Bishops have released hundreds of pages of resources to help guide the Church of England (CoE) towards making decisions on issues of identity, sexuality and marriage within two years.

Decisions on questions around same-sex relationships must be made “with some urgency”, according to a 480-page tome aimed at finding a way forward past deep divisions within the Church.

Churchgoers are being urged to “listen and learn together” by engaging with the Living In Love And Faith resources, which took three years to produce by around 40 people.

It is hoped discussions from now until late 2021 will help the CoE make “whatever decisions are needful for our common life regarding matters of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage”.

Potential scenarios following the period of engagement will be laid out, with a view to the House of Bishops putting any proposals before the General Synod in 2022.

The book, which is accompanied by podcasts, videos, a course and library of online resources, reads: “Some of those differences of view relate to the ethics and lifestyle of opposite sex relationships and some relate to questions around gender and pastoral provisions for transgender people.

“Most pressing among our differences are questions around same-sex relationships, and we recognise that here decisions in several interconnected areas need to be made with some urgency.”

The suite of resources is thought to be the most extensive work in this area by any faith group in the world.

Bishop of Coventry Christopher Cocksworth, speaking at a briefing to launch the learning material, agreed that a question he wants people to discuss is whether the CoE could conduct same-sex marriages.

He said this is “only one question among many that we want people to engage with in a really serious way”.

During the briefing, bishops acknowledged the Church has not always been a safe place for LGBTI+ people.

In a foreword to the resources, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, recognised the “huge damage and hurt” that has been caused.

They write: “As soon as we begin to consider questions of sexual identity and behaviour, we need to acknowledge the huge damage and hurt that has been caused where talk of truth, holiness and discipleship has been wielded harshly and not ministered as a healing balm.

“Especially amongst LGBTI+ people, every word we use – quite possibly including these in this very foreword, despite all the care we exercise – may cause pain.”

The Church should be “deeply ashamed and repentant” for the hurt and “unnecessary suffering” caused, they add.

However, while many people may wish the church could “jump to a quick decision”, they write that discernment will require time.

Access to places of worship will have to be “supervised” when they reopen, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said.

Places of worship come under step three of the Government’s coronavirus recovery strategy, which means they cannot open until July 4 at the earliest.

But when they do reopen, certain sections of buildings could be closed to allow for cleaning to take place, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, has suggested.

Speaking during a Zoom panel briefing hosted by the Religion Media Centre on Tuesday, the cardinal said: “I think one thing is very clear, access to a church in the foreseeable future will be supervised, so it’s not as if the church doors will be flung open and say ‘come in when you want’.

“There will have to be people there, the whole process will have to be supervised.”

He added: “Each day a different section of the church might be made available, it doesn’t have to be the whole church, the whole time.

“So you could have the right hand back part (of the church) for one day, and then the next day it will be the next session, so that would enable a cleaning routine to be more feasible, and it would leave parts of the church unused for maybe three days, which would help in terms of the hygiene.

“I would see the request to have access to churches for individual prayer both as a response to spiritual need and as a practical trial run, in which we can learn quickly.”

Asked if worshippers should wear masks while visiting places of worship, the cardinal said he was not in a position to comment until July, but added that church leaders should not be “overreacting”.

Elsewhere on the panel, it was said the timeframe of synagogues reopening would be based on the profile of the community they are situated in.

Jo Grose, communities director of United Synagogue said: “We know that reopening is going to be more drawn out, more complex and the decisions we make are really going to depend on the profile of the community.

“So there will be setting-by-setting decisions about how we do that based on their demographics and their buildings.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he hopes for a Royal Commission into social care after the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to BBC News, Justin Welby said he hoped there would be lessons learned after this crisis, mentioning a Royal Commission, a rarely used form of public inquiry.

The archbishop said: “What I hope and pray that we learn is first of all that we cannot base our society on the idolatry of wealth, even of health.

“Secondly, that we build a vision of the society we want. We have a commission of inquiry into what we learned from this, not to blame but to learn.

“We have Royal Commission on how we look after social care.”

When asked whether austerity measures should be put in place after the pandemic, he said it would be “catastrophic”, particularly for already disadvantaged people.

The archbishop also spoke about mental health in the pandemic, stressing that there is reasonable anxiety which may be difficult to talk about.

He said: “When I talk to the doctor who I talk to from time to time he says the point about anxiety and depression is they’re there to tell you something.

“Loss, grief, anxiety are traumas and trauma has to be gone through and you can’t do it just with the stiff upper lip.”

Last month the archbishop delivered the first assembly for the newly-formed virtual Oak National Academy, telling pupils “patience, positivity, and keeping going under pressure” will sustain hope.

The archbishops of Canterbury and York have apologised after the Church of England (CofE) declared only heterosexual married couples should have sex.

Archbishops Justin Welby and John Sentamu said they took responsibility for releasing the CofE statement last week which they acknowledged had “jeopardised trust”.

The pastoral guidance was issued to clergy after a recent change in UK law allowed straight couples to tie the knot in a civil ceremony instead of a traditional marriage following a lengthy legal battle.

It said civil partnerships should be no more than “sexually abstinent friendships”.

The archbishops said in a statement on Thursday: “We as Archbishops, alongside the bishops of the Church of England, apologise and take responsibility for releasing a statement last week which we acknowledge has jeopardised trust.

“We are very sorry and recognise the division and hurt this has caused.”

The CofE statement issued last week said: “With opposite sex civil partnerships, and with those for same sex couples, the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics remains unchanged.

“For Christians, marriage, that is the lifelong union between a man and a woman, contracted with the making of vows, remains the proper context for sexual activity.

“In its approach to civil partnerships the Church seeks to uphold that standard, to affirm the value of committed, sexually abstinent friendships and to minister sensitively and pastorally to those Christians who conscientiously decide to order their lives differently.”

The pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England, added: “Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings.”

The church has for decades grappled with how it addresses LGBT rights as the views of society become more liberal.

It is currently carrying out a “major study” on human sexuality called Living in Love and Faith, which is due to be published later this year.

The archbishops said they were continuing their commitment to the study.

“This process is intended to help us all to build bridges that will enable the difficult conversations that are necessary as, together, we discern the way forward for the Church of England,” they said in a statement.

Since New Year’s Eve, heterosexual couples have been able to opt for the civil option over a traditional marriage.

The CofE allows clergy to be in same-sex civil partnerships provided they are sexually abstinent.

Labour’s Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) raised the idea of a possible all-faith delegation, saying: “If we want peace we have got to carry on speaking to the Iranians, and all of us who’ve been campaigning for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the other prisoners held, believe that perhaps speaking at a level of faith, an all-faith delegation going to Iran at the present time to speak to the faith leaders in Iran might actually… would he support that sort of delegation visiting Iran?”

Mr Sheerman said he had spoken to the Archbishop of Canterbury and it could take place.

Mr Raab said: “We need to keep the diplomatic lines of communication open… I sympathise very much with the spirit of the idea of an all-faith diplomatic initiative. I think right at the moment he will have seen that we advise through our Foreign Office travel advice against travel to Iran and I think for the moment that’s probably the safest bet.”

Tory Tom Tugendhat, foreign affairs committee chairman in the last parliament, said: “Reaching out through friends in the region… would be a good avenue for making sure that Iran, not only comes back into the fold and frees people from this awful tyranny, but perhaps also gives up the policy of hostage taking that has not just taken Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe away from her daughter, but many, many others and their families too.”

All religions and their leaders must own up to extremist activities within their faith and examine which of their traditional teachings enable followers to commit evil, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

The Most Rev Justin Welby, the figurehead of the worldwide Anglican Church, told interfaith leaders in Sri Lanka that accepting responsibility is key rather than disavowing an extremist.

Mr Welby arrived in Sri Lanka on Thursday and first visited St Sebastian’s Church near the town of Negombo to pay homage to those killed in the Easter suicide bomb attacks blamed on extremist Muslim groups.

On Friday, he told religious leaders that discussion among faiths has become more difficult in the last 30-40 years and in every faith, including in Christianity, extremist attitudes have grown.

“It is the duty of every religious tradition, for its leaders, to resist extremism and to teach peaceful dialogue,” he said.

“So the first challenge to all of us is take responsibility.

“If a Christian does something evil, it is not for me to say ‘well they are not a real Christian’. I have to ask myself ‘what is within my faith tradition, our historic teaching, that makes it easy for them to do that?’

“The second challenge in dialogue is honesty. Dialogue is where we are honest, where we open the door of our heart and say it is this that frightens me about you or this that I disagree with you about.

“Whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, whatever faith, society calls us to account and I believe that God calls us to account at the end of time. Have you been builders of peace or builders of pain?”

In the Easter attacks, more than 260 people died in six co-ordinated bombings of churches and hotels.

Seven suicide bombers from two local Muslim extremist groups who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State carried out the attacks, which also left some 500 people injured.

Other suspects killed themselves by exploding bombs, some with their families, as police and military closed in.

Islamic clerics expressed outrage at the attacks and did not allow the suicide bombers and those who killed themselves to avoid capture to be buried in Islamic burial grounds, having declared that they do not belong to the Muslim faith. Their children were buried with Islamic rituals.