GIVEN the “ecclesiastical anarchy” engulfing the Episcopal Church, some sort of split now seems inevitable.

With provinces, dioceses and parishes throughout the Anglican Communion now in impaired or non-existent communion with each other, the election of a woman as Presiding Bishop in the US has merely hastened a process that was going to happen anyway.

But it is significant that the person to whom the Fort Worth diocese is looking for “alternative primatial oversight” is none other than the Archbishop of Canterbury.

As someone who privately has expressed liberal views on the gay issue, but has put those opinions to one side and taken the orthodox position for the sake of unity, none could be better placed than Dr Williams to offer such oversight.

It is to be hoped strongly that he will accept, as there is little else that, at this stage, could save the Anglican Communion.

Some argue that it is not worth saving. But as an entity that cares for upwards of

85 million souls it does represent a significant force for good in the wider world. In the world of mission, poverty and HIV, the Anglican Communion needs defending so that it in turn can defend the helpless.

Of those churches, the fastest growing are the ones most in need of help, in the churches of the “Global South”. And these tend to be parishes of an orthodox, traditionalist faith.

The best outcome would be for the Archbishop of Canterbury to accept the plea for alternative oversight. This would allow an uneasy truce in the United States, with liberals and orthodox in separate groupings, not in communion with each other but both in communion with Canterbury.

The Anglican Communion would become more a federation. The “bonds of communion” would become looser, but they would not be broken.

And Dr Williams, elevated recently from “instrument” to “focus” of unity, would become the closest to a pope that Anglicans have had. This need not worry Anglicans, because it would come with such minimal power. This way, there would be no schism, only fudged divisions. And Anglicans could continue to argue at length, secure in the formality of their united divisions.

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