have decided.

They will be allowed to celebrate communion and preach if asked by a rector.

The move was revealed yesterday by the Ven. Thomas Dyson, Archdeacon of Bermuda.

He was speaking following a decision by British MPs to approve the creation of women priests by the Church of England, the mother church of the world's 70 million Anglicans.

Whether Bermuda would have its own women priests was a matter for the Bishop, said Archdeacon Dyson.

"He won't go ahead with ordination of women at the moment,'' he said. "But we have decided that a woman priest in good standing who comes to Bermuda can, at the invitation of the individual rector, celebrate the holy communion or take services and preach.

"She would be welcome to officiate in a parish church but only at the invitation of the rector.'' But also yesterday, a Bermuda clergyman restated his opposition to women priests.

The Rev. Ewen Ratteray, from Pembroke, said he hoped Bermuda would never ordain one.

And he questioned the power of British politicians to rule on Church matters.

"Most of them are not even Anglicans. It doesn't make sense. Why should they have any say in our affairs?'' MPs in Britain's House of Commons voted 215 to 21 on Friday to back the decision of the church's ruling synod to admit women priests. As the state church, its more significant measures must be approved by Britain's parliament.

The unelected House of Lords will vote on the issue this week and is likely to follow the lead of the elected house.

The synod voted narrowly last November to welcome women into the clergy, opening up a bitter rift between reformers and traditionalists. Hundreds of Anglicans and some priests have since sought to join the Roman Catholic Church.

The Church spokesman in parliament, Mr. Michael Alison, said it was right MPs should have a role in such momentous decisions by the state church.

The church "remains an organisation with a vigorous life whose influence reaches into all corners of the nation,'' he said.

But Mr. Andrew Bowden, Conservative, said it was wrong for "agnostics, atheists and feminists'' to vote.

Environment secretary Mr. John Gummer, a deeply religious man who resigned from the synod over women's ordination insisted he was an agnostic on the issue.

But he said he could not stand by while church elders turned their backs on history.

"It is a kind of arrogance that the Archbishop of York can say that 100 of his predecessors were wrong and that he is right.'' Opponents of women priests argue that the ordination of women goes against the religious ministry of Christ and his disciples.

Anglican churches in the United States and other countries already have women priests. The Church of England expects to ordain the first women priests by Easter 1994.

The Bishop of Bermuda was off the Island and unavailable for comment.