He has been named as chair of the Ozanne Foundation, whose director Jayne Ozanne is a high-profile Anglican activist for LGBT inclusivity. In July Ozanne introduced a motion to the CofE's General Synod calling for a ban on gay 'conversion therapy'.

The charity's trustees and council of reference include the Dean of St Paul's, David Ison, Rev Steve Chalke, Ben Bradshaw MP and the Dean of St Albans, Jeffrey John.

With more than 12,000 CofE churches listed and attendance figures continuing to fall, locals groups are facing a battle to keep parish buildings, described as the 'jewel in the crown of our built heritage', open.

The report suggests the buildings be adopted by the whole community rather than just the dwindling congregations who attend them.

The CofE has just monumentally outdone Bishop Wright's criterion for selecting bishops by appointing an über-bureaucrat to England's third-most important ecclesiastical throne. Wherever the new Bishopette of Londonistan goes, people will serve not only tea, but chunky slices of gooey chocolate cake swathed in the swaddling clothes of the icing of niceness. Dame Sarah Mullally might as well wear a tea cosy instead of a mitre!

The rector of St Helen's has said that his first question to the new bishop will be to ask him or her to "declare as sin what God calls sin".

If the bishop does not condemn homosexual relationships as sinful, then some form of break will be "unavoidable", the Rev William Taylor said last week in a sermon at the church, which attracts 2,000 worshippers across its four Sunday services.

He said: "We now wait to see what the new Bishop of London's views are."