"Spouses thereby ensure the survival of society and culture, and rightly deserve specific and categorical legal recognition by the state.

"Any attempts to change the meaning of the word 'spouse' contradict right reason: legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, cannot be applied to unions between persons of the same sex without creating a false understanding of the nature of marriage."

Mr Millar, who helped to pioneer the Alpha course that has revived evangelical Christianity in Britain and worldwide, will serve in Uganda and London, where he will be titled Bishop in Mission.

An announcement is expected from Lambeth Palace later this week.

The scheme is understood to have been worked out by Dr Williams and the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres.

In July Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ordained 14 priests in his cathedral. Nine of them were women and only five were men.

Last year the Bishop of Salisbury ordained 18 women priests and only eight men. About half of those in training for the priesthood are now women. The dramatic change raises the prospect of the Church of England becoming similar to professions such as nursing and teaching, where females dominate.

In protest, Wilson applied for acceptance as a priest in the Anglican Diocese of Bolivia and was granted that recognition.

"It was a way to resolve conscience," Wilson said.

Wilson said he had hoped he would be allowed to function as a visiting Anglican priest in Alabama Episcopal churches, but that request has been denied by Episcopal Bishop Henry N. Parsley. "I wanted to be treated like a priest from another diocese," Wilson said.