Bishop Miller told News Letter, however, that such scientific revelations would not be sufficient grounds for altering the Church's position on homosexuality.

Proving that homosexuality is natural "makes no difference at all", he contested.

Bishop Miller is fresh back from the once-in-a-decade Lambeth Conference, which concluded on Sunday with the Anglican Communion intact but still deeply divided over the issue of homosexuality.

The bishop maintained that although the Communion had room for many different viewpoints, truth should still come before unity.

"We live in a wonderful Communion where you can disagree with each other. I don't think any of us knows at this point whether the Anglican Communion will ever be the same again," he said.

"It's worth holding together but it's not worth holding together at all costs - truth is more important than unity."

He stressed that opposition to homosexuality was not an attack on gay people.

"I don't think that there are any members of the Church of Ireland [that] are going out on some anti-gay drive or to harm gay people," he said.

Referring to assurances from Orthodox and Roman Catholic representatives at Lambeth that their Churches were facing the same issues, he said, "I think that the Anglican Communion is probably working through this issue on behalf of the whole Church and there are other Churches that know perfectly well that this is an issue but they have never been in a position to either admit it or mention it but are looking on to see how the Anglican Communion is going to resolve this," he said.

Bishops at Lambeth agreed to continue the process of drawing up of a covenant that will lay down structures of authority within the Communion, and establishing a Pastoral Forum to care for conservative parishes.

The Lambeth Conference "got better as it went on and where we ended up on the last day was maybe as good a point as we could have arrived at", Bishop Miller concluded.