The Lambeth Conference is taking place in Canterbury amid controversy over the issue of homosexual bishops.
The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott is recording his thoughts from the conference, as debate on the vital issues facing the Church unfolds.
A TWO-TIER COMMUNION: 2 AUGUST
Amid the confusion caused by their divisions over what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, Anglican bishops meeting for the Lambeth Conference have come to realise one thing - that the Anglican Communion cannot continue as it is.
Information from the bishops' discussion of the subject shows an awareness of the enormous gulf in how each side views the very nature of Anglicanism.
For Anglicans, as the bishops' reflections document explains, "in some parts [much of Africa, for a start] homosexual and lesbian relations are a taboo; in others [the United States, for example] it has become a justice issue".
There's a growing acceptance that divisions are likely to intensify, and that the Episcopal Church in the United States is likely to ordain another gay bishop before very long.
Meanwhile the conservative alliance set up in Jerusalem last month - the traditionalist church-within-the-church that thumbed its nose at the Lambeth Conference and at the Archbishop of Canterbury - will continue to recruit and organise inside the Episcopal Church's territory.
The official group set up to find a way out of the crisis acknowledged it faced "a long and arduous road" in rescuing the Communion.
In fact, if things simply stay as they are there might not even be another Lambeth Conference.
Bishops at Lambeth Conference
Dr Williams told delegates the communion needed some structure
But a curious thing has happened. As pessimism about the chances of reconciliation has increased, so has the desire to preserve and stay inside the Communion.
It seems that this affection for the fractured family home, its history and the prestige it still commands, is about to be exploited by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in his efforts to find an alternative to absolute and permanent in the world's third largest Christian denomination.
There was a clue in Dr Williams' second main address to all 670 bishops in Canterbury.
He referred repeatedly to a focus on "the centre".
He said all sides would have to check their natural instinct to "cling to one dimension of the truth" about Anglicanism.
As Dr Williams made clear, this means the 38 independent churches of the Communion giving up part of their autonomy.
He said he did not want to create either a Roman Catholic style hierarchy or a loose confederation of churches, but the communion needed some structure.
'Further disintegration'
Some sort of council (it might be called a "pastoral commission") would judge how far actions such as the ordination of an actively gay bishop were out of bounds, and consider real sanctions.
In order to give the commission authority there would be a binding agreement - in Church-speak, a "covenant" - and this is where the pessimists have been most convinced of their case.
It is pretty clear that the Episcopal Church would not sign up to an agreement that ruled out ordaining gay bishops and blessing the relationships of gay couples.
It has come to look like a declaration of independence by the moderate middle of the communion, and Dr Williams himself
It seems dubious that for their part conservative African archbishops would commit to something that ruled out their interventions in America to provide a home for traditionalists.
Until now, both sides have seemed to have a veto, a final say - condemning the communion to an unsustainable status quo, and what Dr Williams referred to as "further disintegration".
But that's where Dr Williams' Lambeth Conference coup might emerge.
Call the bluff of both sides - traditionalist and liberal - and allow a revamped "centre" to sign up to a covenant whether or not the Americans or their conservative critics in Africa and elsewhere choose to join in.
Remove their veto, and create a new communion able to move forward without them.
If this is the strategy - and it looks highly likely - it could explain the increasingly frank acceptance of senior figures that some will choose not to commit to the covenant.
It has come to look like a declaration of independence by the moderate middle of the communion, and Dr Williams himself.
Acceptable boundaries
When one of the committee responsible for the covenant - Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies - spoke to journalists in Canterbury, he said his group was "working on something that will have acceptance by the majority of the [churches of the communion].
We will have to make space for those who can't sign up yet", he said. "We will always leave the door open".
At the same press conference the Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, acknowledged that it would "difficult for some [churches] to enter".
Their "autonomy is important and jealously guarded," he said.
But the sub-text has been: "You don't have to join, but you're not going to stop us".
So a new communion will be born, committed for the first time to an explicit set of principles
Archbishop Gomez was at pains to minimise the idea of churches being punished - because they wouldn't agree to end the blessing of gay bishops, for example.
"It's not a punitive document" he said.
"It's a pilgrimage and the document is designed to help people to walk along that road".
Think of it like the EU with its varying enthusiasm for closer union.
When countries like the UK stay out of the single currency or the shelving of border restrictions, an inner core of the Union carries on anyway.
It's not that anyone is being punished, nor is their "Europeanness" being impugned. But they may be left behind.
So a new communion will be born, committed for the first time to an explicit set of principles and a mechanism for resolving whether particular actions (blessing same-sex relationships for example, lay people presiding over holy communion perhaps) inside the acceptable boundaries or outside.
No-one who is now considered an Anglican will be declared not to be one, but those who failed to join the "dynamic" inner core could not expect to be invited to Lambeth 2016 or the other representative bodies of the Church.
It's likely this new communion will be decidedly post-colonial.
It will recognise that the centre of gravity has shifted from the developed world towards the populous churches of the developing world, and could have a representative council made up of archbishops elected by the churches of individual continents.
There would be a real "corporate presence" for the Communion in the 160 countries included in it.
It would, hopes Dr Williams, escape the paralysis of debate about homosexuality, to concentrate on poverty, Aids, famine and the lack of clean water.
Trouble shooter
But how would the left-behind non-signatories react?
Would they decide to leave?
It's far from impossible.
One critical group will be watched particularly carefully
The rich Episcopal Church might envisage its own mini-communion, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand and most of Australia among other churches.
The traditionalist alliance established in Jerusalem last month might see its future outside the communion.
Dr Williams, and the other leaders of the "intensified centre", are counting on the continuing attachment to the communion, the distinctive "reformed Catholicism" it represents, and its long history and shared traditions, to persuade those who reject the covenant to accept their second-class status and stay more or less within the fold.
One critical group will be watched particularly carefully.
They are the American traditionalists who have left the Episcopal Church because of its liberal attitude to homosexuality, and are planning to set up a parallel church there.
The Williams strategy would place them under the care of the "pastoral commission" - the same new authority that the Anglican Communion has lacked up until now.
They would be part of the communion, with its traditionalist approach to homosexuality, and would have the chairman of the pastoral commission to minister to them.
A lot hangs on who is selected for that vital role.
He will have to command respect across the spectrum of Anglicanism.
He will have to appeal to American traditionalists in particular.
He will be Rowan Williams' trouble-shooter - responsible for stopping disputes about issues such as homosexuality before they take on a life of their own.
Whoever is appointed to personify the unprecedented discipline and "structure" in the Anglican Communion, and whether or not Rowan Williams' gamble pays off, it seems a little bit of church history will be made at Lambeth 2008 after all.
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