Christianity flourishes on nothing so well as persecution. St Rowan the Martyr came before his own court of Scribes and Pharisees yesterday and won his case.

The moment that Dr Williams walked in to the General Synod at Church House, Westminster, in mid-afternoon, the assembly rose to accord him a standing ovation so prolonged that he had to halt it with a raised hand and a murmured “please” into the microphone.

He had planned to talk about terrible events befalling the Church in Zimbabwe, but given the terrible events descending on his own head he was forced into a detour. Dr Williams is sprung from the groves of academe, and something of a novice at the seminary of sharp headline writing. Yet his mea culpa for finding himself in a furious debate over the possibility of Sharia being accepted in Britain was a model of relative clarity.

Essentially, he said he hadn’t said it.

Multimedia

• Video Q&A with Archbishop of Canterbury about Sharia

• Churchgoers react to Archbishop's comments

• Listen to the Archbishop's speech on Islam

Intellectual arrogance pervades heart of wisdom

Dr Williams was advised before his speech that the content could prove controversial. He should have listened to that advice

BACKGROUND

• St Rowan seeks forgiveness for the sin of ‘unclarity’

• Prime Minister gives his backing to Archbishop

• Archbishop faces critics on day of judgment

• Sympathy and anger as faithful judge leader

• Row over gay clergy threatens to divide Church

BACKGROUND

• John Donne's pulpit

• The Archbishop of Canterbury and Sharia

• My brush with Sharia was swift and fair

• Surprise at sheer fury of attacks on Williams

I've read it so you don't have to

The Archbishop of Canterbury meant well and was quite aware of some of the objections

BACKGROUND

• Adopt Sharia in UK for Muslims, says Archbishop

• Archbishop urged to resign over Sharia row

• Full text of Archbishop's lecture

• From Leyton to Dewsbury, Sharia courts are already settling disputes

The Archbishop began with an abstruse reference to a 1930s student society meeting at which there was heavy disagreement with a number of things the speaker had not said. The Bishops, Clergy and Laity raised a slight susurration of mirth.

“Given that public comment and criticisms has been cast in such highly coloured terms, I’ve thought it right to say a few words about what was and wasn’t said last week and what the questions were which I hoped might benefit from some airing,” he said of his address last week on Islam and English law.

Dr Williams doesn’t usually do high colour; he is more a slightly out-of-focus Impressionist.

“Some of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said in the Royal Courts of Justice last Thursday,” the Archbishop said, blaming those who had misinterpreted The Word. “But I must, of course, take responsibility for any unclarity in either that text or in the radio interview, and for any misleading choice of words that has helped to cause distress or misunderstanding among the public at large and especially among my fellow Christians.”

So, Christians: to pride, lust and the rest, add the eighth deadly sin of “unclarity” – a word that is obscure enough not to appear in the Oxford English Dictionary.

He thanked supporters for being willing to treat the matter as deserving attention and thought it not inappropriate for a Church of England pastor to raise possible concerns of Britons who gather around the banners of other faiths.

He had simply been exploring whether there were ways of engaging with the world of Islamic law on something other than an all-or-nothing basis. “If – and please note that word – this were thought to be a useful direction in which to move, there would be plenty of work still to be done, with the greatest care, on what would and would not be possible and appropriate areas for cooperation.” He knew the problems Christian minorities sometimes had in Muslim-majority countries.

The Archbishop, whose druidical appearance sits well with his occasionally runic pronouncements, sat down to a solid, if not unduly long, round of applause.

Had he raised his eyes to heaven he would have seen the chamber’s inscription: “Holy is the true light and passing wonderful lending radiance to them that endured in the heat of the conflict.” Temperatures are returning to the seasonal norm.