The rule change from the two-year-old Northern Church - a union of Protestant churches - was voted in almost unanimously by a summit in Lübeck on Friday by 156 votes to two.
It states that as long as a prospective pastor and his or her same-sex partner are in a "recognized life partnership", the pair are to be treated the same as heterosexual couples when being considered for entering a parish residence.
The right to live in the clergy's residence is a "symbol" according to Pastor Mathias Benckert, a spokesman for the Northern Church.
Benckert said:"The principles of trust, care, reliability and commitment, all the things that would need to be part of a pastor's marriage - these things also go for a registered life partnership,"he said.
The rules guaranteed that clergy, whether gay or straight, would only be chosen if the parish council and the regional supervisor, whose job it is to nominate them, agreed.
The model allows conservative and liberal elements of the church to form a consensus, Benckert said, as if the congregation is not happy with a prospective clergyman or woman, they will not be selected.
"If the provost [supervisor] knows a parish is very conservative, they simply won't suggest a gay candidate,"he said.
Benckert added the union had made the advance "a little late" due to the fusion of the previous church authorities of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania into the Northern Church in 2012.
-naij
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