After just five years as a bishop and twelve as a priest, the Right Rev Katharine Schori, 52, Bishop of Nevada, has succeeded the Right Rev Frank Griswold as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. She is firmly allied with the liberal wing of the Church, having voted for the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

Yesterday the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, attending the General Convention of the Episcopal Church as a guest, said that worldwide Anglicanism had become “two religions” with the divisions between liberals and conservatives so profound that a schism was inevitable.

Assuming that the Episcopal Church remains part of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Schori is now propelled into the heart of its governance. She will sit alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and 36 other male archbishops at the Primates’ Meeting and take a leading role at the Lambeth Conference at Canterbury in 2008.

The Church of England is to debate women bishops at the General Synod next month, and the election will be seen as a boost for campaigners.

In an address made in 2003, she said: “I have come to understand that sexual orientation is primarily a given characteristic, rather than one that is chosen.” Last year she said: “Our heritage and context shape our theology. The ways in which we understand Scripture and appropriate Gospel response to social realities are shaped both by our roots and our current circumstances.”

Conservatives have greeted Bishop Schori’s election with surprise and caution.

David Anderson, the president of the traditionalist American Anglican Council, said: “There is surprise that someone who has only been an Episcopal priest since 1994 and only a bishop since 2001 would be chosen to be the Presiding Bishop of a church that is in such troubled times.

“It will exacerbate the troubles. She has voted against a document that upheld Scripture as necessary to salvation. She also voted for the consecration of Gene Robinson. She is strongly for the gay and lesbian agenda in the United States.”

Last night Bishop Schori said: “I am awed and honoured and deeply privileged to have been elected.” Bidding farewell to Nevada, she thanked its people, “who called a stranger to join them in the desert”. The Church has its headquarters in New York.

During her time as bishop, the number of parishes in her diocese has increased, as have the number of worshippers and donations to the church. A licensed pilot, she used a private plane to visit far-flung congregations in Nevada.

Before her ordination in 1994 she taught at Oregon State University’s Department of Religious Studies, and was a senior oceanographer.

Bishop Schori, who was born in Florida, is married to a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter.

She was elected after five ballots at the convention in Columbus, Ohio, yesterday afternoon but consistently polled the highest number of votes throughout the balloting. She was the first woman ever to be selected as a nominee.

Yesterday the Bishop of Rochester urged the Archbishop of Canterbury to take firm action against the liberal leadership of the Episcopal Church. Matters were so serious that “fudge won’t do”, Bishop Nazir-Ali said. “Sometimes you have to recognise that there are two irreconcilable positions and you have to choose between them. The right choice is the line with the Bible and the Church’s teachings down the ages, not some new-fangled religion we have invented to respond to the 21st century,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

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