PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A member of the Church of Jessu Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) ordained a black into the priesthood yesterday, saying he did so in an attempt to force a revision in Mormon doctrine regarding blacks.

Church officials said the action was null and void.

The Church accepts blacks as members but denies them the priesthood.

Douglas A. Wallace, 46, of Vancouver, Wash., baptized Larry Lester, 22, also of Vancouver, in a motel swimming pool in Portland. He then ordained Lester to the office of priest in the Aaronic Priesthood of the Church.

Lester in turn baptized and ordained Marion L. Wright, 32, a Vancouver building contractor. Lester is black. Wallace and Wright are white.

The Mormon Church has no paid clergy. All white male members are entitled and expected to hold various degrees of the preisthood after the age of 12.

Wallace "is using the priesthood in an unrighteous manner and his action will have no validity because the president of the church has said that blacks are not to hold the priesthood," said Robert Seamons, president of the church's Portland-Oregon Misson.

Robert E. McGee, public communications director of the Vancouver Stake (comparable to a Catholic diocese), issued a statement saying the ordination was null and void.

"Under the established procedures of the church, a person is not ordained to the priesthood or any office therein, until authorization has been given by a presideing officer in the church and the candidate's name is submitted to the priesthood membership of the stake, or ward, for approval," McGee's statement said.

The rites were preceded by a news conference at which Wallace said he had long been bothered by the church's bias against blacks and felt the time had come to challenge it.