Only a fraction of the 880 worldwide Anglican bishops officially invited to the landmark Lambeth Conference 2008, touted as one of the most critical in the Communion's history, have replied by the deadline set by Lambeth Palace.

|PIC1|Bishops across the globe were sent their invitations to the crunch talks in May, and were asked to respond at the latest by 31 July. At present, however, only a couple of hundred of the 880 invitations have accepted.

The news will be disappointing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is desperate to find a middle ground between warring factions within the worldwide Anglican Communion over a number of issues including homosexuality within the Church.

The Lambeth Conference, which takes place next year, is being touted as the last hope to reconcile conservative and liberal wings of the Communion.

The failure by bishops to respond in time to the invitation could be regarded as further evidence that the 77-million member worldwide Communion is facing schism.

A number of conservative bishops have already announced their intentions to delay responding to their invitations until they know whether liberal bishops from the Episcopal Church in the US will attend.

Among them are at least six conservative archbishops from Africa and Asia, who represent hundreds of other bishops and more than 30 per cent of Anglicans active worldwide .

The Episcopal Church in the US has been given until 30 September to make a significant U-turn on its pro-gay agenda, and just last week the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev Peter Jensen reported that he and his five assistant bishops could not yet decide whether they would attend the conference next year.

In a recent interview, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, declared that more than half of the Church of England's own bishops would wait until the Episcopal Church's decision on 30 September to make their decision.

According to The Telegraph, Anglican officials have said "several hundred" responses had been received but that postal delays explained why many more had not yet come in.

The official added that the 31 July deadline to respond to the invitation had been suspended.