THE Church of England has voted to officially shatter its "stained glass ceiling" by voting in favour of appointing women bishops.

The Anglican General Synod's change to canon law was passed by an overwhelming majority with a simple show of hands at a meeting chaired by the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu.

The Very Rev Vivienne Faull, 59, Dean of York Minster, is considered one of the key contenders to be appointed as first woman bishop in the Church of England. It is anticipated that the first female bishop could take her seat next year.

The change sees the simple addition of a sentence to Canon 33, which reads: "A man or a woman may be consecrated to the office of bishop."

The Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Rev Justin Welby said the church was starting "a completely new phase of our existence".

Speaking to reporters after the vote, he said: "It has taken a very, very long time and the way is now open to select people for the episcopacy, to nominate them on the basis simply of our sense that they are called by God to be in that position without qualification as to their gender."

Along with gay marriage, the issue of women bishops has dominated religious debate in recent years.

The first women were ordained in the Church of England in 1994 and they now make up about a third of clergy.

The General Synod overwhelmingly backed legislation introducing the first women bishops in the Church of England in July and yesterday's vote rubber-stamped the move.

Dean Faull was yesterday unavailable to comment on the vote.

Having studied at the Queen's School Chester and St Hilda's College, Oxford, she was among the first batch of more than 1,000 women ordained in the Church of England.

A former chaplain to Clare College, Cambridge, Dean Faull was the first woman to hold such an appointment at either Oxford or Cambridge universities.

In 2000, she became the first woman appointed to run any English cathedral when she was made provost of Leicester Cathedral.

She was named dean of York Minster in 2012, with a staff of 160 and 600 volunteers to coordinate.

When she started as a priest, Dean Faull said it was not unknown for a woman to be forbidden to take funerals because as she once explained: "The local population took the view that if a woman led the funeral service, how would you know that you were properly dead?"