More than 200 bishops, mainly from the Global South, have boycotted the once-in-a-decade Conference, currently taking place in Canterbury, to protest the presence of pro-gay clergy.
The Archbishop told bishops at Lambeth, “I think it’s important I should say that it’s a great grief that many of our brothers and sisters in the Communion have not felt able to be with us for these weeks, a grief because we need their voice and they need ours in learning Christ together.
“I respect and accept the decisions that have been made but together we need in prayer to acknowledge the wound that that makes in our fellowship…that we still have to mend relations that have been hurt.
“I hope that in these weeks we shall daily be remembering those who are not with us upholding them in our prayers, in our respect and love.”
Dr Williams urged bishops attending Lambeth to be open to change and unite around the Bible to “build Christian relationship”.
He admitted, however, that he did not expect all the Communion’s problems to be solved in the course of the three-week conference, referring to divisions over homosexuality and women bishops.
His hope for the conference, he said, was “not that after two weeks we will find a solution to all our problems but we shall, as I have written more than once, in some sense find the truth in God and one another that will give us the energy to change in the way God wants us to change”.
“That is the most important thing we can pray for, the energy to change as God wants us to change individually and as a Communion,” said Dr Williams.
He went on to describe the 70 million-strong Communion as a “wounded body” but remained optimistic that God and the Holy Spirit would bring healing.
“As we seek to meet Jesus Christ in each other we hope that the wounds that are still open will in some sense also be open to receive the work of God the Holy Spirit in our work,” he said.
The bishops will remain in retreat until Sunday, when the Lambeth Conference begins in earnest with a celebration in Canterbury Cathedral.
He told bishops “to be there and let God come to you”.
