"After much prayerful and considered thought, I wrote at the beginning of the week to the ­Bishop of Leeds and in the light of the Cahill inquiry report I have submitted my resignation as Honorary Assistant Bishop of Bradford, now West Yorkshire and the Dales, with immediate ­effect,'' he said.

"This ends my nearly 50 years of formal ministry in the Church of England, which I have always sought to serve with dedication.

"I will certainly continue to pray for the important ongoing work with survivors."

The resignation of Lord Hope, who is also on extended leave from the House of Lords, follows his denials last week of a deliberate cover-up of the abuse despite his failure to report to police repeated allegations against Waddington.

The year-long inquiry, headed by British judge Sally Cahill, reported that from 1956 until last year, almost 20 people including several of Waddington's victims, made complaints of sexual and physical abuses to church officials in Australia and Britain.

Over those years no church official or cleric reported to police in Britain and the inquiry found that Waddington had access to choirboys for years after Lord Hope failed to report the allegations.

The Cahill inquiry was ordered last year after a joint investigation by The Australian and The Times exposed a high-level cover-up into the 1999, 2003 and 2004 allegations into the late Waddington. The Cambridge-educated reverend was principal of an Anglican school in far north Queensland for almost a decade until 1970, before returning to Eng­land, where he rose to become the head of education for the church in Britain and later dean of Manchester.

The investigation revealed that at least six boys and a young clergyman were sexually abused and beaten by Waddington in Britain and Australia.

A police investigation and civil action in Australia were abandoned after Lord Hope told Australian church officials that Waddington was near death with throat cancer. He died eight years later. The Cahill inquiry found Waddington had abused at least nine children and one clergyman.

North Queensland Bishop Bill Ray last week called for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to use its powers and public hearings to investigate Waddington and the handling of the allegations by Australian officials.

Lord Hope's successor as the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said he was "saddened'' by the decision but vowed to work through recommendations on the inquiry. "I continue to hold all the survivors in my thoughts and prayers and I am grateful too that some have offered to help the leadership of the Church of Eng­land'' he said.

END