Poor Anglican churches may lack money to split
Episcopal church supplies funding — and headaches to worldwide church network
By Laurie Goodstein and Neela Banerjee, New York Times
03/24/2007

As leaders of the Anglican Communion hold meeting after meeting to debate severing ties with the Episcopal Church in the United States for consecrating an openly gay bishop, one of the unspoken complications is just who has been paying the bills.

The truth is, the Episcopal Church bankrolls much of the Communion's operations. And a cutoff of that money, while unlikely at this time, could deal the Communion a devastating blow.

The Episcopal Church's 2.3 million members make up a small fraction of the 77 million members in the Anglican Communion, the world's third-largest affiliation of Christian churches.

Nevertheless, the Episcopal Church finances at least a third of the Communion's annual operations.

Episcopalians give tens of millions more each year to support aid and development programs in the Communion's poorer provinces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. At least $18 million annually flows from Episcopal Church headquarters in New York, and millions more are sent directly from American dioceses and parishes that support Anglican churches, schools, clinics, and missionaries. the rest