The Archbishops of the Anglican church worldwide are to debate the damaging effects of the row over homosexuality at a meeting in Egypt next week.

The 39 Primates who head the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion are meeting at Alexandria from Sunday where they will discuss how to get their churches back on track after a series of damaging disputes that have taken them to the brink of schism.

A new traditionalist grouping from North America, led by deposed Pittsburgh bishop Bob Duncan who now styles himself as their Archbishop, will also present a new constitution and canons to the Primates in an attempt to secure recognition as the 39th province of the 77-million strong Church.

One senior primate who heads a small but respected province has warned Anglicans that he will oppose “with every fibre of my being” the recognition of a new traditionalist province, to exist in parallel jurisdiction to The Episcopal Church in the US.

The Primates of the US Episcopal Church, Canada, Uganda, Pakistan and South Africa will address the other Primates on the effects of the row, which has led to depositions in the US, expensive law suits as both sides fight to retain valuable property, and defections to rival provinces of laity, clergy, bishops and even entire dioceses.

Bishop Gene Robinson, whose consecration in 2003 in New Hampshire as the Anglican Communion’s first openly gay diocesan bishop was a turning point in the debate, is now regarded as a hero of the campaign for equality for lesbians and gays, and has subsequently moved to the centre of US establishment life.

He met the future US President Barack Obama three times on the campaign trail to discuss what it was like to be “first” and was invited to pray the invocation at the opening of the inauguration celebrations earlier this month.

As happened with women priests and bishops, many Anglicans in the US believe it is only a matter of time before Bishop Robinson’s consecration is accepted as a matter of course, and other provinces begin to follow suit.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is “first among equals” or “primus inter pares” of the Primates, and who will chair next week’s meetings, has adopted a strategy of trying to keep everyone talking around the table in order to postpone and ultimately avert schism.

He was upset that several conservative provinces, including Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda, boycotted last summer’s Lambeth Conference. But it was regarded as a triumph of his archepiscopacy that he survived the three-week conference without presiding over a split. It is a further sign of the success of his strategy that no Primates are boycotting next week’s meeting, although one source said there will be no formal joint eucharist at the meeting, to avoid Primates the public embarrassment of former meetings where conservatives have refused to go to the communion table with liberals.

In an attempt to move the church on from homosexuality, the Primates will focus instead on how well their provinces are fulfilling the Communion’s official “five marks of mission”: evangelisation, catechisation, service, social and environmental action.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada told his church’s Anglican Journal: “We’re fortunate in that we can say that the five marks of mission have become a real focus in the Canadian church and are sort of becoming household language in terms of how we talk about our work as a church, both here in Canada and through our partnerships around the world.”

His church, at the liberal end of the spectrum, has been one of those at the centre of the storm after the diocese of New Westminster authorised a service of same-sex blessings in 2002. Three other dioceses, Ottawa, Montreal and Niagara, have also asked their bishops to allow same-sex blessings.

The Primates will meet behind closed doors at the Helnan Palestine Hotel and will also discuss the credit crunch, the new Anglican Covenant intended to provide a central structure of unity, Anglican development work, global warming and Anglican theology.

They will debate the latest developments in the row over gays as well, such as defections from and consecrations into US dioceses by traditionalists, and whether the proposed moratoria on same-sex blessings is working or is enforcable.

Three retired bishops and at least 14 parishes have left the Anglican Church of Canada and placed themselves under the authority of Archbishop Gregory Venables, the Primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. The dioceses of Recife in Brazil and Pittsburgh and San Joaquin in the US have also placed themselves under Archbishop Venables’ care.