Canon Law Essay

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marriage must always precede ordination and whether priests and widowhood may be allowed to remarry after widowhood or divorce was one of the topics of discussion at the revolutionary 1923 Pan-Orthodox Congress, which aimed to produce reform-oriented results that would allow the Orthodox Church to be better adapted to the new realities of the world in the period after World War I.

On both issues, beyond any economic or social arguments, the discussion should always revert back to the Scriptures and to what the Scriptures say about these elements. For example, the Congress agreed that the Scriptures allow for marriage after ordination (or, in fact, that there is nothing in the Scriptures that prohibits that, meaning, by extrapolation and law principle, that whatever is not prohibited, is considered to be in line with the canonical law).

In his initial analysis, Viscuso also makes an important note on why that is: because there is no "doctrine of either sacrament's superiority" (p. xxxvii). Successive doctrines have also not prohibited the marriage after ordination: the tenth canon of the Council of Ankyra, for example, allows this to happen in the case of deacons.

With these arguments in mind, it rather seems that there is almost no discussion of whether marriage after ordination should be accepted or not. The original base of all canonical regulation, the Scriptures, has no adverse say on this topic. It seems a logical deduction that successive additions and interpretation have, in fact, created this premise that marriage after ordination should not be permitted.

There are several studies mentioned by Viscuso that make this case before the 1923 Congress.

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Milas, in 1907, for example, mentions that "the prohibition of clerical marriage is based on discipline, not dogma" (page xxxix). This is a clear recognition that the restriction did not come from the original base of learning, the Scriptures, but from discipline. This is an interesting aspect, because it means that successive interpretations of the Scriptures by the Church hierarchy led to a different meaning of the words of the Scripture and initial, ancient norms, on the matter of marriage after ordination. It is an acceptance of the fact that, at a certain moment in the evolution of the Orthodox history, hierarchical decisions on these matters took over the true meaning and instructions of the words of the Scripture.

For remarriage of widowed priests and deacons, other arguments, outside the range of the canonical law, should also be taken into consideration and presented here. Gavril of Montenegro mentions both economical and psychological issues of a widowed priest who also has children. Other than the issue of temptation that he brings up, a priest that is widowed and not allowed to remarry will need to care for both the needs of his children (education, upbringing etc.) and the needs of the household. This may lead to his incapacity of handling his priestly duties to the degree to which he would as a married priest.

In the same context, it is interesting to note the observations some of the representatives made on these issues, namely by reflecting on national practices in the matter. For example, one of the participants from Romania mentioned….....

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