Church leaders in Africa have threatened to break from the Anglican Communion entirely

Welby's problems are not limited to England. After the Synod's decision, a group of 12 Anglican archbishops from the conservative Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches issued a statement saying they no longer recognise the C of E as the 'mother church' of Anglicanism nor Welby as the 'first among equals'.

Church leaders in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria have threatened to break from the Anglican Communion entirely. 'History is about to repeat itself,' said Archbishop Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba of Nigeria. 'The Anglican Church is at the threshold of yet another reformation, which must sweep out the ungodly leadership currently endorsing sin, misleading the lives of faithful Anglicans worldwide.'

Welby says he is 'extremely joyfully celebratory' about same-sex blessings, but will not personally conduct any such services: an attempt at fence-sitting which, according to the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans -- a global network of conservative Anglican churches -- has 'violated his consecration vows' to defend Christian doctrine.

Two big London churches have suspended their financial contributions to the Diocese of London, which supports the new policy. Vaughan Roberts, the much-respected rector of St Ebbe's, Oxford -- who incidentally describes himself as 'same-sex attracted' -- has said that Oxford's bishops, who take an especially progressive line, may not preach or receive communion at his church.

From the other direction, Welby has complained that members of the Commons have 'threatened' him with parliamentary action to force his hand on gay marriage. Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, recently presented a ten minute rule bill to enable C of E clergy to conduct same-sex weddings.

Whether or not the bishops realised before February that they were opening Pandora's Box, they seem to have realised it now: according to an accidentally leaked photograph from a recent meeting, among the possible developments they are contemplating is 'Not just fracture of C of E but complete disintegration.'

It is all a far cry from 21 March 2013, when Welby was enthroned in his new office on a wave of general goodwill. He would be, it was hoped, a great unifier: conservative, but flexible; an Old Etonian with a certain polished charm, but also someone who spoke movingly of his own troubled family history and experience with grief; a former oil industry executive, but with a social conscience. If anyone could bring peace to a divided Church, people said, it was him.

Two days before Welby's enthronement, Pope Francis was inaugurated in Rome. He was also hailed as a bridge-builder who would help Christians find a path between extremes; a natural communicator who would speak to non-believers and the faithful alike. The secular media loved him, sometimes absurdly so. Elton John called him 'my hero'.

Time and again, the Pope has made bizarre or ambiguous statements about long-established teachings

Now, the Pope Francis show has become exhausting. Time and again, he has made bizarre, ambiguous or divisive statements about long-established Catholic teachings, then refused to clarify his meaning. The splits in the C of E have been mirrored in Catholicism as liberals clash with conservatives and accusations of heresy fly.

It recently emerged that the late Cardinal George Pell, formerly one of the most powerful Vatican officials, wrote an anonymous memo describing Francis's pontificate as a 'catastrophe'. That view is extremely common among clergy, including senior clergy -- though most keep it to themselves. But instead of healing the divisions, the Pope has blamed them on the small community of Latin Mass traditionalists and launched a crackdown on the Church's ancient liturgy.

Where did it all go wrong? How in the past ten years have the divisions in Anglicanism and Catholicism only deepened under two leaders once championed as unifiers? Both men have sometimes spoken as though the truth is a secondary matter for Christians, less important than a spirit of inclusivity, and have acted as though, with enough cheerfulness, common sense and bureaucratic reform, some middle path could be found. On the subject of women bishops, Welby was asked by Giles Fraser before his election, how do you square the circle? 'Well,' he quipped, 'you just look at the circle and say it's a circle with sharp bits on it.'

Pope Francis has blown holy smoke over many issues -- divorce, the nature of Confession and the Eucharist, LGBT concerns, the morality of the death penalty, the relationship between Christianity and other religions. He has succeeded only in fostering divisions without committing himself to any clear position. He, too, has offered a circle with sharp bits on it. And it turns out the sharp bits are painfully sharp.

The situation was summed up by the Cambridge historian Richard Rex, who suggests that there have been three great crises in the history of the Church. The first, in its early centuries, revolved around the question 'What is God?'. That is to say: how many natures were in Jesus Christ, how many persons in the Trinity, and so on. Then, during the Reformation, 'What is the Church?'. The third crisis, he argues, is happening now, over the question of 'What is man?'. This relates -- as he memorably puts it -- to 'an entire alphabet of beliefs and practices: abortion, bisexuality, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, family, gender, homosexuality, infertility treatment...'

On these issues, Catholic tradition at any rate is clear, and to adopt progressive values would be, in effect, to give up on Catholicism. Conservative Anglicans would say the same for their faith. But progressivism has a religious fervour of its own. Hence the impossibility of bridge-building -- and hence the failed promise of Welby and Francis's attempts at unifying leadership.

Both sides, of course, believe God is with them. But in human terms, the two are evenly matched. Progressives have the weight of respectable opinion on their side, as well as the media, politicians and the big NGOs. Conservatives tend to have the confidence of youth because -- somewhat unexpectedly to those who remember the 1960s -- it is often the younger generations who are most doggedly attached to the old doctrines. Kate Forbes, the 33-year-old SNP politician much criticised recently for her conservative beliefs on sexual morality, is a vivid example of the type.

Often these people relish their counter-cultural status. The rector of St Helen's Bishops-gate -- one of the London Anglican churches which has suspended its payments to the diocese and has also announced a 'state of broken partnership with the House of Bishops of the Church of England' -- recently described the parish's 11- to 18-year-olds group: 'around 120 in regular attendance... young men and women seeking to live godly lives in accordance with God's word in a highly sexualised culture. A number of the youth group lead Christian Unions at their own schools, in face of considerable opposition from secular teachers.'

Conservative believers suspect that the traditional teachings may have a new appeal to a society counting the cost of the sexual revolution. Bishop Jill Duff of Lancaster, a critic of the C of E's new policy, emphasises this point. 'Most of my ministry has been served in deprived urban areas,' she has written. 'Local women my age were astonished that I believed sex is for marriage. "You mean I'm worth it?"'

The patterns of church growth and decline suggest that the next century will see dramatic institutional upheaval. In Britain, for instance, while the Church of England continues to see a severe decline in Sunday attendance, the expanding churches -- the Vineyard Movement, the Elim Pentecostal Church -- tend to be conservative in doctrine, evangelical in style and founded in the 20th century.

Internationally, meanwhile, it is in the global south where faith is growing, to the extent that European Catholic parishes are often led by African clergy. Last year I visited a very middle-class Home Counties parish. The new Nigerian priest began his sermon: 'Of course, when we sit down to pray, the Devil at once sits down beside us.' The congregation shifted slightly in their pews. Lands once evangelised by Portuguese Jesuits or Victorian adventurers are now sending their own missionaries to the new heart of darkness that is the modern West. The medium-term future, in other words, is almost impossible to foresee.

The short-term future is not much clearer. Pope Francis has no obvious successor; it could be a conservative like the Hungarian Peter Erdo, but the names who most often appear in the frame -- Cardinals Pietro Parolin and Seán O'Malley, for instance -- are notable for their reassuring blandness. Whatever else the cardinal electors want, they long for some respite from the endless disputes of the Francis years.

As for Welby's successor, the most prominent bishops -- Stephen Cottrell of York and Sarah Mullally of London -- are firmly on the liberal side of the present debate. The next archbishop might be a less well-known face: there's speculation about such names as Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford, who first came to Britain as an asylum seeker from Iran, or the likeable Mark Tanner, Bishop of Chester, who has a great deal of parish experience. What is certain is that this time nobody will be talking about a new era of unity.

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