Posted on 09/04/2018 5:20:45 AM PDT by Petrosius
The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate has decided to allow a second marriage for Greek Orthodox priests in the event that they are widowed or abandoned by their wife, religious news website Romfea.gr says.
The decision, that is considered historic in the Orthodox Church, specifies that a second marriage will not be allowed if the priest wishes to leave his wife and marry another woman.
It is underlined that each case will be examined separately and the bishop of the priest’s parish will be sending the specifics to be judged by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Also, the wedding ceremony for the second marriage of priests will be different. Specifically, it will be with a simple prayer in a very close family circle.
Within the next few days, an official letter with all details and directions will be sent to all competent parties by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Orthodoxy never, ever changes anything. :-0
I think it is a good thing for priests to remarry under these circumstances. The Orthodox are different from the Catholics in regards to marriage and maybe some of the recent problems of the Catholic Church could be avoided if they resort back to priests being married.
Wow, that would make Catholic Church “Protestant”. Orthodox Church is very strict.
Why only two?
What about Russian Orthodox and Serbian Orthodox etc? Is this measure restricted to the Greek Orthodox only? Would the Russian Orthodox Church have to approve this separately before this would be permitted among its priests or does the Ecumenical Patriarch’s approval confer a pan-Orthodox green light to this?
Though to be fair, in a few very rare cases, we Latins have granted the same exception to a handful of widowed permanent Deacons who had children of tender years.
IMO, it's all merely a reminder of:
* the importance of enforcing the ancient practice of clerical continence,
* why it's important to not ordain men as clerics when they still have young children at home,
* why Catholics need to re-evaluate this second-marriage insanity (having been brought to a head with Amoris Laetitia), and
* why the Orthodox need to re-evaluate their second-marriage insanity even more than the Catholics do.
This is scandalous. The late Met. Philip did this once and it caused such an uproar he never tried it again.
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