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A New Zealand bishop at the Anglican Church's Lambeth Conference has denounced it as an "exercise in futility".
The conference, which is held once every 10 years, ended with both sides in the battle over homosexuality refusing to compromise.
Richard Ellena, Bishop of Nelson, branded the 20-day meeting, which cost £5 million ($13.6 million) to stage and is facing a £2 million shortfall, as a waste of time and money, the Telegraph website reported.
In his final address, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, urged the 670 bishops to put an end to their divisive actions that have driven the Anglican Church to the brink of schism.
In a tacit admission that the problems may never be solved, Dr Williams pleaded with the American church to halt its liberal agenda of electing gay clergy and blessing same-sex unions, and told conservatives to stop "poaching" bishops from other provinces.
But yesterday both sides insisted they would not abide by the ceasefire.
Susan Russell, the head of the pro-gay Integrity USA group, said: "It's not going to change anything on the ground in California. We bless same-sex unions and will continue to do so."
The head of the Anglican province that covers much of South America, Gregory Venables, also vowed to carry on taking conservative North American parishes into his church.
The Bishop of Auckland, John Paterson, who has chaired the Anglican Consultative Council for five years, told the Diocesan Synod in Hereford on the eve of the conference that difficulties had been caused by bishops speaking only to other bishops before making decisions that affected the whole of the church.
"The great beating heart of the Anglican Communion, the wonderful lay people of the church, do not want their bishops to be talking about division, applying labels such as 'apostates' to people who don't necessarily think the same way about everything."
He said the important questions that needed to be addressed were poverty, access to water, HIV/Aids, the questions of effective mission and ministry, and interfaith understanding.
- NZPA
