The world's 38 leading Anglican clerics prayed together on Wednesday at the start of a two-day summit on gay clergy which could change the shape of their loose alliance of churches for ever.
The clerics were whisked into London's Lambeth Palace -- headquarters of Anglican spiritual leader the Archbishop of Canterbury -- through a back door without speaking to the media.
They prayed in the palace's 12th century chapel before sitting down to discuss an issue which is threatening to rip apart the 70-million-strong Anglican communion.
Conservative Anglicans, particularly in Africa, have demanded that their liberal colleagues in the United States either go back on their decision to appoint the first openly gay bishop in Anglican history or leave the communion.
In heated exchanges, the Africans have equated homosexuality with Satanism while on Monday, Britain's leading campaigner for gay and lesbian Christians compared church conservatives with Adolf Hitler's Nazis.
The gathering, due to conclude with a news conference on Thursday evening, was prompted by the election of Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two, in the United States.
There will be no vote on the issue and the church leaders are likely to try to draw up a consensual statement at the end of the meeting.
They might propose, for example, that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams travels to the United States or to Africa to try to soothe troubled waters.
The sole liberal voice among Africa's Anglican leaders, the Archbishop of Cape Town, told Reuters on Tuesday that Anglicans must find a way to resolve the crisis.
"I think it will be a sad day if the leadership of the church cannot find one another when we are supposed to set an example on how to resolve conflict," Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said.
But some of the African churches might leave the communion if the Americans are not punished or if the summit does not at the very least set them a deadline to comply with the church's current position on homosexuality.
That position, agreed at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, states that the communion cannot support "the legitimizing or blessing of same-sex unions or ordaining of those involved in same-sex unions."
Optimists within the Anglican fold say their communion has faced similar obstacles in the past and overcome them, notably in 1992 when Anglicans made the historic decision to allow the ordination of women.
If the Anglican communion survived that crisis, they say, it can survive this one too.
But those opposing Robinson's appointment are thought to slightly outnumber those who do not. Estimates put the number in opposition at between 20 and 25 out of the 38.