Robin Eames has had an extraordinary career, and he truly shone on the major issues which have confronted Anglicanism in recent decades, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent.
It is no exaggeration to say that the retirement at the end of this year of Archbishop Robin Eames as Church of Ireland Primate of All Ireland will mean the withdrawal of something of an ecclesiastical colossus from the Irish stage.
In terms of longevity in office; of distinguished service to his church at home and abroad in times of acute crisis; and where sharpest political nous is concerned; it is fair to say nobody in any Irish church comes near.
His has been a truly extraordinary career to date - to date because, while he will end his term as Church of Ireland Primate of All Ireland on December 31st, he indicated yesterday he would be continuing his work with the Anglican Communion at an international level. Indeed he said he would be heading "another project" for that Communion in the near future.
His career as bishop has run parallel with much of the darkest times of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and all of his clerical career since he was ordained a priest in 1964 has been in the North.
He became Bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1975, and Archbishop of Armagh in 1986. Already a qualified lawyer before ordination, on becoming Primate he was soon identified as a force of considerable influence within political circles where he was recognised as a voice for moderate unionist opinion.
This was particularly so in the years of John Major's premiership in Britain; less so since Tony Blair and New Labour came to office.
However, there can be little doubt that his role was very significant in encouraging support for the 1998 Belfast Agreement, particularly among more doubtful members of his church north of the Border, not least where moderate unionist opinion was concerned.
Indeed, his unwavering support for the agreement has helped in no small way to see it survive, albeit in incomplete form. His contribution to that survival should not be underestimated.
He has also engendered a trust among loyalist paramilitaries which, if it has not yet brought the decommissioning he desires from them, it certainly has helped moderate their extremism. And his contact with those paramilitaries is ongoing.
Yet it almost all came unstuck over Drumcree.
Over the past 11 years, and taking place in his own diocese on the first Sunday of July, in its early years it became his crown of thorns.
He faced unrelenting criticism for his handling of it, not least in not being firmer where the church service was concerned.
The criticism was particularly intense from among members of the church in the South, who were deeply embarrassed to be associated with events on the hill outside Portadown and the worldwide association of one of their churches with the scenes witnessed from there.
In the late 90s the church had become so polarised on the issue - in general terms between its northern and southern membership - it seemed permanent damage might be done to its unique status as an all-island body which enjoys the affiliation of both nationalists and unionists.
Commenting on Drumcree yesterday, Dr Eames acknowledged it as one of the greatest problems he had faced in Armagh. It was "a cameo of Northern Ireland where the two communities were caught up in something neither could control".
And, while still unresolved, a lot of the tension which surrounded Drumcree has disappeared. He had taken "the path of dialogue, understanding, reasoning," on the issue.
And it may be, looking back, that he was right to take the scenic route where others would have preferred something more direct.
He has enjoyed good relations with other church leaders, certainly within the Reformed denominations but also with his Catholic counterparts in Armagh.
Indeed, he and Cardinal Cahal Daly, when he was Catholic Primate, enjoyed a close friendship which was underpinned by a mutual intellectual capacity. That friendship also came under strain during the early Drumcree years.
And where he and the current Catholic Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, are concerned, it could be seen from the tic-tacking between them in their similar public pronouncements following the concelebrated Easter Sunday Mass in Drogheda involving a Church of Ireland rector that they work well together.
However it is on the major issues which have confronted Anglicanism over recent decades that he has truly shone.
In the 1980s it was under his primacy that the Church of Ireland became the first Anglican church in these islands to agree that women could be ordained to the priesthood. It was no easy task and attracted considerable opposition, sometimes from surprising quarters not least where some senior church figures today are concerned.
This led in no small part to him being asked to chair the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate (the so-called Eames Commission) in 1988/90. It paved the way for women in the priesthood in other Anglican churches.
His "Virginia Report" on the nature of Communion within Anglicanism has been called into service - so to speak - in the crisis which has beset world Anglicanism since the consecration in November 2003 of an openly gay man, Canon Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire in the US.
Indeed, Archbishop Eames has been the central figure appointed to deal with that issue by Canterbury as chairman of the Lambeth Commission. This was set up in 2004 to see how Communion might be maintained within Anglicanism among churches which hold different views on the ordination of homosexuals.
What he and that commission have been charged with is nothing less than the avoidance of schism, particularly between the Anglican churches of the developed and the developing world. It is a tribute to his personality that this has not already happened.
The Lambeth Commission produced the Windsor Report last year. It deals with handling diversity within Communion and in a manner which has something for everyone.
From what he said yesterday it would appear that Archbishop Eames will be devoting more time to this issue when he retires.
He will continue there as something of a catalyst for Communion, and where his sometimes seemingly impossible and certainly unique experiences in the North will stand him in good stead as he copes with threatened division at an international level.
Tomorrow: Resuming his series of interviews with major figures in the peace process, Frank Millar talks to Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams