DALLAS -- Pittsburgh Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr. yesterday urged conservative Episcopalians gathered here to have courage, patience and trust for the upcoming "defining battle of the war for Anglicanism's soul," saying that while the future would be messy, it would also be a time of magnificent truths.

Tony Gutierrez/AP
Pittsburgh Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr. addresses the American Anglican Council meeting yesterday in Dallas.

He predicted that next week's emergency meeting in London of the Anglican Communion -- an unprecedented gathering called to discuss the Episcopal Church's confirmation of an openly gay priest as a bishop this summer -- would result in a "Godly rebuke" of everyone involved in that vote.

That includes the head of the Episcopal Church USA, the assenting bishops, the priest and the entire Diocese of New Hampshire, which earlier this year elected the Rev. V. Gene Robinson to be its new bishop.

Duncan and more than 2,700 like-minded conservative Episcopalians are at a two-day conference called "A Place to Stand," where they are preparing a statement of principles that will be delivered to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 37 other primates early next week.

The conference ends today.

While cautioning that action by the primates could take months, Duncan said he knew "the agenda of the majority of primates" going into next week's meeting, and that if a rebuke were not delivered, the result would be "a wrenching split in the whole fabric of the Communion."

"I think you can count on that," he said.

But he also said the creation of a parallel province in the United States of conservative Episcopalians was unlikely.

During Duncan's panel presentation, he invoked Gettysburg, D-Day, the fall of the former Soviet Union and King Solomon in describing the denomination's future.

He joined other speakers in framing the church's ongoing convulsions in terms of the growing theological, financial and numerical divisions between Anglicanism of Africa, Asia and Latin America in the "global South" and the British, American and Australian church of the "old West."

The former adhere to biblical tradition and make up the majority of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion, but depend on the financial largesse of the latter for education, health and religious programs.

A split in the Anglican Communion would leave its spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, as "little more than the titular head of a moribund and declining" white, Western church, he said.

"I believe that [Archbishop of Canterbury] Rowan Williams understands precisely this reality ... the last of the British Empire is his to lose."

The Rev. Bill Atwood of Richardson, Texas, who heads a conservative Episcopalian group called Ekklesia, said that empire is already crumbling.

"In the global South they see that the unthinkable has happened," he said. "They're seeing an exodus of their people.

"People are becoming separated and are no longer able to be in communion" with the Anglican Communion because of Robinson's confirmation, he said. "The church has become complicit in leading people away from the redeeming power of Christ."

The conference has focused on preparing attendees for the future, whatever that might look like. Yesterday, for example, attorneys discussed the particulars of canon law involving church property -- numerous court cases could result from parishes or dioceses seeking to leave the Episcopal Church.

Some have spoken of the need to establish a financial covenant with provinces in Africa and Asia to replenish any tithes and donations lost from a church split.

Duncan predicted that groups splintered from the Episcopal Church for various reasons -- he mentioned the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Mission in America -- would be gathered in, with "wounds healed, wrongs forgiven and brothers and sisters united."

While intervention would mean chaos, financial difficulties and a loss in church membership, it would also lead to greater missionary work and accountability, he said.

His remarks were interrupted often by applause. Some of the longest came when he said that "like the fall of the Soviet Union, the Lord will cast [the Episcopal Church's] mighty from their thrones and he will lift up the lowly."

He was referring to Bishop Frank Griswold, the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop, and the Rev. George Werner of Pittsburgh, retired dean of Downtown's Trinity Cathedral and current president of the denomination's House of Deputies, the church's second-highest position.

"What I'm feeling is while we debate one piece of Scripture," Werner responded in an interview, "we seem to forget a lot of others, including one that says you should love one another.

"The antagonism is coming from one side. They're giving a war and we're not coming."