The meeting was a remarkable one in that we were able, through much painful honesty and clear speech, to come to a common agreement. Frankly, I was surprised at that. Given the great polarization in the Anglican Communion, I held out little hope for a way forward.

For a century or two a notion has been fostered by this movement and allowed to develop by much of the remainder of the Anglican church to the point of becoming the reigning theological motif of the leadership of many Anglican churches and of the leadership at the upper levels of the Anglican Communion.

There were moments in the meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania when I guess most of those present felt a bit like this. The fact that they weren't prepared simply to leave things there suggests, though, that more needs to be said. There remains a strong belief that this kind of worldwide Christian institution means we all agree to take responsibility for each other in some way, and to recognise that none of us has ultimate interests and concerns that are exclusively local or personal.

Over the weekend one orthodox leader told my colleague, Dr. David Virtue, "Go home and tell all your people to abandon ship. Leave TEC. It's over. We lost." This morning at the cashier's window at the White Sands Hotel that same orthodox leader, who asked not to be named or quoted directly, said that the orthodox had won.

At breakfast Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, Primate of Rwanda and head of the AMiA, said with a tired grin to a crowd of friendly inquirers, "It's a new dawn."