It was hard not to feel a certain sympathy for the Rev John Pickering, rector of Drumcree, as he sat in the splendid assembly hall of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham listening to the Church of Ireland primate, Archbishop Eames, giving ultimatums to the Portadown Orangemen.
He knew they were ultimatums with no great muscle behind them. The bishops - including, one must assume, Dr Eames himself - had already turned down a Synod subcommittee proposal to give them powers to ban a particular service which might lead to "scandalous circumstances". The main argument against it seemed to be that to give extra powers to bishops was like "giving blood to a vampire" - in one bishop's words - and would be anathema to the church's Protestant concept of moral authority.
Without such powers, if the Portadown Orangemen decide to ignore the primate's pleas to obey the law and keep off Drumcree church property - as they show every indication of doing - there seems to be very little the church authorities can do about it.
Except to ratchet up the pressure on Mr Pickering. The Synod did this by declaring that if the local Orangemen refuse to respond to the primate's pleas, it will be up to him and the members of his select vestry, many of them also Orangemen, to withdraw the invitation to attend the July 4th service.
That is what the motion passed by a large majority yesterday effectively did. The very size of the majority gave it considerable moral weight: nobody could say it was the Southern Synod members ganging up on their Northern brethren.
However, at the end of the afternoon Mr Pickering seemed unfazed by the call from the church's highest decision-making body, and made it clear that he would be turning nobody away.
So all the strength of Archbishop Eames's language appeared to be for naught. The Portadown Orangemen were "on a collision course" with the Protestant churches, he said. They were beyond "what can be reasonably be expected of the Church of Ireland by way of extending to them Christian hospitality or a Christian welcome"; the church could not accept the association with "the scenes we have witnessed on the hill at Drumcree".
The primate's indefatigable press officer, Ms Liz Harries, emphasised that the moral weight the Synod was bringing to bear on the Drumcree rector was "the furthest you can go in Anglican law".
But her boss's rueful look as he watched Mr Pickering giving interviews to journalists after the vote spoke of considerable disappointment. It was a change from the hushed tone of history being made which he was using during the count half-an-hour earlier.