Leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion yesterday asked the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada to "voluntarily withdraw" from a key council in an unprecedented move that may presage the fracture of the more than 70-million-member church.

In a communique issued after a five-day conference of 35 global communion leaders in Newry, Northern Ireland, the primates also called for a moratorium throughout the denomination on public blessings of same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living "in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage."

The statement was the Anglican Communion's strongest yet on the divisive issue of homosexuality in the church. The U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated and ordained an openly gay bishop in 2003 while parishes in Canada conducted same-sex blessings. Those events have polarized the communion, and led leaders of provinces in Africa and South America to declare that the Episcopal Church had impaired its status in the global church.

Presiding Bishop Rev. Frank T. Griswold III, head of the Episcopal Church, participated in the November 2003 ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who lives openly with a male partner. Griswold issued a brief statement yesterday from Ireland saying that "clearly, all parts of the communique will not please everyone."

"It is important to keep in mind that it was written with a view to making room for a wide variety of perspectives," Griswold's statement continued.

Since the communion is made up of self-governing provinces, the primates cannot order member churches to take specific actions. But yesterday's statement was explicit that the North American churches should withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council until 2008, the next time the bishops from the global church meet, in Lambeth, England.

The council provides consultation and guidance on policy issues for the communion and represents the voice of the inner life in the church's 38 provinces in 160 countries. Each province sends up to three representatives to the council, the only one in the communion that contains bishops, priests and laity.

Josephine Hicks, a Charlotte, N.C., attorney and member of the Diocese of North Carolina, is one of three American representatives to the council. She said in a brief interview that withdrawing would be "unprecedented." She declined further comment.

The American and Canadian churches were invited to send a delegation to the June meeting of the consultative council in Nottingham, England, "to set out the thinking behind the recent actions of their provinces."

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr., who was in Newry, called yesterday's report "breathtaking."

"I said before we came [to Ireland] that this would be a defining meeting for the Anglican Communion for generations to come, and I believe that's what happened.

"It's difficult not to see [the statement] as a suspension" of the Episcopal Church from the world body, said Duncan, who was in Ireland with several members of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, an organization of representatives from 10 dioceses around the country -- including Pittsburgh -- who believe the Episcopal Church overstepped its canonical boundaries in its recent actions.

Christopher Wilkins, facilitator of Via Media USA, a year-old alliance of 13 independent groups in 12 primarily conservative American dioceses, called the primates' report "very disappointing."

"Excluding these two churches from the Anglican Consultative Council will make it harder for the types of conversations called for to take place," said Wilkins, who lives in Pittsburgh.

While the primates' communique reaffirmed the communion's stance since 1998 that it rejects homosexuality "incompatible with the Scripture," it also decried any victimization of gays, calling it "anathema."

"We continue unreservedly," the report said, "to be committed to the pastoral support and care of homosexual people. We assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship."

The report also recommended that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint a panel to supervise the needs of church members who have theological disputes with their bishops or provinces. It said the primates would "commit ourselves neither to encourage nor initiate cross-boundary interventions" by bishops. Church law prohibits a bishop from conducting rites such as confirmation in another diocese without permission of the diocesan bishop.

The Rev. George Werner, retired dean of Pittsburgh's Trinity Cathedral and current president of the national Episcopal Church's House of Deputies, cautioned against any quick conclusions. He said Griswold told him last night that the communique was more subtle and nuanced than the text might suggest.

"It is clear that there is more to it than appears in the language," Werner said. "People will be drawing conclusions from the various points of view. I think that would be presumptuous at the moment."