Episcopalians that opposed the consecration of a gay bishop last year met in Texas this week and chartered a renegade network of churches, creating instability in an Episcopal Church abuzz for months with talk of a schism.

But while a power struggle grows in the church over leadership and property, a split has not yet happened, according to Bishop Robert Duncan, elected moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses & Parishes.

The splinter group considers itself to be within the framework of the Episcopal Church’s constitution — a “church within a church” — thereby allowing its member churches to retain their facilities, which would likely be surrendered if the churches left the Episcopal Church, he said.

“Why should we leave when they are the ones who have taken the actions that separate us from our own constitution?” Duncan said in an interview Wednesday.

The conservative group argues the church betrayed its own constitution by breaking Scripture to consecrate Rev. Gene Robinson, who is gay, as bishop of New Hampshire last year, according to Bruce Mason, communications director for the American Anglican Council, which supports the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses & Parishes.

“It is a really sad dependence on a structure that no longer has any real moral framework,” Mason said. “This isn’t about power; it is about the word of God and the truth of Scripture.”

The AAC and the Anglican network are separate entities, but the leadership in each organization is interrelated, including communications staff. Duncan also serves as the vice president of the AAC, and AAC’s president serves as the secretary for the Network.

But the anti-gay focus of the Anglican network might not be enough to bind the group of dissident Episcopalians together permanently, said Atlanta Bishop Neil Alexander, who supported Robinson’s consecration at the General Convention in August.

“When you rally the people around a singular issue, eventually other issues will come to the fore that will divide the group yet again,” Alexander said in an e-mail interview this week. “Schism breeds schism. It always has and I suspect it always will.”

The dissent from conservative Epis-copalians dates back to the denomination’s acceptance of women as priests in 1976, according to Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, a gay Episcopal group.

“This is the last gasp of a power struggle that started with the ordination of women in the '70s and it is continuing to play out in this issue,” Russell said.

While the Anglican network falls within the framework of the Episcopal Church, Duncan said it ascribes to conservative beliefs about homosexuality championed by the “majority” of the Anglican Communion, of which the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church belongs.

Presently, the Anglican network has garnered support from 12 of the church’s 107 dioceses, some 10 percent of the Episcopal Church’s members, organizers said.

The Anglican network will also use its member bishops to lead parishes that are in a diocese governed by a bishop that does not support their effort, Duncan said.

But Alexander, who presides over the parishes in metro Atlanta and northern Georgia, said he would not grant authority to a bishop from the Anglican network unless and until a formal procedure for such is authorized in the House of Bishops of the church.

The presiding bishop of the U.S. Epis-copal Church, Frank Griswold, has proposed a plan to provide distraught parishes with visiting bishops, contingent on permission from the regular local bishop.

Griswold did not respond to interview requests by press time.

Former members of St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in Marietta left to form the New Anglican Church; the New Holy Cross Anglican Church is being formed in Monroe, Ga., by former parishioners of the St. Albans Episcopal Church.

“I am continuing conversation with many folks, including many who have left either permanently or temporarily,” Alexander said.

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