Dr Nazir-Ali had ended his address to the conference by telling participants: “If you are anything, you are the beginnings, the miraculous beginnings, you could even say, of an ecclesial movement for the sake of the gospel and the renewal of Christ’s Church.”

He shared the subsequent press conference with Professor Stephen Noll, who is one of those canvassing views of GAFCON participants. He reported that, “Number one, it is being seen as more than a conference: it’s the beginning of a movement; and, secondly, it’s a movement within the Anglican Communion.”

Dr Nazir-Ali was asked how this vision of working within the Anglican Communion squared with his decision to stay away from the Lambeth Conference, announced this week. He replied that he staying away was “a matter of conscience. I would find it difficult to be in a eucharistic gathering around the Lord’s table with people who have, again and again, said no to the Church’s request not to do something that is contrary to the Bible and the unanimous teaching of the Church down the ages.”

Dr Nazir-Ali was backed by the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, who said that there were also authentic Anglican bishops who had not been invited to the Lambeth Conference, i.e. those who had been consecrated to minister in other provinces. “That tells us that the Lambeth Conference is not as important as it once was.”

Dr Jensen said at an earlier press conference that the withdrawal of bishops such as those from the Sydney diocese was positive. “Our absence is helpful, because it forces the issue. Our absence is a vote, if you like, to say that this is an enormously important issue.”

In an address to all the GAFCON participants, Dr Nazir-Ali spoke earlier about different models of the Church: the church of the household, “for people who are in some way like one another”; the church of the city, “where people who are unlike one another come together”; the church of an area; and the worldwide Church of God.

“We are faced, in a changing situation, where people want to be church with those who are like them. We find it in Africa, where people want to be church in the context of their own tribe; we find it in Asia, and now we find it with the affinity churches, the network churches, and the virtual churches in the North.”

He had once been hostile to this tendency, but his study of the household churches, he said, had led him to modify his views a little, and he now thought it permissible.

“But there is one condition, and that is that this is not the only way to be church. If you want to be church with those who are like you, you also have to be church with those who are unlike you.”