Dr Williams, speaking in Northern Ireland at the end of the week-long primates’ discussions of the crisis that has brought the Church to the brink of schism, said: “There is no painless solution.

“Any lasting solution will require people to say, somewhere along the line, that they were wrong, wrong about something. What, I do not know. That is for them to determine. It is perfectly possible to take a decision in good faith and afterwards to think, ‘I had not counted the cost’.”

His remarks, at a press conference at the Dromantine Roman Catholic retreat centre to present the primates’ concluding unanimous communiqué, clearly referred to the decisions by the US Episcopal Church to ordain a practising homosexual, Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire, and by the New Westminster Diocese in Canada to authorise same-sex blessings.

In what could be the first step towards a formal schism, the US and Canadian churches have been asked voluntarily to withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council, one of the Anglican Communion’s four “instruments of unity” and the body that takes the central management decisions.

Both churches have been asked to impose a moratorium on gay ordinations and same-sex blessings and to “consider their place within the Anglican Communion” in time for the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

Dr Williams denied that the Church was already in schism. “A split or real schism would be if we had decided as a body that we were no longer able to have any kind of relationship with the two provinces that have taken these actions.”

The Primate of the West Indies, the Most Rev Drexel Gomez, a key influence on the traditionalist side, said: “We came with a deep affection for the Anglican Communion.”

The British evangelical group Reform said: “The primates have acted to preserve unity. If no action had been taken, the Anglican Communion would have been irreparably divided.”

The Lesbian and Gay Christ-ian Movement said: “While there is no immediate sign of unanimous agreement, the primates have helpfully set out a process involving further discussion and this we welcome.”

Other responses were cooler. The Primate of the US Church, Bishop Frank Griswold, said: “It is important to keep in mind that it was written with a view to making room for a wide variety of perspectives.”

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