If Canon Jeremy Pemberton and the Rev Andrew Foreshew-Cain win places on the General Synod, it will embarrass bishops who issued guidance last year banning clergy from entering same-sex marriages.

Canon Pemberton, a hospital chaplain in Lincolnshire, is in the middle of a court battle with a bishop who 'sacked' him from his role as a priest, while Mr Foreshew-Cain has been privately rebuked by his bishop,

They are among several openly gay clergy and lay people standing for the Synod in the run-up to a contentious debate as early as next year over whether the Church should drop its ban on same-sex marriage and the formal blessing of civil partnerships.

Andrea Williams, of the campaigning group Christian Concern, said: 'They are in direct defiance of Church and biblical teaching and for them to stand is a provocative act.'

Mr Foreshew-Cain, a vicar in Kilburn, North London, said: 'No one has a right to tell anyone else they should not stand.'

A Church of England spokesman said it would be 'idle speculation' to comment on the outcome of the elections until the results were known in mid-October.

Canon Jeremy Pemberton, a former parish priest and a divorced father of five, tied the knot with Laurence Cunnington in April 2014.

Rev Foreshew-Cain, the Vicar of St Mary with All Souls in Kilburn and St James in West Hampstead, had said that marriage was the right thing to do in accordance with his faith.