“I do want to be clear that this permission does not define an expectation for clergy,” he writes. “In your own life of prayer and within community, you will decide how to respond to this statement of permission.” Each church’s vestry or mission committee also can take up the issue. Before priests can perform the ceremony in a church building, the elected vestry must have given approval for the blessings to be conducted there.

The local [South Carolina] Episcopal bishop has given priests in the diocese permission to perform a rite blessing lifelong same-sex relationships, adding another spark to the fiery debate taking place in denominations nationwide.

Bishop Charles vonRosenberg issued a letter to clergy Tuesday notifying them he is allowing use of “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant.”

The rite allows priests to bless same-sex couples with: “I now pronounce that they are bound to one another in a holy covenant, as long as they both shall live.”

While the rite blesses relationships, in which at least one partner is baptized, it does not constitute marriage. South Carolina law doesn’t allow same-sex marriages.

“It’s a very courageous move given what is going on with the Episcopal split. The bishop is moving forward with what has been lacking in this diocese,” said Grace Episcopal Church member Doug McCoy, who last year married his partner of 37 years in Washington, D.C. “It’s not a popular position, but it should have been done years ago.”

Bishop vonRosenberg leads The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, part of the national Episcopal Church, where support for gay clergy and same-sex unions created a firestorm that prompted some bishops and parishes, including in South Carolina, to separate from it.

The bishop’s letter was released just hours after a much-anticipated trial over the local split began Tuesday in a St. George circuit court.

Control over whether to offer the blessings locally will rest in the hands of individual priests and vestries of churches.

In his letter, vonRosenberg emphasizes that priests aren’t required to offer the blessing.

“I do want to be clear that this permission does not define an expectation for clergy,” he writes. “In your own life of prayer and within community, you will decide how to respond to this statement of permission.”

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