The general synod has already decided that women bishops should be allowed Successes by traditionalists in Church of England General Synod elections mean they could force changes in legislation to introduce women bishops.
Traditionalists claim they have more seats on the synod, and could insist on the provision of male alternative bishops on terms acceptable to them.
The synod has already decided that women bishops should be allowed.
But the change will need a two-thirds majority in each of its three houses – bishops, clergy and lay people.
It failed to gain that level of support in the house of laity in the previous synod, and traditionalists opposed to it claim to have even more support now,. BBC religious correspondent Robert Pigott reports.
Traditionalists say they will need only a handful of additional votes to make sure future women bishops are bound by legally enforceable rules governing how they deal with clergy and parishes unwilling to serve under them.
Liberal groups, who have acknowledged privately that they probably have not made the electoral gains they were looking for, claim such rules would make women second class bishops.
In deciding that women bishops should be allowed, the synod gave minimal concessions to traditionalist Anglicans who opposed the move.
They had sought to be in the care of a male alternative bishop on terms acceptable to them.
But the synod decided women bishops should be able to decide the identity and functions of any such bishop.
Members of the last General Synod decided in July that there was no need for further delay to the progress of a draft law allowing women to be made bishops.
The law must receive approval from a majority of the Church’s 44 diocesan synods, before returning to the General Synod. If it does win its two-thirds majorities in the three houses it must then get parliamentary approval and Royal Assent.
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