The Anglican Communion may fall apart over homosexuality despite the 11th-hour truce agreed upon by church leaders in Tanzania this week, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says today in an article for the Daily Telegraph. But the effort to keep the worldwide church in one piece was worthwhile, even though it might look like a family heading for the divorce courts, he said.

The archbishop said the “painful intensity” of the talks, which very nearly ended in a split, had not represented the “easy option.” But there was a need for a worldwide Christian church that “could balance unity and consent” for the sake of human society.

The archbishop’s comments, his first since the end of the five-day meeting near Dar Es Salaam on Monday, follow growing outrage from liberals over the final statement issued by the primates.

The communiqué gave the liberal American Episcopal Church seven months to prove that it had reversed its pro-gay agenda or face expulsion.

Several liberal American bishops have already said they would prefer schism to reversing their pro-gay policies, and others are expected to follow. The bishop of Connecticut, the Right Reverend Andrew Smith, said: “If the primates are asking us to undo what we have already done, that is a step many of the bishops would be unwilling to take.”

The Reverend Richard Kirker of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement said that the primates’ policy was “worthless.” He said, “At a time when we are celebrating the end of slavery, the Anglican primates, perversely, seem willing to enslave and scapegoat gays.”