At a closing Eucharist for those unhappy with liberal theology in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican bishop of Bolivia ordained three deacons and a priest to serve newly formed congregations in the United States.

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"These men have been ordained to minister to those who cannot remain in communion with the Episcopal Church," said Bishop Frank Lyons of Bolivia.

The 2.3-million member Episcopal Church is the Episcopal wing of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has more than 70 million members. Bishop Lyons belongs to the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, which broke ties with the Episcopal Church over differences exemplified by the 2003 ordination of an openly gay Episcopal bishop.

Because of such issues, some African, Asian and Latin American bishops were sending priests to serve conservative U.S. congregations that would not accept a liberal Episcopal bishop. The Windsor Report, intended to address the international crisis, called on the Episcopal Church to refrain from further actions affirming gay relationships, and called on foreign archbishops to halt mission work in U.S. dioceses.

At this week's conference Downtown of the conservative Anglican Communion Network, many overseas bishops said they did not believe the Episcopal Church would halt gay ordinations and same-sex blessings.

The priest ordained yesterday, the Rev. Eliot Winks, a deacon of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, was ordained for the Diocese of Chile, but will serve in Baltimore.

"This is in violation of the Windsor Report, which called on bishops in various other parts of the Anglican Communion not to interfere in local matters. This is clearly an indication of an interference," said Bishop Robert Ihloff of the Diocese of Maryland. He described Father Winks' Church of the Resurrection as "a group of dissidents" meeting in a home.

Because it is not an Episcopal parish, the bishop said he could not directly intervene. But as president of the Episcopal province that includes Pittsburgh, and as an adviser to the presiding bishop, he will insist that other Anglican bishops have no right to send priests to his territory, he said.

"In Anglicanism there is only one accepted bishop within a diocese. To introduce churches that claim to be Anglican means that this church ... cannot be recognized in the Anglican Communion, despite the posturing of the bishop of Pittsburgh," he said.

Father Winks had been a deacon of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, said he had no supervisory role over the new priest and deacons, who now answer to the dioceses of Chile and Bolivia. He said he believed those bishops had acted because the Episcopal bishops had not backed off from ordinations of gay priests and same-sex blessings.

"If the Episcopal Church turned back, I'm sure they'd be delighted to turn these churches over to the Episcopal church. They are doing their own missionary work, and of course we are supportive of them. I make no bones about that," Bishop Duncan said.

The three deacons were ordained for a ministry among the poor in Washington, D.C., and congregations in Greenwich, Conn., and Raleigh, N.C.

Father Winks said his ordination came about because a group in Baltimore had called him to do campus ministry, but Bishop Ilhoff refused to grant him the license required for a priest from one diocese to minister in another. He believes he was refused the license because he is theologically conservative and came from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which is viewed negatively by bishops in other theological camps.

In the meantime, he said, the group of which he is now pastor had formed on its own, and he was put in contact with them. They wanted to call him but, "The only way I could be involved was to step out of the Episcopal Church," he said.

Bishop Ilhoff said he had not granted the license "because he proposed a ministry that we did not feel was either necessary or wanted here."