As in 1978 and 1988, the bishops of the Anglican Communion gathered in Canterbury for the 13th Lambeth Conference amid foreboding that they were facing an issue which would strain Anglican comprehensiveness to breaking point and finally split irrevocably this strange ecclesiastical by-product of the British Empire.

In 1978 it was the ordination of women to the priesthood. In 1988 it was the even more contentious issue of women bishops. In 1998 it was whether Anglicanism should depart from its position that the only legitimate context for sexual activity was monogamous heterosexual marriage and openly accept the ordination of active homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions.

As the world learned this week, the bishops of Lambeth 1998 came down decisively in favour of the traditional teaching on sex, sharpening up an already conservative resolution to make explicit their rejection of homosexual activity as something incompatible with the Gospel.

Of course, given that Lambeth has no legislative power, this is merely a recommendation, not a command, and bishops so minded in these islands and in North America will no doubt happily continue ordaining active homosexuals to the priesthood. This will remain the case even if on this side of the Atlantic they normally demand a measure of discretion from such clergy - which explains why Richard Kirker, secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, is merely a deacon of the Church of England, not a priest.

However, Wednesday's debate - such were the strong pressures seething beneath the surface - could easily have degenerated into the kind of unseemly wrangling observed outside the conference hall, when a Nigerian bishop laid hands on Mr Kirker in a vain attempt to exorcise him of his homosexual leanings. He then found himself involved in a furious verbal altercation with a journalist from one of the London dailies.

That the bishops did not allow disagreement to become division was largely to the credit of the Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames, to whose good-humoured and masterly chairing of this crucial plenary session the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, paid well-deserved tribute when he began his closing remarks by thanking his Irish colleague for the generous way he had chaired what had been "quite a difficult and painful debate".

Dr Eames, admittedly, began the session by claiming he had vainly sought to find someone else to undertake this supreme test of tact and diplomacy, and apparently expected everyone to believe him when he said that there were at least 10 Irish bishops who would be going home without his friendship.

But of course it is not in the plenaries that the real work of the Lambeth Conference is done, in the sense of creating and strengthening the bonds of fellowship and understanding between bishops from widely differing parts of the world and widely differing cultures. "Most people have found the small groups and the Bible studies the most beneficial from the point of view of the friendship and cohesion of the conference," said Bishop Michael Mayes, of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh.

This was a point emphasised by Dr Eames at yesterday's press briefing, when he said that the most important thing about the Lambeth Conference was that the real work had not been done at plenary sessions where the press was present. "It's been done at the Bible studies," he said. "It's been done on the pathways and in the corridors when the bishops have been able to meet, probably for the first time, and share their experiences."

Bishop Mayes's main criticism of what he pointed out was probably the first Lambeth Conference at which other cultures had been present in sufficient numbers to make an impact was that it was too much driven by reports and resolutions. "From the moment you arrive, you are expected to produce a report and think of resolutions," he said. "I'm not sure that's the best way of doing things. Resolutions by the nature of things tend to the divisive."

One resolution that was clearly tending in the opposite direction, both in its genesis and in what it said, in effect copper-fastened the coexistence within the Anglican Communion of advocates and opponents of the ordination of women. Drawn up by a small group of women bishops and traditionalist bishops opposed to the ordination of women, it was at least partially aimed at a recent canon of the Episcopal Church of the USA which made it mandatory for a bishop to allow the ordination of women in his diocese even if he was opposed to it.

The resolution called on the provinces of the Anglican Communion "to affirm that those who dissent from, as well those who assent to, the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate are both loyal Anglicans".

It went on to endorse such arrangements as the three "flying bishops" who minister to opponents of women priests within the Church of England by calling on the various provinces "to make such provision, including appropriate episcopal ministry, as will enable them to live in the highest degree of communion possible, recognising that there is and should be no compulsion on any bishop in matters concerning ordination or licensing".

The resolution was in fact an endorsement of another of Dr Eames's achievements, the conclusions of the commission which he chaired and which was set up after Lambeth 1988 to work out how different provinces with opposing views on the ordination of women priests and bishops could remain in some kind of communion and how the Anglican Communion as a whole could work towards consensus through a process of "open reception".