Glory to Jesus Christ!
Below is a letter from Fr. Thomas Loya on the issue of Married Priests in the Eastern Christian Churches.
In Christ,
J. Andrew
Married priesthood in the Eastern Christian Churches
by Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB.,MA.
June 2012
The practice of ordaining married men to the priesthood, which has been an unbroken practice in Eastern Christian Churches both Catholic and Orthodox in most parts of the world, can best be understood by seeing this topic through the particular genius that marks Eastern Christian spirituality. That particular genius is to see things mystically, in terms of the “both/and” and not the “either/or.” Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body is helpful in this regard as he treats the issues of celibacy as a precursor to his treatment of the sacramentality of marriage and the one flesh union between husband and wife.
The practice of married priesthood must never be co-opted by or misread as being part of an agenda that also demands the ordination of women to the priesthood and the relaxation of the Church’s teachings on certain hot button issues of our day such as contraception. Neither should the married priesthood be seen as relief for a married man from the seemingly unreasonable, outdated rigors and ascetical disciplines required by celibacy. The married priesthood is not an antidote for the recent clergy sex scandal that has plagued the Church in many parts of the world. Furthermore, married priesthood must not be seen as some form of ecclesiastical or spiritual polygamy wherein the married priest has two “wives;” the Church and his human wife, and he is interchangeably unfaithful to one or the other.
It has been the view of Eastern Christian Churches, especially in their cultures of origin that a married man is the preferable candidate for pastoral leadership on the parish level. If a man is going to remain a celibate he ought to belong to or at least be connected with a monastery. The reason for this thinking is not because celibacy and marriage are diametrically opposed to each other as is commonly thought of in secular culture, but precisely because celibacy and marriage are interdependent. They subsist in each other and are two sides of the same coin to live and love spousally and eschatologically. Both marriage and celibacy provide an avenue in which to practice chastity, to live out the sacramentality of human sexuality. This “both/and” approach of celibacy and marriage provides for a very integrated and healthy view of marriage, sexuality and priesthood. So integrated and interdependent are marriage and celibacy in the Eastern Churches that the very Church that has an unbroken practice of married priests is also the very Church that gave the world celibacy in the form of monasticism. Pope John Paul II’ statement in his Apostolic Letter, “Orientale Lumen” where he is says that monasticism is the “reference point for all of the baptized” is a perfect summation of the view of the Eastern Churches on monasticism.
The eschatological dimension of baptism is never taken out of the equation in the life of the Church. In the Russian Orthodox tradition the courtship period of a couple was seen as a monastic novitiate and after their wedding the couple was required to spend the first days of their marriage in a monastery. (See Paul Evdokimov.) This inescapable eschatological dimension of baptism is particularly true in the priesthood. The priesthood is eschatological by nature. It points to our ultimate destiny in Heaven and to the High priest, Christ, our Heavenly Bridegroom with whom we will be united together as one Bride at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Rev.) With this in mind, the married priest together with his wife are encouraged (required) to observe periods of continence where they abstain from sexual relations on the evenings prior to the priest celebrating the Eucharist as well as during the fasting periods of the liturgical calendar. Some scholars believe that this practice is a remnant of a requirement for perpetual continence since Apostolic times for those married men (including the Apostles) who were ordained to the priesthood. The agreement of the wife to this life of continence was a precondition for the ordination of her husband. (See Cochini and Cholig). Even to this day, in both the Eastern and Western Churches, a man who has been ordained to major orders cannot remarry if he should lose his wife.
Except for certain aspects of his daily lifestyle the ordained married man functions in the specific dimensions of his priesthood in as celibate (eschatological) a way as does the ordained celibate man. The married priest functions in an inclusively spousal way and not in an exclusively spousal way. He stands at the Altar not exclusively as the “husband” of his earthly bride with her standing at the Altar at his side. Rather his stands at the Altar on behalf of all, making present the Bridegroom Christ coming on behalf of his bride, the Church. At the same time the priest does not represent exclusively his earthly bride but rather the entire bride of the Church looking toward the coming of the Bridegroom Christ. The wife of the married priest is not with him as he hears Confessions. She does not anoint the sick, baptize or Chrismate. She is not sitting in his office as he offers counsel or spiritual direction. In most capacities of his priesthood even the married priest functions as and indeed is seen by his people as the incarnation of the one Bridegroom Christ who comes to love and serve His one Bride, the Church. “He” and not “he and she” is their priest for them.
If the eschatological dimension (celibacy) is inherent even in the married priesthood, indeed in the mystery of marriage itself for all of the baptized, in a complementary way, the celibate dimension only makes sense if it is seen and lived spousally. The monastic is espoused just as much as a married person but in a mystical way. Monasticism lives by the same principles of sacramental marriage but in a realized eschatology. Sacramental marriage provides the celibate with the spousal character of his or her celibacy. The celibate provides for the married couple the sacramentality (eschatological dimension) of their marriage. One of the essential moments in the Byzantine ritual for priestly ordination is the exact same moment (chant, gesture, and text) found in the Byzantine marriage ritual.
A married priest is not an ecclesiastical or spiritual polygamist. Rather he is living out on two different levels the one same spousal mystery which is the total gift of self. While both married priesthood and celibacy have their respective challenges they must both be spoken of in the same breath. They both require chastity and ascetical discipline. They are interdependent and subsist in each and they are bounded by the common and inescapable eschatological dimension. To see married priesthood and celibacy through the prism of the “both/and,” the mystical, edifies both vocations and provides for a more integrated person, priest and Church.
