His outspoken comments will add to the pressure on liberal American and Canadian church leaders who have driven the worldwide Communion to the brink of schism by electing an openly gay bishop and by blessing same-sex unions, in defiance of centuries of tradition and guidelines agreed at the last Lambeth Conference.

They came just hours after the head of the church in Sudan, backed by Primates of 17 provinces in the developing world, demanded that the homosexual bishop of New Hampshire, the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, be sacked and that those who consecrated him "confess".