Bishop orders probe of 'marriage' by gay clerics

|PIC1|A leading Church of England bishop ordered an investigation on Sunday into the blessing of two gay clergymen held in a London church in May.

Already civil partners, the Reverend Peter Cowell and the Reverend David Lord, who was ordained in New Zealand, exchanged vows in a service at St Bartholomew the Great, one of London's oldest churches, on May 31.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that the priests had exchanged rings and vows.

"Services of public blessings for civil partnerships are not authorised in the Church of England or the Diocese of London," the bishop of London, Richard Chartres, said in a statement.

"I will be asking the Archdeacon of London to investigate what took place at the church of St Bartholomew the Great."

The 77 million-member Anglican Communion, a global federation of national churches, has been in upheaval over the issue over homosexuality and the blessing of gay unions in recent years.

Church of England guidelines require clergy not to bless such partnerships, but the Reverend Martin Dudley, who carried out the service at St Bartholomew the Great, maintains he did not break any rules.

"It wasn't a marriage as you can't marry two men - it was a celebration of the civil partnership of the two people that were involved," Dudley told Reuters.

"It wasn't intended to be provocative. When two men who have committed themselves to the church ask for a blessing why should we should we turn them away?"

But a Church of England spokesman said the ceremony appeared to contravene those guidelines.

"It is to be hoped that, on reflection, it will be recognised in the wider Anglican Communion that the reported events appear to contravene the terms of the Bishops' 2005 statement, and do not represent any change in Church policy," the spokesman said.

In 2003 the Episcopal Church, the US branch of the worldwide Anglican community, consecrated Gene Robinson, the first bishop known to be in an openly homosexual relationship in more than four centuries of church history.

Earlier this month Robinson entered into a civil union with his longtime partner Mark Andrew at a private ceremony in New Hampshire.

A group of Evangelicals within the Church of England, Reform, warned that the Church following the controversial path of the US Episcopal Church.

"The Church of England now faces the same sort of division as the Episcopal Church of the USA," the group said in a statement. "Our only hope of preventing this is for bishops to exercise swift and clear discipline. Unless this happens, the floodgates of indiscipline will open.

"There is no longer any room for carefully constructed statements designed to hold everyone together in an uneasy truce.

"Schism in the church is being caused not by orthodox believers but by clergy pursuing a liberal agenda."

In July the Anglicans are due to gather for their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Britain.