CHICAG0 (Reuters) ? The US Episcopal Church announced four nominees on Wednesday for its top leadership post, drawing immediate fire from a conservative group opposed to its consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003.

A 29-member committee chose four bishops ? three men and one woman as candidates for presiding bishop, a post being vacated by the retiring Frank Griswold who has led the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican church for nearly nine years.

It was under Griswold?s leadership the Episcopal bishops approved the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Robinson is believed to be the first bishop known to be openly in a same-sex relationship in the 450-year history of the 77-million-member Anglican Communion, which groups autonomous national churches around the globe.

The issue has caused deep divisions within the US church and globally.

The conservative American Anglican Council, which has been at the forefront of dissent over the elevation of Robinson to bishop, issued a statement that it was ?deeply disturbed that the list of nominees did not include any candidate who is representative of orthodox Anglicanism.?

Other candidates could be added before the bishops of the 2.3-million-member US church pick their new leader during a general convention in Columbus, Ohio, on June 18.

The nominees announced on Wednesday were J. Neil Alexander, bishop of Atlanta, Edwin Gulick, bishop of Kentucky, Katharine Schori, bishop of Nevada and Henry Parsley, bishop of Alabama.

The church announcement said any of the four nominees ?can provide the leadership required in the Episcopal Church at this time.?

The conservative group said three of the nominees voted to approve the consecration of Robinson, while a fourth did not but had been critical of those who had raised objections later.

?It seems clear that none of the nominees ... will lead the Episcopal Church USA back into the clear teaching and practice of Anglicanism,? it said.

Africans, who account for a large segment of church membership, have been especially critical of the US church and of the blessing of same-sex marriages by Canadian Anglicans.

Worldwide Anglican leaders asked the church?s North American branches last year to withdraw voluntarily from the Anglican Consultative Council, a key representative body of the church. Episcopal bishops did so last April and Canada?s Anglican Church honoured the request in May.

Some US congregations at odds with the leadership have placed themselves under the jurisdiction of bishops in Africa, Asia and South America.

US bishops have suspended the appointment of new bishops and the public blessing of same-sex unions to provide time for healing and discussion on the issue.

The Anglican Communion does not have the rigid hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and operates on a more decentralised model.

Its spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, has struggled to keep the fractured communion together.