The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church says an initiative by hundreds of conservative congregations to form their own church in North America has largely run its course and will not trigger further large-scale defections from the denomination long divided over issues related to homosexuality.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, making her first public comments since a coalition of breakaway congregations declared their intention on December 3, said the departures were personally painful but would have little effect on the 2.4-million-member Episcopal Church. The new Anglican Church in North America represents about 100,000 people.

“I think we’re on the downhill side,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “I think by far the majority of those who are going to seek a spiritual home elsewhere have done it. I don’t see any other diocesan leaders on the sideline about to do this. I think we’re past the worst of it.”

Along with other Protestant denominations, the Episcopal Church in recent years has struggled to hold together theologically disparate factions at odds over sexuality and Biblical authority. The current crisis in the church was sparked by the ordination of an openly gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

Bishop Jefferts Schori said she had tried unsuccessfully to persuade leaders of the newly formed church not to break with the Episcopal Church, but that the traditionalist bishops showed no interest in the overtures.

She said that four former Episcopal dioceses had stopped contributing to the national church, in some cases years earlier. The Episcopal Church is the American arm of the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

“They are no longer Episcopalians,” she said of those who had left. “They have made that very clear in their departures.

“Those who were formally bishops in the Episcopal Church are no longer understood to be bishops in the Episcopal Church,” she added. “They are free to associate with whom they wish.”

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