Many of them were Episcopalians, the American offshoot of the official Church of England.

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The leader of America's two million Episcopalians, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, also welcomed the move.

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Episcopalians in Virginia would live amicably next to Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania or Baptists in their midst.

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Few churches are undivided in their ideas: consider the Episcopalians' ructions about the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop.

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After all, it is hard to see the Scientologists or the Moonies being as politically palatable as Episcopalians and Catholics.

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The leaders of America's Episcopalians have been at odds with most of worldwide Anglicanism since the ordination in 2003 of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson.

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Local Episcopalians - belonging to the American wing of the Anglican community - gathered on Sunday in the draughty hall of Grace Church in this picture postcard town on the swirling Merrimack River.

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Her ordination as Suffragan Bishop for Massachusetts, in the USA, caused outrage among conservative Episcopalians (another name for Anglicans) but since then over a dozen women have been elected to the episcopate in America.

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To be sure, the Episcopalians regretted the pain which ordaining Bishop Robinson had caused and the strain it had placed on Anglican unity, but they stopped well short of promising that it would not happen again.

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