The Church of England is facing a day of reckoning over historic sex abuse allegations that have shattered trust in its leadership.

       It once stood as a beacon of hope to those who were lost, lonely and in need, but could 2025 be the nadir of its 1,500 year existence?

       This week has seen days of tense meetings at the general synod - effectively its internal parliament - as bitter recriminations over its catastrophic failures in protecting children dominated discussions.

       It is the first time senior figures have gathered since Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was forced to quit in disgrace.

       The principal leader of the Church of England resigned after an independent probe exposed a cover up surrounding barrister, Christian camp leader and serial abuser John Smyth QC.

       It concluded he might have been brought to justice had Mr Welby bothered to come forward to police before the abuser met his maker.

       Mr Welby formally stepped down last month, but his departure unleashed civil war in the church he once led as clergy face shame over failure to safeguard its flock.

       One fifth of members of the synod do not want liberal moderniser The Most Rev Stephen Cottrell to replace him.

       The Archbishop of York has been the Church of England's de facto temporary leader but has himself faced calls to resign.

       He has come under increasing pressure, accused of not acting quickly enough in his then-role as Bishop of Chelmsford, over priest David Tudor, who was allowed to remain in post despite having been barred by the church from being alone with children and paying compensation to a sexual abuse victim.

       This week the church parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of an overhaul of a process to discipline clergy - five years after first concluding the current system was “overly legalistic, slow, and burdensome”.

       The new system includes investigations into serious misconduct cases overseen by a professional team of investigators and lawyers, while bishops will have statutory duties to ensure support for all those affected by a complaint.

       Mr Cottrell welcomed the new move, saying: "This structure will enable appropriate scrutiny to be given to complaints. It allows accountability and more transparency around these processes."

       Yet it is likely to do little to quell disquiet and calm turmoil swirling in the Church of England after the damning Makin Review into how it covered up prolific abuse by Smyth.

       It found he attacked as many as 130 boys and young men. Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while still under investigation.

       Authorities may have been able to bring him to justice had Mr Welby reported the abuse after he became archbishop in 2013, the review found.

       In a statement the ousted archbishop said he was "deeply sorry that this abuse happened" and "sorry that concealment by many people who were fully aware of the abuse over many years meant that Smyth was able to abuse overseas and died before he ever faced justice".

       He added: "I had no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013. Nevertheless, the review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated."

       Installed in 2013 after a career as an oil exploration executive he once described the church he led as “one of the most powerful forces of social cohesion”.

       Yet he openly played politics, pitting the church against the public with a series of damaging interventions, mostly notably a withering denunciation of the Tory scheme to stop migrant small boat crossings by sending asylum seekers on a one-way flight to Rwanda, arguing it was "morally unacceptable" and "leading the nation down a damaging path".

       That outburst came less than two years after Iraqi-born Emad al-Swealmeen planned to detonate a homemade bomb at Liverpool Women's Hospital in retribution for a failed asylum claim having attempted to dupe the authorities into staying here by befriending churchgoers and halfheartedly converting to Christianity.

       Some have been appalled by Mr Welby’s frequent interventions and apparent wokeness, apologising for the role of the church in the “evil” slave trade which last year saw it pledge to turn a ￡100m financial commitment into a ￡1bn fund to cleanse itself of “moral sin”.

       And many were permanently put off by apparent contradictions, like a liberal touch on issues including migration, and progressive stance on sexuality.

       Lay preacher Smyth is thought to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England.

       In November Mr Welby apologised, saying the abuser had "manipulated Christian truth to justify his evil acts”. But it was another two months until he formally resigned.

       It suggested The Holy Spirit took some time to fully emerge. And not for the first time.

       Mr Cottrell, who has taken over most of Mr Welby’s responsibilities, has so far resisted calls to quit, saying he would “do what I can” to bring about independent scrutiny of safeguarding in the Church. But is he really the man to lead it away from the crisis?

       Rt Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, the Bishop of Newcastle, doesn’t think so and said: “I do not think that it’s appropriate for the Archbishop of York to be in post, and certainly to be leading change that the Church needs at this time.

       “I think he (Mr Cottrell) is the wrong person. I think to be in that position of leadership, you have to talk the talk and walk the walk, and you can’t have one without the other. And I think for him to have allowed that to be the case, to allow Tudor to remain in post, I do find it abhorrent.”

       With the church in existential crisis, talk now turns to Mr Welby’s successor and the need to balance the thinking of a modern world with unity, most notably over proposed changes to sexual ethics which has led to the introduction of same-sex blessings in church and might in due course allow same-sex civil marriages for the clergy.

       It is certainly true there have been crises before. When has the church not been in crisis?

       For years it has faced dwindling and ageing congregations - around 700,000 people now attend the Church of England each week compared to 850,000 in 2019 - as it battles for relevance in an increasingly secular society.

       And only a decade ago Peter Ball, Bishop of Lewes between 1977 and 1992 and Bishop of Gloucester from 1992, was jailed after pleading guilty to a string of sex offences on teenagers and young men.

       A report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said he was an example of how a senior member of the Anglican church "was able to sexually abuse vulnerable teenagers and young men for decades".

       It accused the Church of England of "putting its own reputation above the needs of victims" and offering secrecy and protection for abusers that allowed them to "hide in plain sight".

       Ball had been friends with King Charles, then Prince of Wales, before he was convicted.

       In a written submission to the inquiry, the now King said he felt "deep personal regret" for trusting Ball when initial reports of abuse emerged, years before he was jailed. He died in 2019, a year after Smyth.

       The blame for the current mess rests with a collective and historic failure to listen to survivors of abuse magnifying a lack of transparency, accountability and trust.

       How the Church of England begins to recover from the fallout, and if it can, remains to be seen.

       But when people look to an organisation and believe it is something they can no longer trust, history tells us there is seldom any hope of restoring it.