The Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, provincial secretary of the Church of Uganda, said the media had misrepresented the province's position. "The plain fact is that we are simply not attending the Lambeth Conference in July 2008, but we are still very much a part of the Anglican Communion," he said.

Church of Uganda Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi was one of five primates who on February 15 publicized his intention to boycott the 2008 Lambeth Conference in protest to the invitations extended by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Episcopal Church's bishops.

The Church of Uganda declared itself to be in a state of "broken communion" with the Episcopal Church in 2003 after the election and consecration of Gene Robinson, a gay partnered man, as bishop of New Hampshire.

"It is the Americans who have seceded from the Anglican Communion because of their decisions and their teaching," Mwesigye said. "They have departed dramatically from the historic faith, teaching, and practice of the Bible and the Anglican Church."

In the days following Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' May 2007 announcement that he had invited all but a small number of bishops to Lambeth, Orombi indicated that his bishops would not attend the Lambeth Conference.

A February 19 statement from the Church of Uganda said that several provinces had urged the Archbishop of Canterbury "to see that this crisis was resolved before convening Bishops of the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference."

"Since, however, the crisis has not been resolved, and since those who precipitated the crisis -- the Americans -- have been invited to the Lambeth Conference, the Church of Uganda has upheld its decision not to attend," the statement said.

After hearing about the five primates' intentions to boycott Lambeth, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said February 15 that the conference "will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received.

"None of us is called to 'feel at home' except in the full and immediate presence of God," she added. "It is our searching, especially with those we find most 'other,' that is likely to lead us into the fuller experience of the body of Christ. Fear of the other is an invitation to seek the face of God, not a threat to be avoided."

-- Matthew Davies is editor of Episcopal Life Online and Episcopal Life Media correspondent for the Anglican Communion. He is based in London, England.