A group of conservative Anglican leaders have added themselves to the list of those denouncing the Episcopal Church's (TEC) recent election of its second openly gay bishop, the Rev. Mary Glasspool.

In an April 10 communiqué, bishops from the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)/Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) acknowledged that "the issues that divide our beloved Communion are far from settled" and said that Glasspool's election "makes clear to all that the American Episcopal Church leadership has formally committed itself to a pattern of life which is contrary to Scripture."

"This action also makes clear that any pretence that there has been a season of gracious restraint in the Communion has come to an end," the bishops said, adding that the "current strategy in the Anglican Communion to strengthen structures by committee and commission has proved ineffective."

"We believe that it is only by a theologically grounded, biblically shaped reformation…that God¹s Kingdom will advance," the bishops said. "The Anglican Communion will only be able to fulfill its gospel mandate if it understands itself to be a community gathered around a confession of faith rather than an organisation that has its primary focus on institutional loyalty."

The statement was authored during an April 5-9 meeting in Bermuda of the GAFCON/FCA Primates Council.

Signers on the statement were mostly bishops from Africa, including the Most Revd. Peter Akinola of the Church of Nigeria, which is the second largest province in the Anglican Communion after the Church of England. The Rev. Henry Orombi of the Anglican Church of Uganda, who was represented at the Bermuda meeting by Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, also signed the document.

Other signers included the Rev. Robert Duncan, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, and the Rev. Peter Jensen, Archbishop of the Diocese of Sydney.

Formed in 2008 during a meeting in Jerusalem, the FCA describes its goals as being "the proclamation and defence of the gospel throughout the world, especially in and through Anglican churches" and "to provide aid to those faithful Anglicans who have been forced to disaffiliate from their original spiritual homes by false teaching and practice."

The recent communiqué called the FCA "a movement defined by theology that delivers spiritual and practical outcomes to faithful Anglican Christians around the world."

The bishops remarks come just days after the Episcopal Church announced the possibility of the ordination of its third openly gay bishop.

The Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe was named on Friday as one of four candidates vying to take up the position of bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, which represents about 5,000 Episcopalians.

Barlowe married his husband, the Rev. Paul Burrows, in San Francisco in 2008 when gay marriage was legal in California.

Meanwhile, an Episcopal congregation in Southern Ohio blessed two same-sex marriages over the weekend, nearly five months after the church's leader, Bishop Thomas E. Briedenthal, announced in November that he would cancel a previous ban on blessing same-sex unions after Easter.

The Rev. Paula Jackson, who officiated a service on Sunday where a lesbian couple was blessed, called the ceremony "an evangelical moment," and noted the couple as "a wonderful presence and a blessing to the community."

Jackson said that friends of the couple were "deeply moved by the blessing."

"They are people who believe in God but who have been hurt by the church and who are not in church," Jackson told the Episcopal News Service (ENS). "But they were grateful that the Episcopal Church recognized and blessed godly unions."

Breidenthal, who is a former seminary professor and an author of several titles on same-sex unions, said that he regrets the difficulties his actions might lead to in the larger church, but added that, "I really cannot in good conscience fail to honor and support brother and sister Episcopalians who are in same-gender unions who are seeking in those unions to practice the love of God and the love of neighbor."

The church is planning to bless more same-sex couples in June.