www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Can East and West Coexist With Married Priests?

Having grown up as a PK (priest's kid), L am speaking here only from my own experiences. Your figures about compensation brought me a good laugh as within the Slavic Orthodox churches in the United States such levels are hardly the norm. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has a more generous structured salary plan. The distinction between the compensation levels of the Churches of Slavic origin and the Greeks is that with the American Slavs it has been typical to provide a rectory. Most Panis, Matuskas and Presvyteras these days work full time, as sadly do many of the clergy in order to get by. One more thing that is true, it is much harder for Bishops to move and assign clergy these days due to outside jobs and the fact that today's American children are far more outspoken than children in the past. Ironically, I know of more than one parish whose history in Orthodoxy can be traced to the celibacy disputes in the 1930's who prefer celibate priests today. I personally think that there is room in the Church for both married and celibate clergy as each brings his own special grace to the priesthood.

I wondered how the situation would play out if a married priest's wife has a good paying job that's necessary to support the family, and then either the parish closes or the bishop moves the priest.

You work things out, the way you do in military families. But usually the bishop leaves things as they are unless he can get the agreement of both the priest and the pani. Of course, not all bishops are equally wise. . .

babochka-

that's true... that's why it is important for each parish to teach on stewardship/tithing. For a significant number who do put $5-10 in the offering that represents less than 1% of their weekly income. As with other areas of our lives, when it come to financial support, we no longer give the first fruits to God, but our left overs.

My priest makes more than my wife and I combined do, especially if you count the rent-equivalent for the 2 bedroom rectory.

For me, a $5 is a painful amount; it means 25% of whats left after rent and bills.

On a good week, that is.

Contribute in kind. Sweat equity is always welcome. Latin parishes could (and probably should) reduce their expenses by cutting back on the plethora of paid "ministries" on the payroll.

Given the Australian cost of living, 75k plus all the perks (except the house) is indeed a very good deal.

But America is not Australia. Now, in the wilds of Pennsylvania or Ohio, $75,000 is living in the lap of luxury, in California, Metro DC, downstate New York, most of New Jersey and a number of other places, $75,000 is just getting by for a family of four. To get an idea of the cost of living differences, you can check the Office of Personnel Management's locality adjustment tables.

If the Jewish model works, we can always imitate that model. How much money in relation to his income is a Jew obliged to spend on the congregation? Do they tithe, or collect money during services, or what?

In Germany churches are financed by the state, but the church members are obliged to pay a special church tax. A good way to promote secularism, IMO.

I've heard the 'rent' equivalent' argument all of my life. My father always said to people that it was fine, and he accepted that, but when you can't serve the parish, you are left with nothing. We lived in a fine, middle class house with beautiful furniture. After my mother passed away and my father retired he bought a house at the age of 75 and struggled the rest of his years with a mortgage and home ownership issues. I'm not complaining, nor was he, but lay people have to realize that the ability to have equity for retirement is necessary with a married clergy. That is why the Greeks typically do not provide a rectory and pay their pastors like the professionals that they are.

Get out of your bubble!!! The latest figure I saw recently was that over 1/2 the country (USA) makes less than $50k...

Colin, even in the USA that is a very good deal!!!

Whether 75K is really all that great of a deal depends on a lot of things--number of children in the family, the cost of living in a given area, whether or not you have student loan obligations, etc. I almost never agree with Stuart, but I'm with him on this one.

If you start with the argument that a priest is a trained, educated professional, probably possessing seven years of higher education as a minimum, with a vocation to serve the Lord (this allows you to presume that financial gain is not his motivating force) a look at 'comparable' professionals in an area's public sector is probably your best base for compensation comparability. 'Comparables' would include, but not be limited to: social workers with at least an MSW, school guidance counselors, addiction/marital counselors etc... A compensation package would have to include family health insurance, disability insurance and a retirement plan. This issue vexes many an Orthodox congregation on an annual basis and would represent such a cultural change in the Latin Church that I wonder how many decades it would take to adapt to a married clergy.

Well, it's not really the Latin Church of which we are speaking, but the Greek Catholic Churches in North America, which were stripped of their patrimony by the constitution Ea Semper and thus never had a real chance to develop the institutional infrastructure to support married priests.

But, as the Holy See has called upon us to restore the fullness of our Tradition in all respects, we must also restore the married priesthood (and Byzantine monasticism, too), which means starting pretty much from scratch. As I said, there are more than 100 married Latin priests in the United States today, and I expect those numbers to increase as more Anglicans take advantage of the new ordinariates. Eastern Catholics can at least look at how their parishes manage, in addition to those of our Orthodox brethren.

The situation is not helped when some Greek Catholic bishops say out loud that they do not favor restoration of the married priesthood in their eparchies. It's one thing to have a "policy", but it counts for little if the policy is undermined by the attitudes of the people meant to implement it.