The mission work of the churches in the Anglican Communion will be significantly less effective if its structures are loosened, destroyed or so localized that they can no longer work globally, the Archbishop of Canterbury said in an address to the Church of England Synod Feb. 26.

Archbishop Rowan Williams told delegates the primates have asked for more clarity from The Episcopal Church on whether it has agreed to a moratorium on the election of bishops in active sexual partnerships outside marriage, and whether it is willing to abide by a voluntary moratorium on liturgies for same-sex blessings.

“The understanding of the meeting was certainly that this should be a comprehensive abstention from any public rites,” Archbishop Williams said. The primates wanted “to try and encourage an internal North American solution to the bitter disputes now raging” and the proposed structure for “supplementary oversight” was designed to encourage “both sides to back away from litigation.”

“Much here depends on goodwill and patience,” Archbishop Williams said. “The Presiding Bishop rightly won praise for her careful and sympathetic engagement with these proposals and other matters, in the course of what was undoubtedly a very testing meeting. Likewise the readiness of many of the ‘intervening’ primates to consider negotiating a new position was welcome and impressive.”

The archbishop said the primate's communiqué, although imperfect, was a worthwhile effort to look beyond the symptoms of the problem and focus attention on underlying and neglected theological root causes of the current discord. Although few enjoy the breakdown in trust, a simple solution is elusive.

“Unhappily, though, the truth is that when conflicts have passed a certain point, simple solutions are unlikely to work, to the extent that they deliberately ignore the things that bred the conflict in the first place, and that have never been properly addressed. This is a recipe for the whole thing to start up again as soon as possible.

“It is folly to think that a decision to ‘go our separate ways’ in the Communion would leave us with a neat and morally satisfying break between two groups of provinces, orthodox and heretics or humane liberals and bigots, depending on where you stand. Every province could break in several different directions.”

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