www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Married priests

I've seen this topic float around here a bit. But I am confused as far as if there are actually married priests in the US? If so how many are from US (as opposed to Europe)?

Tons of them. Maybe not Ruthenians, but the Melkites have been ordaining married men in the U.S. for close to two decades (we've got one), while the Ukrainians are not far behind. I believe Bishop John Michael also ordains married men for the Romanian Exarchate.

Even so, there are far fewer Eastern Catholic married priests in this country than there are married Latin priests, almost all of whom are former Anglican-Episcopalian or Lutheran ministers. Last I looked, there were about 80 of these here, but now the number must be well over 100.

Ironic, ain't it?

Which ones require Rome's approval first before ordaining teh married men?

Christ is Born
Hello
Here in Thunder Bay in Ontario Canada, my relatives attend a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church have had married clergy for many years!!!!!Two were from Ukraine and If I am right one was Brazilian born and ordained in Rome and one was Canadian born and ordained in Canada. The one of present priests is from Bosnia of Ukrainian parents and the other is Ukrainian born. I am also positive that there are many more here in other Eparchies in Canada.


Unworthy
Kolya

None. All that is required is the willingness of a bishop to ordain the man.

To add to Kolya's post, four out of the last six priests at our local UGCC parish were married.

I thought that it is in the laws of the Ruthenian Church that they cannot ordain married men outside of their traditional territory without permission from Rome. Heard this from CAF.

Here's a video of an ordination of a deacon from Canada who is ordained in the US. This is for the Ukrainian Church:



So he served as a deacon in Canada, then ordained to presthood in the US and now serves in North Carolina, according to the text on the video.

edit: And according to the same text, he's married w/ children.

Any Ruthenian bishop who wanted to ordain a married man without Rome's approval could do so, despite the particular law. What's to stop him? A bishop is sovereign in his diocese. The other Ruthenian hierarchs might object and might stop inviting him to play golf with them (but how would they make up a foursome?), and the Vatican might gripe, but I doubt anything at all would happen. Rome, for whatever it's worth, really doesn't care if Eastern Catholics are ordaining married men in North America. It stopped being an issue long ago, except in the minds of some Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics, for whom the issue is freighted with all sorts of historical baggage.

Since 1990 the Ruthenian Metropolia has lost two-thirds of its membership (from 190,000 to 89,000). The timid Ruthenian vladyki are leading their flocks to extinction a la the Shakers, Cathari and Lollards.

Ooops. I mean 290,000 to 89,000.

Dear Constantine TG,

Just to amplify what you said: and this priest is back to Canada since last summer. We are happy to see him back!

The Cathars and Lollards were obliterated by crusades and persecution. The Shakers were celibates (all of them, not just the clergy). The Ruthenians are dying of ennui. And if there are 90,000 real, live Ruthenians in the pews every Sunday, I'll eat my hat. Somewhere between 30-45,000 would be my best guess.

Actually, given the average mass attendance of Latin Catholics of 40-45% (personally I think it is probably less but that is what I found on the Internet) 30-40,000 in the pews would equate to around 90-100,000 members.

Is there some sort of impediment for the eastern-rite churches to ordain married men in the US? I read that, at least for some time, latin-rite bishops didn't want the eastern-rite churches to ordain married men. Why was that? does that issue continue? is there still some "resistence" from the roman bishops to the idea of watching the eastern rite churches ordaining married men?

thanks! God bless :)

John,

While the Ruthenians have certainly lost faithful in the last 2 decades, the numbers are not ss drastic as those you cite (which are, as memory serves, from the Annuario Pontificio). The Metropolia did not have 290,000 faithful in 1990 - the number is a typical overinflation of church membership reporting. The Ruthenians are no more guilty in this regard than anyone else - look at the numbers across all of the Churches.

The short answer, which I think was posited by Fr Serge, is that there are statistics, there are damn statistics, and there are church statistics (to which I'd add that the 2 latter may be one entity). Almost all church statistics, regardless of the Church involved, are - at the very least - suspect.

Annuario Pontificio (AP) stats derive from annual reports submitted to Rome by dioceses/eparchies. Presumably, diocesan level data is a compilation of that provided by its parishes and missions. The answers as to what the numbers represent and who is counted are always open to interpretation. I don't know what instructions accompany the requests for census data, but I suspect that they are ill-defined for many of the reported categories.

Of course, there are specific numbers sought - baptisms/chrismations - infant and adult, marriages, deaths, etc. Those numbers exist, although they don't happen to appear in the excerpted data that Father Roberson posts at CNEWA. We did discuss them at some length last year when Fr Roberson posted the most current AP data.

However, when it comes down to cumulative data, accuracy is in the mind of the reporter. Unless one is the pastor of a very small mission or a parish in a Carpathian village where everyone knows one another, I steadfastly refuse to believe that most local parish priests - Catholic or Orthodox - can provide accurate counts of their flock.

Why? Whom should they count? The 'registered', the attendees (Sundays only or the Nativity/Pascha crowds also), the extended families which are the history of our Churches - ('you always belong here, even though you married that Latin girl, moved 750 miles to East Slobbovia, and only know icons as things to click on your desktop').

I think the numbers tend to be inflated and the rate of inflation is higher the further back in time that one goes. If you look at any of the EC or OC Churches in that spreadsheet, you'll generally find the same situation repeating itself. It's more understandable in the Churches that were just emerging from the Iron Curtain around that time (the Ukrainian jurisdictions in the Old Country, for instance) because no one really knew how many were left. In more recent times, I think that there has been a greater emphasis - at least in the US - on getting accurate numbers, or numbers at least as accurate as can be obtained.

Take a look here - Catholic-Hierarchy.org data on the Metropolia [catholic-hierarchy.org]. Dave Cheney, its webmaster, has a broader array of the same data. He shows selected years from 1949 through present. (His data will be a bit off from Fr Roberson's because he indicates the year reported and shows the publication year at the far right; Father Roberson indicates the publication year - which is generally a year later than the data being listed. For instance Dave's 1999 data is what Fr Roberson shows as 2000 data.)

Many years,

Neil