Canterbury has associations with Christopher Marlowe, Joseph Conrad - and Rupert Bear. It is the destination for Chaucer's pilgrims on their way to the tomb of Thomas a Beckett, and it is the cradle of English Christianity. Here, 1,400 years ago, St Augustine founded his abbey in the year 598 AD, at the start of his mission from Rome to the Anglo-Saxons. Four years later, he founded Christchurch Cathedral, and Canterbury has been the spiritual capital of Anglicanism ever since.
Today, 850 bishops who are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury - a definition of Anglicanism that is as good as any - are gathering in Canterbury for the 13th Lambeth Conference.
Since 1867, the world's Anglican bishops have been meeting every 10 years in this forum. This year, the bishops represent more than 70 million members of the Anglican Communion in 164 countries and 37 provinces or autonomous churches, including the Church of Ireland. For three weeks, they will be debating a wide range of issues from Third World debt to the environment, technology and religious fundamentalism.
According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, the most important item on the agenda is likely to be the "moral scandal" of the Third World debt crisis, the only question to be listed as a priority by all nine preparatory regional meetings of bishops. He hopes "the conference will formulate a firm but constructive resolution addressed not only to the G8 nations but to all governments and to the Churches as well".
Dr Carey, who recently saw the famine in Sudan at first hand, says the Church is uniquely qualified to speak out on the issue because it is "directly involved with poverty and malnutrition". The British Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, and the President of the World Bank, Mr James Wolfensohn, are attending part of the conference as observers. "The evidence is that they are listening," says Dr Carey. "For generations politicians and diplomats have failed to see the importance of religion and it's going to be a long haul, but we have to see what we can get."
But Lambeth is not a legislative gathering like the Second Vatican Council was for Roman Catholics, and it cannot decide on doctrines and truths for the Anglican Communion. "We don't expect a host of resolutions or ex cathedra statements," says Bishop Nigel McCulloch of Wakefield, who is one of two episcopal spokesman at the conference, along with the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Robin Eames.
But the two most divisive issues facing the bishops are the ordination of homosexual clergy and the election of women to the episcopate.
Prof Robin Gill, a leading theologian at the University of Kent in Canterbury, points out that before the 1988 Lambeth Conference "the issue of women priests and women bishops was rumoured to be the issue which would shatter the Anglican Communion". Now, he says, with a touch of irony, "in 1998, sexuality and, more specifically, homosexuality and the ordination of active homosexuals are apparently the issues which will finally cause the [Anglican] Communion to explode".
Archbishop Carey has played down the divisiveness of the debate on homosexuality. At the General Synod of the Church of England in York earlier this month, he pointed out that none of the nine preparatory meetings of bishops had listed sexuality as a priority, although it was an important subject, especially for bishops in the West.
Dr Carey takes what he describes as "a traditional stance" on sexuality and has been engaged in a sharp exchange of correspondence with Bishop John Spong of Newark, an ardent campaigner for the view that homosexuality is morally neutral. Dr Carey believes "the great majority of bishops" share his approach, but says: "This contentious issue will not be resolved by anger and bitterness."
Archbishop Eames, for his part, expects the debate will be resolved by setting up a commission on human sexuality.
This time, women bishops are attending a Lambeth Conference for the first time. Of the 850 bishops in Canterbury, 11 are women: eight from the US, two from Canada, and one from New Zealand. The first woman bishop, Barbara Harris, was elected and consecrated shortly after the last conference in 1988, when Dr Eames handled the thorny debate of how to maintain communion between Churches with women priests and bishops and those without.
In recent weeks, reports have suggested that up to 50 bishops might keep away from services in which women bishops take part, including Bishop Noel Jones of Sodor and Man (the Isle of Man) and Bishop Eric Kemp of Chichester. Indeed, at least two Anglo-Catholic traditionalist bishops - expatriates living in Madagascar - are rumoured to be planning to stay away from the conference. Other bishops, it is said, will refuse to be photographed with women bishops.
Dr Carey gave assurances earlier this month that bishops opposed to the ordination of women will not be boycotting major services. He admits "some traditional bishops would find it very difficult in a conference where there is a tiny minority of women bishops," but says: "I have been assured by them that they will be present at the major festivals, indeed at most of the services. So I think it will only be in extreme circumstances that they will not be with us."
With a major conference of the World Council of Churches taking place later this year in Harare, many are questioning whether largescale conferences such as Lambeth are worth the expense or continue to have any relevance to a Church facing into the 21st century. Indeed, many question the value of a church conference in which bishops alone are the main participants, with less visible contributions from other clergy and the laity.
A huge international conference of 3,000 to 4,000 lay Anglicans is being planned for the year 2003 or 2004, possibly in Johannesburg. But the Lambeth Conference is in danger of appearing to be less and less relevant to many Anglican churches as they forge new regional links with other denominations, particularly the Lutheran Churches. In northern Europe, the Anglican and Lutheran Churches are moving closer to a union that would make them second only to the Roman Catholics in numbers, and divisions over women bishops or campaigns to retain 17th century liturgy appear to be trivial and petty squabbles.