five years’ time.

The decision by opponents to fight the change from within means that the Church of England faces years of dissent and division after the General Synod’s decision to offer minimal concessions to opponents of women bishops, in a voluntary code.

The Vatican statement, which mirrored that put out when the synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992, said that Monday’s move presented a new obstacle to reconciliation between the Holy See and the Anglican Communion. The statement was issued by the Council for Christian Unity, headed by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who will speak at this month’s Lambeth conference.

Cardinal Kasper has said that it is time for the Church of England to decide whether it is a Catholic or Protestant body, and the synod vote on Monday indicates that the majority has decided in favour of the latter.

Some Anglo-Catholics will spend the next five years examining possible means of recognition by the Catholic Church while retaining Anglican identity. One area to be explored is the possible creation of “Anglican use” parishes, or an “Anglican rite”, as has occurred in the United States.

Increasing numbers of traditionalist bishops from the Church of England are now expected to boycott the Lambeth conference because of the vote, The Times has learnt.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, accused the Church of wasting its time on internal politics: “Jesus Christ is in the streets weeping. Did you see the newspaper that said the Church is navel-gazing while our children are being slaughtered and killed? We confuse synodical language with governance, with parliament and everything else that goes with it. So I am praying very hard for fresh understanding in the Church.”

A statement from the conservative grouping Forward in Faith, however, said that it intended to work with sympathetic bishops within the Church to secure a place for their traditions. The group has joined forces with evangelicals opposed to gay priests and they are drawing up plans to fight the liberal centre and defeat women bishops and gay ordination from within.

Evangelicals predicted that some traditionalists might even opt into the care of an overseas archbishop under the new Jerusalem Declaration, drawn up by conservative primates at the Global Anglican Future conference in Israel last month.

One test will be the make-up of the next synod. The elections are in the autumn of 2010 and if evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics work together, they think they could capture enough dioceses to defeat women bishops at the final vote in 2012 or 2013.

The Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, who is third in the church hierarchy after Canterbury and York, is also emerging as a potential leader of the traditionalist wing. Bishop Chartres, a traditionalist on the issue of women priests, refuses to conduct ordinations to the priesthood at all, of men or women, which means that he has never ordained a woman priest. His diocesan bishops perform priestly ordinations.

His diocese is strongly AngloCatholic and the fastest growing in numbers. This week Bishop Chartres will issue a pastoral letter to all his clergy that is expected to outline how, in the event of the first woman bishop being consecrated in about 2014, he will invoke the “London plan” put in place in the diocese after the ordination of women priests. London has its own traditionalist bishop, the Bishop of Fulham, John Broadhurst, who cares for parishes that do not accept the ordination of women.

Bishop Chartres told The Times: “One thing we have to do is reaffirm and reinvigorate the London plan, which provides an honoured place in the life of the Church of England for both those who support this innovation and those who do not see it as a legitimate development in scripture and tradition. We do have a way of living together.”

Paul Eddy, a conservative evangelical due to be ordained deacon next year, said: “This has brought Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals together. There will be a real fight now. There is no doubt that the liberal centre does not want a wide church any more. The liberal agenda is taking over.”