In an exclusive interview with the Press Association to mark the first anniversary of his enthronement, Dr Williams said he missed Wales, where he was formerly Archbishop, and still thought of it as home. He added that in spite of the pressures of his job and a number of pastoral visits abroad this year, he has managed to publish two books and a collection of essays and still keeps up when he can with his favourite cartoon series The Simpsons.

Asked how he had found his first year in post, Dr Williams said there had "certainly" been pressures on him. He said, "I think that the level of expectation on any archbishop is very, very high. "The expectation within Britain, both in the church and in the wider culture - because, as somebody put it, you have got to try to be a sort of vicar for the whole country - and then the expectation in the Anglican Communion, holding a global family of churches together, in some way giving leadership there... so there are huge expectations. I think because of the long lead-up to the appointment, the very high public interest means even more expectation and projection going on."

He said it was impossible to live all the time "with other people's images". The only thing that kept him "sane" was "doing the next thing" that has to be done as carefully and prayerfully as possible, he said. Commenting on the furore over Dr John, the Archbishop said he believed a number of people were "taken aback" by the powerful strength of feeling against the nomination. He said, "What it focused for me, most painfully, in a way, is what it means to try and hold and articulate what the church overall is thinking and wanting." He added, "It was a very difficult period trying to listen to what I thought the church overall, worldwide as well as in England, was wanting on this. Of course, the personal cost to lots of people is very high."

Dr Williams said he did not believe change was inevitable in the Church of England's policy on homosexuality following a debate at General Synod this month in which the majority of speakers backed a more liberal stance on gays. "I do not think that change is ever inevitable," he said. "I think that the Church of England's position, whatever was said after the Synod, remains pretty much where it was. What changed, I think this is important, is the tone of the debate. I sensed less anger and anxiety in the debate and wherever the church finds itself, I think that has to be a good thing."

He added that endorsing Some Issues In Human Sexuality, the House of Bishops report, did not "at all" open the door to services of blessings for gay couples. "What it did simply was to recognise the range of theological thinking there is in the discussion at the moment and try to put it over in an accessible form."

Dr Williams said his audience with the Pope in October had been a moving movement for him and his wife Jane. Asked about whether he believed the Pope had given up on hopes of unity between Anglicans and Catholics in the light of the appointment of openly gay Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in the US, Dr Williams said, "I don't think the Pope has given up. I don't think anyone in Rome has given up in that sense. Of course, what you are faced with is the honest acknowledgement of serious problems - there is no denying that. But no sense of the door closing, not at all."

Speaking of meeting the Pope, he said it was a moving experience to meet someone with such a depth of Christian experience who has lived through Nazism and Communism. "Of course, as an Anglican I do not automatically believe everything that the Papacy says, that is a theological point, but the sheer Christian and human greatness of the man is just undeniable," he said.

Dr Williams said he did not have any theological objections to women bishops at any level of the Church of England. Asked about a report that women could be barred from becoming archbishops under a series of options put forward by a Church of England working party, he said the document put forward "all sorts of options".

"While I don't see any theological objection to women bishops, how it is introduced, at what price, is not something for which I have short and glib answers I am afraid," he said. "Of course, it happens in other provinces. It would seem to me a little odd if we ended up with an option which allowed women to become bishops but only so far. In the long run, I do not think there is a theological defence for that."

In his interview, Dr Williams renewed his attack on the Government over plans to create a single tier of appeal for asylum seekers whose cases are rejected by immigration officers. "I think in British society generally there is quite a lot of nervousness about incomers which has been intensified by security anxieties over recent years and I think it is quite easy sometimes to collude with that anxiety," he said. "Let me come at it another way - there is a solid traditional Christian moral principle which says that there may be something worth defending, but if you defend it wrongly, then its worthwhileness is diminished. So the way in which you defend something you care about actually affects what you are defending and that is my worry about some of the present suggestions about short cuts in the law and the reduction of the appeal structure for asylum seekers particularly." He added, "We are proud of British society, we want to defend it. If we defend it by means that victimise or exclude people unjustly, then the very thing we are defending is affected by that."

Asked about a BBC survey showing Britain is one of the least religious countries in the world with belief and churchgoing among the lowest on the planet, Dr Williams said he was not greatly surprised but was "slightly puzzled" by the findings. He said there had been other surveys suggesting that 75% of people in the country still identified as Christians. "This is not so much a nation of unbelievers as a nation of rather confused thinkers about this," he said. "But yes, let's not beat about the bush, there is a problem. Very large numbers of people, especially younger age groups, have very little of what we would call lively contact with the church, with any sense of what religious language is about." He said it was often said that we were a society interested in spiritual matters rather than organised religion. "I think as has been said recently, we are quite an emotionally volatile society. The British are not a stiff upper lip people any longer and the great displays of public emotion about public events, the Diana phenomenon, is also a feature of it."

Dr Williams, who was previously based with his wife and two children in Bishopstow, Newport, south Wales, said he missed the country. He said, "It is my home, quite simply, and it is how I still feel about Wales. I miss the particular strength of being a small church in a small country, where whatever the frustrations, everyone knew each other pretty well, and sometimes therefore holding out a sense of common purpose and collegiality is easier than in larger churches." He added, "I miss friends and I miss contacts in the politics and cultural life of Wales and sometimes I miss the language too." He added that London was "never dull" and was a fascinating and absorbing place to live in.

He said for himself and his family, the availability of concerts and theatre in the capital had been a "tremendous plus", as well as the chance to make new friendships. Asked about The Simpson cartoons, he said he did not watch it "quite so" much as before. But he joked, "I try to keep it up, I was going to say religiously, but I'd better not."

Dr Williams has published a book called Silence And Honey Cakes, on the contribution of the desert fathers in 4th century Egypt, and a book of meditations called The Dwelling Of The Light Praying With The Icons Of Christ, as well as a collection of essays since his enthronement.

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