The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, admitted yesterday that Church leaders had been "taken aback" by the force of the opposition to the appointment of Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading.
In an interview to mark the first anniversary of his enthronement, Dr Williams spoke of the pressures of the job and his anguish over the nomination of Canon John, a homosexual but celibate cleric.
Dr Williams, 53, said expectations of him were "very, very high" and had been intensified by speculation in the media before he was officially named by Downing Street.
He said last summer's furore over Canon John, who was appointed Bishop of Reading and then forced to step down, had been at a "very high" personal cost to many people.
"What it focused for me, most painfully, in a way, is what it means to try and hold and articulate what the Church overall is thinking and wanting," he told the Press Association.
"It was a very difficult period trying to listen to what I thought the Church overall, worldwide as well as in England, was wanting on this."
Dr Williams denied that change in the Church of England's policy on homosexuality was inevitable following a debate at the General Synod this month in which speakers urged greater tolerance.
"I think that the Church of England's position, whatever was said after the Synod, remains pretty much where it was," he said.
"What changed, I think this is important, is the tone of the debate. I sensed less anger and anxiety in the debate and wherever the Church finds itself, I think that has to be a good thing."
The archbishop said it was impossible to live all the time "with other people's images" and the only thing that kept him sane was "doing the next thing".
He said his audience with Pope John Paul II in October had been a hugely moving for him and his wife Jane.
"Of course, as an Anglican I do not automatically believe everything that the papacy says. That is a theological point. But the sheer Christian and human greatness of the man is just undeniable," he said.
He denied that the Pope had abandoned hope of unity between the denominations since the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson as Anglicanism's first active homosexual bishop.
"I don't think the Pope has given up. I don't think anyone in Rome has given up in that sense. Of course, what you are faced with is the honest acknowledgement of serious problems, there is no denying that. But no sense of the door closing, not at all."
Dr Williams said he did not have any theological reservations about women becoming bishops, but it would be strange if they could not become archbishops - one of the options in a report by a Church working party.
"While I don't see any theological objection to women bishops, how it is introduced, at what price, is not something for which I have short and glib answers, I am afraid," he added.
In his interview, Dr Williams renewed his attack on the Government over plans to create a single tier of appeal for asylum seekers whose cases are rejected by immigration officers.
"I think in British society generally there is quite a lot of nervousness about incomers which has been intensified by security anxieties over recent years and I think it is quite easy sometimes to collude with that anxiety," he said.
"Let me come at it another way - there is a solid traditional Christian moral principle which says that there may be something worth defending, but if you defend it wrongly, then its worthwhileness is diminished.
"So the way in which you defend something you care about actually affects what you are defending and that is my worry about some of the present suggestions about short cuts in the law and the reduction of the appeal structure for asylum seekers particularly."