When the students of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Duke University speak about their community, they often speak of friendship and pain in the same sentence.

At the AEHS, part of Duke Divinity School, future church leaders pray together, take communion together, share classes and meals and conversation. Most are preparing for ordination as deacons or priests.

Yet despite their common goals, recent controversies in the Episcopal Church have complicated their sense of unity, particularly about the role of gay clergy and some dioceses' decision to bless same-sex marriages.

Director Jo Bailey Wells recalls a friendship between two students that highlights the conflict. Lauren Kilbourn and Andrew Rowell had sought each other out at AEHS, hoping to better understand each other's opinions. Kilbourn, a lesbian in a committed relationship, supports the ordination of gay clergy. Rowell adheres to conservative views of homosexuality. For a year they met weekly for coffee and prayer.

"Each of them at times during the year shared with me how much it meant to them and how much they respected the other," Wells said. "At the same time each of them during the year shared with me how completely painful it was and how they didn't want the other to see how much they cried in light of some of their conversations."

One night, at a church service in Goodson Chapel, Rowell was serving as chalice bearer when Kilbourn approached him during communion. They had argued the night before, and Kilbourn wondered if Rowell would offer her the wine. Rowell confided to Wells that he had wondered as well.

"What do I do with this cup? And then I realized it's not my cup; it's not for me to choose who is fit to receive the blood of Christ, so I gave it to her," Wells recalled Rowell telling her.

The challenges within AEHS reflect difficulties within the worldwide Anglican Communion, to which the Episcopal Church USA belongs. Some dioceses and congregations in the U.S. and Canada have responded to the 2003 ordination of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, by leaving the Episcopal Church and affiliating themselves with more socially conservative Anglican provinces. Several have sought to claim entitlement to property owned by the national Episcopal Church, resulting in lawsuits in civil courts.

While other Protestant denominations are similarly struggling to resolve the issue of gay marriage and the place of gay clergy in the church, the Episcopal Church has long been at the center of the public debate due to the activism of church leaders on both sides of the issue and the resulting split in the church. Other denominations have not been structurally affected by the debate.

The approximately 50 Anglicans and Episcopalians at AEHS are a minority within the predominantly Methodist Duke Divinity School, among whose 600 students are also Baptists, Wesleyans and members of other denominations. Despite the relatively small size of AEHS, Wells says that the media coverage of the schism within the Episcopal Church has put the program in a highly visible position within the university.

"The Episcopal Church has come to see gay rights as an issue on par with the civil rights of the '60s, an issue that must be acted upon now," says Wells. "There's a sense in which Episcopalians have been in a hurry to progress on this front and because Episcopalians have led the way, other denominations have stood back and watched. Here at Duke Divinity School, there are plenty of students who watch what goes on and definitely seek to learn from it."

Despite the fracture in their church, many AEHS students say that they value the opportunity to study and converse with those on both sides of the issue.

"We try our best to understand each other," said Sam Keyes, 27, a postulant for holy orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, one of the dioceses that has split from the national Episcopal Church. Keyes will graduate from Duke Divinity School this spring. "There's a commitment from the start that we're going to maintain our friendship and manage our disagreements in peace. We do talk and get angry sometimes. But it's important not to act as if the disagreements don't exist."

Many attribute the continued openness between the Anglican and Episcopal students to the leadership of Wells, who was recruited from her native Great Britain three and a half years ago to form AEHS. She is widely praised among students for her ability to remain neutral and serve as a bridge between students with traditionalist and liberal viewpoints at the divinity school.

"She makes a particular effort to see that we have honest and often challenging conversations about our differences," said Ross Kane, 29, a master's student from Virginia who hopes to be in parish ministry in the Episcopal Church following his graduation in May. "I think that goes a long way because it prevents us from seeking only like-minded people. Division becomes much easier when you don't have to face the person you disagree with ... ."

Despite the strength of their community, Wells says, inevitably students on both sides of the issue feel alone in their sadness over the uncertain future of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church.

"The Anglicans assume that the Episcopalians are not disturbed by the split, [that] they'll march forward with their new policies," she said. "And the Episcopalians assume that [American] Anglicans are not disturbed by the split because they're marching on and creating new churches and building new buildings. There isn't a great deal of communication or at least real understanding between the two.

"Bishops on both sides would say, 'There can't be. How can we converse face to face when there are lawsuits pending?' To which I say, I'm not a bishop -- I'm preparing students for the ministry. We're still idealistic here in the seminary ... the lawsuits don't need to define our relationships."

For the foreseeable future, the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies will remain as it is, welcoming both students who identify as Anglicans and those who remain with the Episcopal Church. Wells says she hopes that, despite the widening gap between conservatives and liberals in the Anglican Communion, AEHS will remain a place where these differences are recognized and discussed within a united community.

"If these very different students are studying together and drinking coffee together and writing papers together and having painful conversations together when they are young, at this stage in life, there's a chance that their ministry will be shaped by that," Wells said. "And so they won't simply go along with generalizations that some of their peers may follow."