Abstract
Relativistic, spherically symmetric configurations consisting of a gravitating magnetized anisotropic fluid are studied. For such configurations, we obtain static equilibrium solutions with an axisymmetric, poloidal magnetic field produced by toroidal electric currents. The presence of such a field results in small deviations of the shape of the configuration from spherical symmetry. This in turn leads to the modification of an equation for the current and correspondingly to changes in the structure of the internal magnetic field for the systems supported by the anisotropic fluid, in contrast to the case of an isotropic fluid, where such deviations do not affect the magnetic field.