The Province of the Southern Cone, the Anglican Church for the southern half of South America, has declared itself to be in a state of “impaired Communion” with the Episcopal Church and has taken the further step of planting two new congregations in the metropolitan Atlanta area. The churches are led by former Episcopal priests and composed primarily of former Episcopalians.

“You have done what you have no right to do,” said the Primate of the Southern Cone, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, in a Jan. 8 letter to Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold. “You have represented as God’s blessing your promotion of an unbiblical agenda.”

The declaration noted that South America “cannot accept” the consecration of a sexually active homosexual person as Bishop of New Hampshire “as a valid one.” The letter goes on to define impaired communion as an inability to “share fellowship, ministry, Eucharist or gifts with those who have affirmed or participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson, nor with those who perform or permit blessings of same-sex unions outside historic Christian marriage, nor with any clergy who are sexually active outside marriage.”