The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told a gathering of Anglican leaders on Wednesday that there are no "quick solutions for the wounds of the body of Christ" as the group began its debate on the Anglican Covenant and the potential for the document to bridge divides between the U.S-based Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion.

"The text of the [Anglican] Covenant is a whole," Williams said. "It is something which lays out the foundations of our faith, the language that we share, and the hopes that we share, but it also-we hope and pray-sets out a path for the future, a path of mutual attention, mutual respect, the kind of obedience to one another that the New Testament proposes for us."

Williams' remarks were delivered via videotape to nearly 130 Anglican clergy gathered in Singapore for the Fourth Global South to South Encounter of the Anglican Communion (GSE4), an April 19-23 summit between representatives from churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, which encompass 75 percent of the Anglican Church's population.

Addressing the recent decision of The Episcopal Church (TEC) to elect its second openly gay bishop, Williams said that the action "deepened the divide between [TEC] and the rest of the Anglican family" and that it cannot speak for the "common mind" of the church.

"But I hope also in your thinking about this and in your reacting to it, you'll bear in mind that there are no quick solutions for the wounds of the Body of Christ," Williams said. "It is the work of the Spirit that heals the Body of Christ, not the plans or the statements of any group, or any person, or any instrument of communion."

Meanwhile, the Rev. Peter Akinola, the retired Archbishop of Nigeria, which is the largest body in the Anglican Church after the Church of England, lamented the church's brokenness and questioned whether the Covenant addresses the real problems within the group.

"Has the real problem that tore the fabric of the Communion been addressed? Can the Covenant address the problem?" Akinola asked during his opening remarks at the summit.

"This, sadly, is the eighth year since we have not all been in communion with one another, globally, in the same Anglican Church," he continued. "It appears that some of our leaders value the ageing structures of the communion much more than anything else, hence, the illusion that with more meetings, organisations and networks the crises will disappear. How wrong."

Akinola also acknowledged that the covenant will not stop the Episcopal Church from "pursuing its own agenda," saying the Communion is "still unable to exercise discipline."

"We are God's Covenant to the world, yes, but we are divided. We lack discipline. We lack the courage to call 'a spade a spade'. Our obedience to God is selective," he said.

"Can our church in all seriousness lay any claim to being light for the people of our time?" Akinola asked.

"If we can get the answers right at this Encounter then we will be able to help God's Church regain its place in the world."