London, England - Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams won overwhelming backing on Thursday for the ordination of women bishops under a compromise plan that seeks to placate deeply divided liberal and traditionalist Anglicans.
The issue of the so-called "stained glass ceiling" stopping women rising up the hierarchy ranks alongside the ordination of gay clergy as one of the most disruptive in the Anglican church.
Women bishops could be ordained in the Church of England by 2012 but several legal and theological hurdles remain to be cleared before the final go-ahead is given, officials said after the church parliament vote.
With just one dissenting voice in the 341-strong General Synod, Williams won endorsement for an elaborate compromise whereby dissenting parishes could stick with male bishops if they wish.
"We are in uncharted territory, there is no option for not changing," Williams told Anglicans who have bickered long and hard over the issue.
"Great disruptions are tempting, seductive, dramatic and not very useful for the Kingdom of God and sooner or later they have to be undisrupted," he said in a call for calm.
If the compromise wins full acceptance after a possible timetable is mapped out at the next synod meeting, Williams may one day be succeeded by a woman Archbishop as spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans.
Anglicans in Canada, the United States and New Zealand already have women bishops.
One in six of England's parish priests is a woman and, a decade after they were first ordained, liberals say it is insulting not to let them hold positions of power.
But traditionalists say that as Jesus Christ's apostles were all men, there is no precedent in the Bible for women bishops.
With 100 speakers queuing up to air their differences, feelings ran high in the synod chamber where Williams pleaded for a typically fudged Anglican consensus -- a sharp contrast to the disciplinary hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.
"Integrity might not mean absolute division. It can mean a process of admittedly painful, often untidy but ultimately evangelical self-discovery," he told them.
"It's precisely because the journey is unavoidably long and uncertain that we need to move with sure steps at each stage," he added.