The Anglican Communion voted Thursday to suspend the Episcopal Church in the United States because of its stance on same-sex marriage.

In June, the Episcopal Church voted to change its church laws on marriage to include marriage among gay couples.

The Anglican Communion, meeting in Canterbury, England, said the Episcopal Church could not participate in decision-making or represent Anglicans in meetings with other faith groups.

The Rev. Beth Palmer, rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Vicksburg said only time would tell what the move would mean to Episcopalians in America.

“The Episcopal Church in America operates as a separate entity,” Palmer said. “From a local perspective, I don’t think it’s going to mean anything. It’s only going to mean something on the international level. It will mean something perhaps for bishops and missionaries who regularly work across national and international lines within the church structure. I doubt it will mean a whole lot here in Vicksburg or in the diocese of Mississippi.”

Palmer, who was ordained as an Episcopal minister in 2003 after a career as a software consultant, said the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church have long been at odds over how to interact and how they fit together.

“I an a cradle Episcopalian. I have been an Episcopalian all my life, as was my father and grandfather before me and my son after me. I can certainly say that for at least the last 50 years, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church have been struggling over how to define our relationship with one another when our cultures are so very different.”

She said the Anglican Church’s reach into other countries probably has a lot to do with Thursday’s suspension.

“We are part of a much larger body that extends into various parts of the world and I think part of what’s going on here is that there are so many Anglicans in the continent of Africa — something like 50 million Africans claim Anglicanism as their religion compared to 2.5 million in the U.S.,” Palmer said.

She said she expects some of her parishioners to be concerned over the suspension.

“A few are going to be concerned, and I think the concerns will be on either side of the spectrum. People will find support for their own views in this news, depending on how they view the question about how we interact with people who think differently from ourselves,” she said.