WASHINGTON -- The highest court in the Methodist Church yesterday defrocked a lesbian minister in Philadelphia and reinstated a Virginia pastor who had been suspended for denying membership in his congregation to a gay man.

The nine-member Judicial Council also voided a declaration by Methodists in the Pacific Northwest that there was a "difference of opinion among faithful Christians regarding sexual orientation and practice." The court said the declaration was an "historical statement without prescriptive force" and had no bearing on church laws.

The decisions amounted to a clean sweep for conservatives in the church who believe that homosexual activity is a sin and want to strictly enforce a Methodist rule against "self-avowed, practicing" homosexuals in ordained ministry. They were the latest in a series of recent defeats for liberals in the nation's second-largest Protestant denomination who have sought to be more welcoming toward gays and lesbians.

The court rulings, which are final, put an end to the Rev. Irene "Beth" Stroud's hopes of remaining an ordained Methodist minister. Ms. Stroud, 35, said she thought that she "was prepared for whatever might happen" but found it impossible to master her emotions today. "It's been tears off and on all morning," she said.

Ms. Stroud said she intended to continue working at Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown as a lay minister, which means she cannot preside at communion and baptisms but will still run the church's youth group.

Ms. Stroud's ordeal began when she told her congregation in 2003 that she did not want to hide the fact that she was living in a "covenanted relationship" with Chris Paige, 33, a Web site designer. Her message from the pulpit violated the church's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays and lesbians in the clergy and resulted in a formal charge by her bishop.

In December 2004, a jury of 13 fellow ministers convicted Ms. Stroud of "practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teaching" and removed her ministerial credentials. But a regional appeals panel overturned the verdict, citing legal errors and the ambiguity of a clause in the church's constitution that pledges no discrimination on the basis of "status."

Yesterday, the Judicial Council reaffirmed the original jury's verdict and penalty by a 6 to 2 vote, with one judge absent.

The Judicial Council's rulings also represented a sharp reversal in fortune, but of a happier kind, for the Rev. Edward Johnson, pastor of South Hill United Methodist Church in South Hill, Va. Mr. Johnson had been on an involuntary, unpaid leave since June, when his fellow ministers in the church's Virginia conference voted 581 to 20 to punish him for refusing to allow a gay man to become a member of his congregation. Both his district superintendent and Virginia's Methodist bishop, Charlene P. Kammerer, had counseled him to admit the man, who had been attending the church and singing in the choir for months.

The Judicial Council reinstated Mr. Johnson by a 5-to-3 vote with one member absent. It said the church's laws give local pastors the discretion "to make the determination of a person's readiness to affirm the vows of membership."

The Rev. Tom Thomas, a Methodist minister in Virginia's Mecklenburg County who served as Mr. Johnson's legal counsel, said the decision had "salvaged" the career of a good pastor.According to Mr. Thomas, Mr. Johnson turned away the gay man for membership because the man was in a same-sex relationship and refused to see it as a sin.

The Judicial Counsel viewed the Johnson case as a question of a pastor's authority, rather than a question about whether gays and lesbians are eligible to join the church. The Methodist Church's Book of Discipline says they are "persons of sacred worth," and the church has repeatedly claimed that it is open to them.

In a dissenting opinion, Judicial Council member Susan T. Henry-Crowe said the decision "compromises the historical understanding that the Church is open to all."

Like many other Protestant denominations, the Methodist Church has been struggling with sexual issues for 30 years. Its legislative body, the General Conference, meets every four years and has in recent sessions reaffirmed the prohibition on "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" in the clergy by increasingly large margins.

Because of a changing formula for the geographic distribution of delegates, conservative Methodists from the South and Midwest have also gained growing influence in the General Conference, and they have, in turn, elected more conservatives to the Judicial Council.

At the most recent General Conference meeting, in Pittsburgh in May 2004, delegates voted to tighten language in church laws to make it easier to charge, try and convict openly gay and lesbian ministers.

Three such trials have been held in recent years, resulting in two convictions and one acquittal.