Clerical marriage is the practice of allowing Christianclergy (those who have already beenordained) to marry. This practice is distinct from allowing married persons to become clergy. Clerical marriage is admitted amongProtestants, including bothLutherans andAnglicans.[1]
ManyEastern Churches (Assyrian Church of the East,Eastern Orthodox,Oriental Orthodox, orEastern Catholic), while allowing married men to be ordained, do not allow clerical marriage after ordination: theirparish priests are often married, but must marry before being ordained to the priesthood.Eastern Lutheran clergy are permitted to marry after being ordained, and married Eastern Lutherans are eligible to become clergy. Within the lands of theEastern Christendom, priests' children often became priests and married within their social group, establishing atightly knit hereditary caste among some Eastern Christian communities.[2][3]
The Latin Catholic Church as a rule requires clerical celibacy for the priesthood since theGregorian Reform in the late 11th century under the influence ofBernard of Clairvaux, butEastern Catholic Churches do not require clerical celibacy for the priesthood and the Latin Catholic Church occasionally relaxes the discipline in special cases, such as the conversion of a married Anglican priest who wishes to be ordained a Catholic priest. (Celibacy is, however, a requirement to become a bishop.)
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There is no dispute among theologians that at least some of theapostles were married or had been married: a mother-in-law ofPeter is mentioned in the account inMatthew 8:14,Mark 1:29–34,Luke 4:38–41 of the beginning of Jesus' ministry.1 Timothy 3:2 says: "an overseer (Greek ἐπίσκοπος) must be ... the husband of one wife". This has been interpreted in various ways, including that the overseer was not allowed to remarry even if his wife died.[note 1]
Evidence for the view that continence was expected of clergy in theearly Church is given by the Protestant historianPhilip Schaff, who points out that all marriages contracted by clerics in Holy Orders were declared null and void in 530 byRoman EmperorJustinian I, who also declared the children of such marriages illegitimate.[5]
Schaff also quotes the account that "In the Fifth and Sixth Centuries the law of the celibate was observed by all the Churches of the West, thanks to the Councils and to the Popes. In the Seventh and down to the end of the Tenth Century, as a matter of fact the law of celibacy was little observed in a great part of the Western Church, but as a matter of law the Roman Pontiffs and the Councils were constant in their proclamation of its obligation." This report is confirmed by others too. "Despite six hundred years of decrees, canons, and increasingly harsh penalties, the Latin clergy still did, more or less illegally, what their Greek counterparts were encouraged to do by law—they lived with their wives and raised families. In practice, ordination was not an impediment to marriage; therefore some priests did marry even after ordination."[6] "The tenth century is claimed to be the high point of clerical marriage in the Latin communion. Most rural priests were married and many urban clergy and bishops had wives and children."[7] Then at theSecond Lateran Council of 1139 the Roman Church declared thatHoly Orders were not merely a prohibitive but a dirimentcanonical impediment to marriage, therefore making a marriage by priests invalid and not merely forbidden.[8][9]
The greatEast–West Schism between the Church of Rome and the fourApostolic sees of the Orthodox Communion (Constantinople, Alexandria Egypt, Antioch Syria, and Jerusalem) took place in 1054. As stated above, the majority of Roman Church priests at that time were married. Therefore, when some churches that followed Western rites and traditions were brought back into communion with the Orthodox Churches beginning in the 20th century, their right to have married clergy, provided they were married before ordination, was restored.
The practice of clerical marriage was initiated in the West by the followers ofMartin Luther, who himself, a priest and former monk, marriedKatharina von Bora, a formernun, in 1525. It has not been introduced in the East. In theChurch of England, however, the Catholic tradition of clerical celibacy continued after theBreak with Rome. UnderKing Henry VIII, theSix Articles prohibited the marriage of clergy and this continued until the passage underEdward VI of theClergy Marriage Act 1548, opening the way for Anglican priests to marry.[10]
Generally speaking, in modern Christianity, Protestant and some independent Catholic churches allow for ordained clergy to marry after ordination. However, in recent times, a few exceptional cases can be found in some Orthodox churches in which ordained clergy have been granted the right to marry after ordination.
Following the example ofMartin Luther, who, though an ordained priest, married in 1525,Protestant denominations permit an unmarried ordained pastor to marry. They thus admit clerical marriage, not merely the appointment of already married persons as pastors. But in view of1 Timothy 3:2 and3:12, some do not admit a second marriage by a widowed pastor.
In these denominations there is generally no requirement that apastor be already married nor prohibition against marrying after "answering the call". Being married is commonly welcomed, in which case the pastor's marriage is expected to serve as a model of a functioning Christian marriage, and the pastor's spouse often serves an unofficial leadership role in the congregation. For this reason, some Protestant churches will not accept adivorced person for this position. In denominations that ordain both men and women, a married couple might serve as co-pastors.
Certain denominations require a prospective pastor to be married before he can be ordained, based on the view (drawn from 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1) that a man must demonstrate the ability to run a household before he can be entrusted with the church. Even in these strictest groups, a widower may still serve. This again concerns marriage before appointment as pastor, not clerical marriage.[citation needed]
Some Protestant clergy and theirchildren have played an essential role inliterature,philosophy,science, andeducation inEarly Modern Europe.[11]
TheAssyrian,Eastern Orthodox andOriental Orthodox Churches, as well as many of theEastern Catholic Churches, permit married men to be ordained. Traditionally however, they do not permit clergy to marry afterordination. From ancient times they have had both married and celibate clergy (seeMonasticism). Those who opt for married life must marry before becomingpriests,deacons (with a few exceptions), or, in some strict traditions,subdeacons.
The vast majority of Orthodox parish clergy are married men, which is one of the major differences between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches; however, they must marry before being ordained.[12] Since the marriage takes place while they are still laymen and not yet clergy, the marriage is not a clerical marriage, even if it occurs while they are attending the seminary. Clerical marriage is thus not admitted in the Orthodox Church, unlike in the Protestant Churches. In theRussian Orthodox Church, theclergy, over time, formed a hereditarycaste of priests. Marrying outside of these priestly families was strictly forbidden; indeed, somebishops did not even tolerate their clergy marrying outside of the priestly families of their diocese.[13] In general,Eastern Catholic Churches have always allowed ordination of married men as priests and deacons. Within the lands of theUkrainian Greek Catholic Church, the second largest Eastern Catholic Church, priests' children often became priests and married within their social group, establishing atightly knit hereditary caste.[14]Traditionally, the rejection of clerical marriage has meant that a married deacon or priest whose wife dies could not remarry but must embrace celibacy. However, in recent times, some bishops have relaxed this rule and allowed exceptions. One way to do this is tolaicize the widowed priest so that his subsequent marriage will be that of a layman (and hence not an instance of clerical marriage) and then allow him to apply for re-ordination.
Subdeacons (or hypodeacons, the highest of the clericalminor orders) are often included with clerics in major orders (like deacons and priests) in early canons that prohibit clerical marriage, such as Apostolic Canon 26.[12] In light of these canons, several different approaches are used today to allow subdeacons to marry. One approach has been to bless acolytes or readers to vest and act as subdeacons temporarily or permanently, thus creating a new distinction between a 'blessed subdeacon'—who may not touch the altar or assume other prerogatives of ordained subdeacons outside services—and an 'ordained subdeacon'. Another approach is to simply delay the formal ordination of the subdeacon, if, for example, a likely candidate for the subdiaconate has stated an intention to marry but has not yet done so. Finally, sometimes the canons are simply ignored, thereby permitting even formally ordained subdeacons to marry.
Generally, if a deacon or priest divorces his wife, he may not continue in ministry, although there are also exceptions to this rule, such as if the divorce is deemed to be the fault of the wife.
Bishops in the Orthodox Churches are elected from among those clergy who are not married, whether celibate (as the monastic clergy must be) or widowed. If awidowed priest is elected bishop, he must take monastic vows before he can beconsecrated.
Like the Eastern Churches, theCatholic Church does not allow clerical marriage, although many of theEastern Catholic Churches do allow the ordination of married men as priests.
Within the Catholic Church, theLatin Church generally follows the discipline ofclerical celibacy, which means that, as a rule, only unmarried or widowed men are accepted as candidates for ordination. An exception to this practice arises in the case of married non-Catholic clergymen who become Catholic and seek to serve as priests. TheHoly See may grantdispensations from the usual rule of celibacy to allow such men to be ordained.[15] For example, some married formerAnglican priests andLutheran ministers have been ordained to the priesthood after being received into the Church.[16] The establishment ofpersonal ordinariates for former Anglicans beginning in 2011 has added to such requests.
As in the Orthodox Churches, some Catholic priests receive dispensation from the obligation of celibacy throughlaicization, which may occur either at the request of the priest or as a punishment for a grave offense.[17] Any subsequent marriage undertaken by the laicized former priest is thus considered to be the marriage of alayman, and not an instance of clerical marriage. In contrast to the Orthodox practice, however, such a married former priest may not apply to be restored to the priestly ministry while his wife is still living.
Despite the Latin Church's historical practice of priestly celibacy, there have been Catholic priests throughout the centuries who have simulated marriage through the practice ofconcubinage.[18] Repeatedly throughout church history, violations of the Catholic celibacy policy have not been grounds fordefrocking.
The Vatican, it was revealed in February 2019, secretly enacted rules to protect the clerical status of Catholic clergy who violated their vow of celibacy.[19][20][21] One example was shown in theDiocese of Greensburg inPennsylvania, where a priest in the 1950s maintained his clerical status despite having "married" a 17-year-old girl (whom he had impregnated) by forging the signature of another priest on a marriage certificate only to "divorce" the girl months later.[22] In 2012, Kevin Lee, a priest in Australia, revealed that he had maintained his clerical status after being secretly "married" for a full year and that church leaders were aware of his secret "marriage", but disregarded the celibacy policy.[23][24] The same year, former Los Angeles Auxiliary BishopGabino Zavala, who did not resign either from his post as Auxiliary Bishop or from the Catholic clergy until revelations that he fathered two children were made public, was implicated by theLos Angeles Times for having "more than a passing relationship" with the mother of his two children, who also had two separate pregnancies.[25]
because Eastern Christian priests were allowed to marry and therefore the clergy soon became somewhat of a caste made up of a closely - knit families
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