THE Church of England was plunged into fresh conflict last night when a senior bishop rebuked the Archbishop of Canterbury for backtracking over the appointment of a gay bishop for Reading.

The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev Richard Harries, disclosed that he nearly resigned over the matter and that Dr Rowan Williams had twice endorsed his nomination of Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading before it was made public.

Only after the strength of the opposition became apparent did Dr Williams persuade Dr John to stand down.

The disclosure, described by one senior source as “picking the scab off the wound”, increases the pressure on Dr Williams to explain why he changed his mind. Bishops at the highest level who supported the appointment are privately demanding to know why Dr John has not yet been offered another senior appointment, and the attack by Bishop Harries demonstrates the level of anger being felt by the liberal wing of the Church at what they consider to be a betrayal at the highest level.

Dr John has also publicly touched on the debate for the first time, declaring in a sermon that even the most eminent figures in the Church have feet of clay and that “many of us are disillusioned with the Church and the leadership of the Church”.

Bishop Harries reveals in his Oxford diocesan newspaper, The Door, that he still believes that he made the right choice in Dr John, an abstinent homosexual. He says that he checked with Dr Williams, that he did not object to Canon John going on the shortlist and, in line with standard procedure, that the Archbishop was willing to consecrate him. A Lambeth Palace spokesman admitted: “That was standard and there was nothing about this appointment that was not standard.”

Although Dr Williams has written in support of homosexuals, since he became Archbishop he has endorsed the traditional, conservative line for the sake of church unity. The outcome of last week’s primates’ meeting to discuss the appointment of a gay bishop in the American Diocese of New Hampshire was seen by conservative evangelicals from around the world as another victory over the liberals.

Bishop Harries, who was admitted to hospital for a hip replacement at the height of the Canon John controversy, says he was persuaded not to resign because he did not want to leave the position at Reading vacant for 18 months or more while a new bishop of Oxford was appointed.

“In my view he had just the kind of gifts we are looking for in an episcopal leader in the Reading area,” he wrote. “It seemed to me quite wrong to discriminate against him just because he is gay. This was and remains a profound issue of principle for me.”

Referring to the New Hampshire appointment of Canon Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two who lives with his male partner, Bishop Harries accuses his critics of confusing the situation in Reading with “what was going on across the Atlantic”. Canon John had explicitly promised to adhere to the Church’s teaching that rules out practising homosexuality for clergy. Without that promise, he “would not have dreamt ” of putting his name forward.

In a sermon at Southwark Cathedral on Sunday, Dr John preached about the portrayal in Mark’s Gospel of the disciples as “thick, quarrelsome, vindictive, envious, ambitious and in the end cowardly to the point of betrayal”.

Dr John did not refer directly to his own recent history, but said: “There are no complete heroes, no consistent ones . . . in the Church all of us, including the most eminent, and maybe especially the most eminent, have feet of clay.

“At the moment, many of us are disillusioned with the Church and the leadership of the Church. But Mark is there to tell us it’s our own fault — because we shouldn’t have had illusions in the first place, not about them or about ourselves.”

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