But he added that there are now 'complexities associated with gender identity' which a church project about sexuality and relationships is exploring.

The admission, in an official report prepared for the gathering of its governing body this weekend, stirred criticism last night.

It comes despite Anglicanism continuing to oppose same-sex weddings -- and only recently allowing women to be bishops.

The report asks the Church to make amends, indeed to offer 'reparation and redress', for assets it may have accumulated originating from the profits of slavery. Although having to acknowledge that the extent of these holdings is not yet known, it makes much of the investments the Church may have held in pre-1837 slave-owning enterprises. The report has much less to say about the many Anglican clergy at the forefront of the abolitionist cause.

Signed by the Most Rev Justin Welby and the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, the senior leaders, alongside 23 bishops that sit in the House of Lords, criticised the plan for lacking morality.

Writing to the Times, the co-signed letter states: 'Whether or not the first deportation flight leaves Britain today for Rwanda, this policy should shame us as a nation.

The film suggests that these differences are profound rather than superficial and that they cannot simply be 'covered up'. The film asks whether the way forwards for the Church of England can be built on the idea of 'agreeing to disagree'.