A meeting of the international Anglican Communion begins today in Co Armagh. Its reflections are expected to be crucial to the future unity of the worldwide Communion, which represents an estimated 70 million members.
A total of 38 Primates will attend the meeting at the Dromantine conference centre near Newry.
Chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev Rowan Williams, it is expected to be dominated by discussion on the Windsor Report - as the recommendations of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, published last October, have become known.
The commission, which was chaired by the Primate of All-Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames, was set up in October 2003 following a meeting of the Primates at Lambeth in London and after a decision by the diocese of New Hampshire in the US to elect a gay man, Canon Gene Robinson, as its bishop.
Also, in June 2003 the diocese of New Westminster in Canada approved a blessing for same-sex couples. Both events led to outcry among Anglicans in Africa, Australia, and among more conservative members in the US and Europe.
The Windsor report recommended that those who took part in Bishop Robinson's consecration in New Hampshire should withdraw from representative roles within the Anglican Communion until they apologised. It also asked the North Americans to take no further action on same-sex decisions.
In return, it recommended their opponents should express regret for interference in denouncing the same-sex decisions of other provinces.
This week's meeting at Newry will be hosted by Archbishop Eames. The recently commissioned secretary general of the Anglican Communion, Dubliner Canon Kenneth Kearon, will act as the meeting's secretary.
Last October, Archbishop Eames warned that there remained "a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart," he said.
A press briefing will take place at the Dromantine conference centre later this week.
