The English Roman Catholic bishop who denies that the Holocaust took place has been sacked as director of a traditionalist seminary.

Bishop Richard Williamson was removed from his position at the Society of St Pius X La Reja Seminary, outside Buenos Aires, the Argentinean capital, at the weekend.

The move is unlikely to placate critics of Pope Benedict XVI, who recently lifted a decree of excommunication imposed on the bishop and three others from the ultra-conservative society, which has itself now given Bishop Williamson until the end of the month to change his mind about the Nazi gas chambers.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, a German weekly magazine, Bishop Williamson refused to recant and said he would not visit Auschwitz. He agreed, however, to "review the historical evidence."

The affair has created unprecedented division in the Catholic Church. Senior Cardinals in the Vatican who opposed the lifting of the excommunications are furious at the impression it has given of a papacy in disarray and out of touch.

German bishops have called for Bishop Williamson, an Old Wykehamist, to be re-excommunicated.

The sacking of Bishop Williamson by Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the society, comes after he stated in an interview with Swedish television that he did not believe any Jews died in gas chambers during the war, or that any more than 300,000 died. The accepted figure of Jewish deaths alone is six million. The interview took place in Germany where denying the Holocaust is an imprisonable offence.

Bishop Williamson has expressed regret for hurt caused to the Catholic Church but has made no apology to Jewish people.

The society has never accepted the teachings of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, including the document Nostra Aetate in which the Church attempted to turn the clock back on nearly two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism. It was founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the excommunications were imposed because he consecrated the bishops without permission. According to last week's Tablet, Vatican authorities fear that the row has irreversibly weakened the discipline of excommunication.

Times Online has learnt that senior Cardinals are angry that the excommunications were lifted without any concessions from the society over accepting Nostra Aetate or other Vatican II innovations, such as the liturgy in the vernacular, being gained.

The decree lifting them was signed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. A senior Vatican insider told Times Online, however, that the Cardinal Re was presented with a fait accompli and was so angry that he "roared".

In his Der Spiegel interview, Bishop Williamson, a former member of the Church of England, said: "Throughout my life, I have always sought the truth. That is why I converted to Catholicism and became a priest. Because I realise that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must now review the historical evidence once again. I said the same thing in my interview with Swedish television: Historical evidence is at issue, not emotions. And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time."

He said he had ordered a book by Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers.

He added that he merely wanted to be Catholic and that what the society represented was now "returning to the centre". He argued that the innovations of the Second Vatican Council had been a failure.

He also defended the reputation of Pius XII, the wartime pontiff whom Pope Benedict XVI wishes to see canonised but who is criticised by Jewish groups for not doing enough to avert the horrors of the Holocaust.

Referring to the Holocaust museum in Israel, Bishop Williamson said: "What troubles me about Yad Vashem is that Pope Pius XII is attacked there, even though no one saved more Jews during the Nazi period than he did. For instance, he had baptismal certificates issued for persecuted Jews to protect them against arrest. These facts have been distorted to mean exactly the opposite."

He said he was being used as a "tool" to attack the Lefebvrist society and the Pope.