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"The House has confirmed that clergy in civil partnerships, and living in accordance with the teaching of the church on human sexuality, can be considered as candidates for the episcopate," or the office of bishop, Bishop Graham James of Norwich said in a statement.

The issue has been simmering here for years, most publicly in 2003, when the Rev. Jeffrey John, a Church of England priest who was in a long-term relationship with another male priest, was appointed bishop of Reading. Though the pair said they were celibate, the appointment provoked fury here and abroad, and Mr. John was pressed to step down.

He subsequently became the dean of St. Albans, and in 2007 entered into a civil partnership with his companion, the Rev. Grant Holmes.

The new policy was introduced in December, when the House of Bishops, a body within the church, published a list of recent decisions. One of those was to lift the ban on clergymen in civil partnerships becoming bishops. In 2005, the church ruled that people in civil partnerships could become clergy members, but the ruling did not apply to bishops.

The decision does not affect women in the church, who are not allowed to become bishops at all.

Nor does the policy have any bearing on gay priests not in civil partnerships, since they are also expected to be celibate, said a spokesman for the Church of England, the Rev. Arun Arora.

"The church makes a big distinction between sexual orientation and practice," he said in an interview. "The bottom line is that we have no issue with sexuality — God loves you either way, and you can serve in the ministry. But when it comes to sex, the only way we understand it is that it should be expressed within the confines of marriage — whether you're straight or gay."

The British government has proposed allowing same-sex marriage, but, Mr. Arora said, that would not affect the church definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The issue has caused furious divisions within the worldwide Anglican Communion, whose members range from very conservative to very liberal — the Episcopal Church in the United States already allows gay clergy members, as well as women, to serve as bishops, for instance. Evangelical groups condemned the move, saying that the issue should have been taken up with the General Synod, the Church of England's legislative body.

"That would be a major change in church doctrine and therefore not something that can be slipped out in the news," Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform, a conservative church group, told the BBC. "It is something that has got to be considered by the General Synod."

In his statement explaining the decision, Bishop James said that "all candidates for the episcopate undergo a searching examination of personal life and discipline."

He added that "it would be unjust to exclude from consideration for the episcopate anyone seeking to live fully in conformity with the church's teaching on sexual ethics or other areas of personal life and discipline."