Article continues The report made clear however that there could be no further stained glass ceilings to the ultimate promotion if women do become bishops, and that the church would fall foul of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act if its highest post were denied to them. "If the day comes when a woman is installed on the throne of St Augustine, it would indeed be a notable day in church history and the continuing life of the Church Universal in mission."

The committee wants the possibility included in parliamentary legislation, while pointing out that there were only nine archbishops of Canterbury in the whole of the 20th century.

The bishops' report, drawn up by a committee headed by the Right Rev Christopher Hill, the Bishop of Guildford, foreshadows the likelihood that the church's general synod in July will agree the drawing up of legislation allowing women to be appointed to the episcopacy, though it will probably be at least six years before one gets a mitre. The first women were ordained 12 years ago.

The committee recommended appointing special bishops under what are called transferred episcopal arrangements - TEA for short - to minister to parishes which vote in due course not to accept the authority of a woman in their diocese - nor any men she might ordain.

The bishops would be an innovation supplanting the CofE's historic diocesan structure. But Bishop Hill, a supporter of the move, insisted that nothing was set in stone. He said: "We have identified a way forward which, we believe, has the potential both to permit the admission of women to the episcopate, and preserve the maximum degree of unity across the Church of England. We have tried to make space, to make a room, for those who cannot accept women in the episcopate ... we believe the Church of England should have enough rooms - with interconnecting doors - in our traditionally inclusive household of faith.

"A majority of us believe that an approach along the lines of TEA could help maintain the highest possible degree of communion with the Church of England in the event that women be admitted to the episcopate."

The compromise was greeted cautiously by groups campaigning for the church to proceed immediately, and by those who remain opposed. Only the conservative evangelical Church Society pronounced its customary prediction of doom. Its chairman, the Rev George Curry, said: "The church continues to disintegrate. It is losing its credibility in the nation."

The Rev Elizabeth Macfarlane, of the pro-ordination pressure group GRAS, said: "We are pleased that there is a move to get on with this, but it does not create the unity which we understand is Christ's will for the church. In fact it compromises it at an institutional level."

Prebendary David Houlding, vicar of St Stephen and All Hallows, Hampstead, north London, and the senior clerical catholic opponent of women's ordination on the general synod, said: "I think the church is going to look very silly over this. We have not yet actually decided whether we want women bishops, but we are already looking into the processes of appointing them before we have even reached a theological decision."

Opponents have demanded their own province, a church within a church, with its own finances, synod, and diocesan structures.

Broadly, of the church's factions, many High Church, Anglo-Catholic Anglicans remain opposed to women's ordination, though their ranks and confidence have been depleted over the last decade by defections to Roman Catholicism. Conservative evangelicals who do not believe that women can have headship of any organisation also tend to be opposed.

The synod first decided there were no theological objections to female ordination in 1975, appointed its first female deacons in 1987 and ordained its first women clergy in 1994. Nearly 20% of the Church of England's clergy are women, including half its non-stipendiary ministers, and for the first time the number of women training for ordination exceeds the number of men. Other churches in the worldwide Anglican communion, in the US, Canada and New Zealand, already have women bishops and the Scottish Episcopal Church has no objection in principle.

The report will be discussed by the general synod next month, with Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, arguing that the proposal merits further consideration and calling on the bishops to produce a statement of "theological, ecumenical and canonical implications" in time for the July meeting.

Some women believe that the Church of England bent too far backwards to assuage opponents a decade ago, because it was fearful of being split by an exodus of traditionalists, especially to the Roman Catholic church. Only 430 priests decided to leave in the first decade (of whom 67 subsequently returned) though they cost the church £26m in compensation. Bishop Hill said that such compensation was unlikely to be available again since the church was making provision for those who could still not accept women clergy.

Possible candidates

It will probably be at least six years before a woman becomes a bishop. Among possible future candidates are:

The Very Rev June Osborne, Dean of Salisbury and the Church of England's most senior ordained woman. Aged 52, married to a QC and with two children. Author of a controversial (and suppressed) report urging church to be more welcoming to gay people, 1988. A Manchester City fan.

The Very Rev Vivienne Faull, 50, Dean of Leicester and first woman appointed to a cathedral deanery. Former youth and community worker in Liverpool, director of Greenbelt Christian rock festival and first woman Oxbridge chaplain at Clare, Cambridge.

Canon Lucy Winkett, 37, Canon Pastor of St Paul's Cathedral. Educated at Cambridge and Birmingham universities. Vividly depicted hostility that first women clergy faced when seen on a television documentary being cold-shouldered by male colleagues at St Paul's.

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