At stake may be the future of the Communion, the international association of churches with roots in the Church of England.

Findings will also resonate beyond Anglicanism — to Christians in all denominations who believe that their faith has oppressed gays and lesbians and, equally, to those who consider changes a direct attack on the Bible and 2,000 years of Christian teaching.

Two top London newspapers said the commission would propose disciplinary measures against the Episcopal Church, Anglicanism's U.S. branch, for consecrating Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, a gay man who lives openly with his partner.

Other explosive matters include increasing ordinations of openly gay priests in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. Last year's U.S. church convention recognized that Episcopalians "within the bounds of our common life" conduct same-sex blessing ceremonies and this year's Canadian synod affirmed the "sanctity" of gay couples.

Those events have divided North American parishes and dioceses, and created acrimony among the Anglican Communion's 38 self-governing national churches.

Worldwide, Anglican conservatives are heavily in the majority. A 1998 conference of all Anglican bishops declared gay practices "incompatible with Scripture" and opposed gay ordinations and same-sex blessings in a 526-70 vote with 45 abstentions.

Ireland's Archbishop Robin Eames, who heads the Lambeth Commission, said Tuesday that the 17 members were unanimous and did not shirk issues.

"It is not the bland report some feared. It has teeth," he said, though Anglican documents often use language to assuage both sides and allow various interpretations. There's talk that the text will run 80 pages.

The implications will play out through 2006, when the next U.S. Episcopal convention is held; 2007, the year for Canada's synod, and 2008, when the Anglican bishops' world conference is set.

Pronouncements ahead of the report have offered competing concepts of Anglican heritage.

According to 45 liberal U.S. clergy and lay activists, "the Anglican tradition of living in tension and diversity of thought" should be maintained.

The group also said the commission shouldn't recommend penalties against the Episcopal Church because it was only mandated to discern how to hold Anglicans together "in spite of our expressed differences."

One signer, the Rev. Dan Webster, communications director for the Utah Diocese, said America's "extreme religious right" has joined foreign bishops in trying to turn the international church association into "a monolithic structure."

Conservative leaders, meanwhile, championed traditional teaching. Nigeria's Archbishop Peter Akinola said the Americans have broken up the Anglican Communion by creating a "new religion." And Uganda's Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi said the Episcopal Church has separated itself from "the vast majority" of Christendom through "heretical and immoral actions."

Nigeria and Uganda are Anglicanism's two largest branches outside England. Conservatives claim those two churches and others formally protesting Episcopal actions include a solid majority — perhaps up to three-fourths — of Anglican churchgoers. Only last week, Australia's Anglican Church voted against gay clergy and same-sex blessings.

Given international ire, the Rev. Ian Douglas of Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts thinks a mere wrist slap against the Americans is unlikely.

But he also doubts that the Episcopal Church will be simply "thrown out" of the Anglican Communion or that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams — the faith's spiritual leader — and other key archbishops would supplant the Episcopal Church and recognize only the U.S. conservatives in the American Anglican Council and Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.

He expects "some kind of severe criticism and rebuke" but no bid to forsake Anglicanism's custom of national autonomy.

The Rev. Paul Zahl, president of Pennsylvania's Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, fears that the trickle of fellow conservatives quitting the Episcopal Church will become a stream unless there's strong international action.

And without help from leaders like Akinola, "down the road there will be no room in this church for those who believe as Anglicans have always believed," says editor David Kalvelage of The Living Church, an independent Episcopal weekly that opposed Robinson's consecration.