The leading conservative body in the US Episcopal church has given warning of a "leadership crisis" over the American bishops' decision to halt all consecrations.

Canon David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, whose group claims 300 congregations as members, said that the covenant statement issued this week by the Ecusa's bishops was "insulting" to the 38 primates of the worldwide Anglican communion.

The bishops agreed to a moratorium on all consecrations, gay and straight, until at least June next year in response to a demand from the primates at their recent meeting in Northern Ireland for a moratorium on all such actions.

The Anglican Communion is on the brink of schism after the US church consecrated the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and the New Westminster diocese in Canada authorised same sex blessings rites.

Canon Anderson said: "With regard to the so-called moratorium on consecrations, I am outraged that the House of Bishops drew equivalence between single or married individuals with those living in homosexual partnerships.

"To place a moratorium on all consecrations not only makes the episcopacy hostage to the homosexual agenda, but also places several dioceses in crisis. Canon law requires that bishops must retire at age 72 - what happens in those dioceses where their bishop faces mandatory retirement?"

Kendall Harmon, another leading conservative on the AAC, said: "These are apostolic leaders behaving like lawyers. They didn't do what the primates asked them to do.They're trying to continue to live in a community where they dictate membership on their own terms. That's not what the international Christian community needs."

The Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev Robert Duncan, who heads the orthodox Anglican Communion Network, said: "I believe the real news from this meeting of the House of Bishops is that we have finally begun to be honest about what we did at General Convention 2003 and what the consequences are.

"Moreover, we began openly to engage the thought that our differences within the House of Bishops, within the Episcopal Church USA and within the Anglican Communion may be irreconcilable.

"In particular, we examined the complete breakdown of trust among some groups within the House and perceptions of abuses of power on the one hand and unhelpful tactics on the other, which have brought us to the breaking point."

The Anglican Communion has 77 million members, of which 2.3 million are in the US and fewer than one million in Canada. The primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, has admitted that the Anglican Communion is broken and that the ACC may choose to "walk apart" from the rest of the church.

Speaking to about 400 people at St James's Cathedral in Toronto last night, he said that the brokenness was symbolized by the refusal of 14 of the primates to break bread together during a communion service at the recent primates' meeting at a Roman Catholic retreat centre in Dromantine, in spite of pleas from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that they do so.

At the end of the Dromantine meeting, the primates issued a communique requesting the voluntary withdrawal of Ecusa and Canada from the Anglican Consultative Council, a registered UK charity and one of the four "instruments of unity" of the Anglican Church, until the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

Archbishop has Hutchison indicated that the Council of General Synod, the body that governs the Canadian church in between the triennial General Synods, might not accede to this request.

According to the conservative Anglican Essentials group in Canada, such refusal "would likely precipitate further action by the primates and deepen the crisis in the Anglican Communion."

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