[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Nevertheless, a precondition for these men to be ordained was a commitment to perpetual continence in their subsequent married life. Church legislation on this requirement for married higher clergy - bishops, priests and deacons - goes back to the Council of Elvira, in the year 305 or thereabouts.

Finally, a Catholic priest who knows his history.

[The_Reader_David]

Of course, the Council of Elvira was a local council only. In the Eastern Patriarchates clerical celibacy was never the norm--nor is it now neither among the Orthodox nor among the Uniates. The canons of the Council of Gangra, and the canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council defend clerical marriage.

The requirement of clerical celibacy was only uniformized in the Patiarchate of Rome after the schism, sometime in the early 12th century--1124 sticks in my mind. Before that, something like perpetual continence was required because of the common practice of celebrating daily Mass, and the requirement of continence the day before the celebration of Mass found in the Patriarchate's local disciplinary canons.

In the East, the corresponding disiplinary practice requires continence from Vespers through the celebration of Liturgy. (Which lead to the following amusing incident in one of the seminaries of Russia in the late 19th century: An archbishop (thus, himself a celibate and monk) was teaching a class, and came to the point where this discipline was explained. A young, very conventionally minded, seminarian suddenly stammered, '...but...Father Nikolai, back home...he celebrated Liturgy every day...you mean he and his wife never...'. The archbishop looked over his reading glasses at the seminarian and asked, 'And for what purpose did the Good Lord make the afternoon?')