The Church of Scotland voted to allow its gay ministers to marry. The church, however, left the theological definition of marriage beyond the purview of the meeting, and will take it up next year.
Attendees of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly meeting, which opened in Edinburgh on Saturday, voted 339-215 to allow congregations to appoint individuals in same-sex marriages as ministers or deacons.
The church still maintains its traditional view of marriage between man and woman in its theology, however.
"We had a debate which made very clear that we were not interfering with our theological definition of marriage and were not going to the place where ministers or deacons could themselves be conducting same-sex marriages," said Rev. John Chalmers, principal clerk to the general assembly.
"It is an entirely different discussion," he added.
The Theological Forum will present its report to the church in 2017 when the theological understanding of same-sex marriage will be discussed in greater detail, and the church will decide on its theological stance on the issue.
Twenty five (about 3 percent of the total number of) ministers have left the Church of Scotland because of disagreement over the issue of same-sex relationships.
About 32.4 percent or 1.7 million Scottish people adhere to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
More than 850 commissioners from Scotland, the rest of UK, Asia, North America, Africa, Middle East, Europe, and the Caribbean came to attend the 2016 general assembly.
Rev Scott Rennie, the church's first openly gay minister said that the general assembly decision was positive for gay people, and that he wants to extend the role of homosexual clergy to grant them authorization for presiding over same-sex marriages and civil unions.
"Ministers can be ordained and can be in a same sex marriage or a civil partnership but ministers can't marry same sex couples," Rennie told The Courier. "The next big step is for the church to say, for ministers who are happy to, you can conduct marriages of people of the same gender."
Rev. David Robertson, moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, said that he was "saddened" by church's decision.
"In adopting this policy the Church of Scotland has not only dissociated itself from the vast majority of Christian churches throughout the world (Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical) but has lost all claim to be the National Church for Scotland," Robertson was quoted as saying by The Telegraph. "It is a sad day for all the Christian churches in Scotland when what used to be the National Kirk, has now departed so clearly from the Bible."
