www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Can East and West Coexist With Married Priests?

In recent years, the UGCC has served a similar purpose for married men promised by the Ruthenian Church they would be considered for the presbyterate but who found themselves parked in the diaconate for years. I also know some Ruthenians who passed through the Melkite Church en route to Johnstown. While the Melkites would certainly welcome them, for many of Carpatho-Rusyn background, it's just not the same thing (just how different was brought home to me when I attended the Slavonic Divine Liturgy led by the Presov seminarians yesterday).

This is what neither the Russian Orthodox nor even the Greek Orthodox ever have understood or 'get' with respect to either the Rusyns or Ukrainians...We may fight each other like cats and dogs over whether we were and/or are Greek Catholic or Orthodox, but we will jointly cry at events like the concert regardless and kick anyone who 'doesn't get it.'

How many Ruthenian Married Priests are there in the U.S.?

Married priests are going to have to coexist within the Roman Catholic Church itself somehow. That seems like a bigger issue than how it would coexist with churches of other traditions.

Mandatory celibacy for clergy as a norm is in my opinion complete craziness. Looking at it from my own vantage point, which of course is one of an outsider with no skin in the game.

If mandatory celibacy for lower clergy is complete craziness, then so is mandatory celibacy for the episcopacy.

It's a difference of degrees, not of kind.

That's true. When you look at it objectively, having marital status (or non status) be the primary criteria for deciding whether an individual can lead a diocese is in fact craziness. I wouldn't be shocked if this has led to people who would otherwise be unfit to lead being put in the position of being a bishop.

Anyway, as to degrees. I think it's a good deal crazier to expect every parish priest will not be married as opposed to a much smaller number of bishops. Again, simply objectively speaking.

I dunno. Leaving aside something I remember about the cross being folly or something like that, if celibacy is required of everybody, at least you keep it from being a free pass to the episcopacy by widening your pool of candidates. That is, if you remove marital status from the question, it is no longer (as you say) the "primary criteria". Anyway I'm not sure it's all that simple anyway.

I'm fairly certain arguments such as that have been used to tell Eastern Catholics they should take the high road and accept celibacy. Not my bun fight. If it makes sense to you, that's okay.

You are correct that the problem of having the pool of episcopal candidates limited to unmarried men is solved by not allowing married men to become priests in the first place, so everybody is a candidate. That is a "solution" if you want to look at it that way.

I don't especially.

I'm just saying "crazy" is not an especially useful measure of Christianity, and I guess (here not particularly referencing your remarks) that Easterners getting excited at every chip knocked out of the Western discipline of celibacy seems counter-productive and hypocritical.

That may be 'numerically' the case, but I wonder if a serious, scholarly, academic analysis (i.e. perhaps developed by a sociologist or political scientist with a theological bent) of the Church of Rome's methodology contrasted with the Orthodox methodology of Episcopal elevation would show any meaningful statistical differentiation in terms of either ability or performance in either Church? My 'gut' tells me from anecdotal experience that a larger pool doesn't necessarily lead to superior 'fish'.

We fish (although I'll never be bishop) select ourselves don't we ... so in addition to psychology we must look at people who are "called"

I feel I've been "called" to become clergy - so far no takers - The Latin Church blew me off completely many years ago (despite their desperate claim that no one was stepping up to be clergy at the time)

There are doors open in the Byzantine World I was unable to take advantage of last spring (no $$$)

But the point of this post - IF YOU ARE CALLED BY CHRIST HIMSELF - that is another psychological / sociometric scale altogether - I think something beyond Industrial Psychologists and Job Plaeement / apptitude professionals could test for ....

And so what makeup does a person who is called have?
What makes a great Bishop? A great Priest? A great Deacon?
What are the criteria and who is setting them?

As Laity ( laos = people or laikos= the people vs (clergy" is "kleros in Greek)

The original "work" was done by THE PEOPLE and the KLEROS were FROM THE PEOPLE - SERVING THE PEOPLE.

So let's not forget - Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Cantors, etc are PEOPLE who are supposed to be serving THE PEOPLE even though they have been designated KLEROS.

As Church Buildings became more and more beautifully ornate and required FINANCIAL support - it may be that our modern and ancient CLERGY are really like fundraisers and businesspeople who also preach - sometimes I think a bad combination.

Just a thought

By the way ... anyone have numbers of the Ruthenian (Byzantine Catholic) Presbyters and Priests who are married?

I'm very interested to know if anyone knows.

Both the West and the East ordained married men to the episcopacy, at least up through the 7th century. Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, was a married bishop, the son of a married bishop. There were even married Popes, and Popes who were the legitimate sons of Popes.

By the 7th century, however, the consensus within the Church was running heavily against married bishops. In the West, it was felt none of the higher clergy should be married, but the East also ruled against married bishops at the Quinisextunct Council in Trullo, which ruled not that bishops must be celibate, but that bishops must be elected from among the ranks of the monastic clergy. There is a difference there--any Tom, Dick or Harry can be celibate just by not getting married (for those of you who don't know, there is a big difference between celibacy and continence; Augustine was celibate but not continent until after his baptism). Monasticism implies a particular way of life, and that's what was mandated by the canons of Trullo.

Why, one may ask. The first was the rising influence of monastics within the Eastern Church, and their spiritual leadership in contrast to the worldliness of much of the secular clergy. Beyond that, bishops wielded considerable power, and controlled enormous wealth, and it was felt that the temptation would be almost irresistible for a married bishops with children to feather the nest of his offspring. Given the corruption and nepotism of the Renaissance Popes, who used their power, wealth and influence to further the careers of their "nephews" (Old Sicilian Proverb: "A priest is a man everyone calls 'Father'--except for his own children, who must call him 'Uncle'"), this fear was probably not misplaced. In any case, where it is observed in the spirit, and not just the letter, selecting bishops from among the monastics seems to yield good results.

I don't mean it does (and considering things as they stand, it manifestly does not). I mean only to respond to the line of thinking that dismisses the whole practice for "craziness" and like practical considerations.

I, for one, don't view celibacy or the lack of celibacy, as a panacea or cure all. I will only state that for the churches of the Eastern discipline, it has not been the norm and neither Ea Semper, or Cum Data Fuerit or any other pronouncement from the Vatican will change that.

God works in strange ways and on His own timetable, and I find it remarkable that in the period that spanned my dad's lifetime - 1917 through 2009 - this issue tore at the heart of the American Greek Catholic community, caused at least two schisms and led to my own existence by virtue of my family's decision to follow the Orthodox. By the time of his death the rule of the East was slowly, but steadily returning to the American Eastern Catholics. Today, in my little part of the world, all three Greek Catholic parishes, Ukrainian and Ruthenian have married priests with children. Go figure...