Clerical Celibacy & Marriage Discipline
Whether a priest may marry — a single question answered differently across the Christian world
This is the discipline governing whether clergy may marry, ranging from mandatory celibacy to a married priesthood. The Council of Elvira (c. 305) addressed clerical continence, and the Council of Nicaea declined to impose universal celibacy. The traditions differ: Latin Catholics require priestly celibacy; the Eastern, Oriental, and Church of the East traditions ordain married men while reserving the episcopate for the celibate; and Protestants permit married clergy.
How it traveled
- On Monogamy.— · c. 220 CEapplies
- The First Ecumenical Council: The First Council of NiceNicaea · c. 325 CEexplains
- The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods— · c. 360 CEapplies
- The LettersCaesarea (Cappadocia) · c. 379 CEapplies
- On the Duties of the ClergyMilan · c. 397 CEexplains
- The Letters of St. JeromeBethlehem · c. 420 CEapplies
- The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates ScholasticusConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 439 CEexplains
- The Ecclesiastical History of SozomenConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 450 CEapplies
- The Letters and Sermons of Leo the GreatRome · c. 461 CEexplains
- The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the GreatRome · c. 604 CEexplains
- The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext CouncilConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 692 CEapplies
- The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. NiceConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 692 CEexplains
- Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic ChurchGeneva · c. 1564 CEapplies
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon VI. Since it is declared in the apostolic canons that of those who are advanced to the clergy unmarried, only lectors and cantors are able to marry; we also, maintaining this, determine that he
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
28. Therefore, as often as the defenders of this new tyranny appeal to antiquity in defence of their celibacy, so often should we call upon them to restore the ancient chastity of their priests, to pu
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
22. We come now to the second part of discipline, which relates specially to the clergy. It is contained in the canons, which the ancient bishops framed for themselves and their order: for instance, l
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
25. Though their prohibition is thus clearly repugnant to the word of God, they, however, find something in the Scriptures to defend it. The Levitical priests, as often as their ministerial course ret
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On the Duties of the Clergy · Ambrose of Milan
258. But ye know that the ministerial office must be kept pure and unspotted, and must not be defiled by conjugal intercourse; ye know this, I say, who have received the gifts of the sacred ministry,
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The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
The clergy who had been married before ordination were not required to put away their wives. Can. Apostol. V. expressly forbids their doing so under pain of excommunication. The 3rd Nicene Canon, whic
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon III. Since our pious and Christian Emperor has addressed this holy and ecumenical council, in order that it might provide for the purity of those who are in the list of the clergy, and who tran
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon V. Let none of those who are on the priestly list possess any woman or maid servant, beyond those who are enumerated in the canon as being persons free from suspicion, preserving himself hereby
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon XII. Moreover this also has come to our knowledge, that in Africa and Libya and in other places the most God-beloved bishops in those parts do not refuse to live with their wives, even after co
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon XIII. Since we know it to be handed down as a rule of the Roman Church that those who are deemed worthy to be advanced to the diaconate or presbyterate should promise no longer to cohabit with
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon XLVIII. The wife of him who is advanced to the Episcopal dignity, shall be separated from her husband by their mutual consent, and after his ordination and consecration to the episcopate she sh
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The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods · The Ecumenical Councils
The Canons of the Holy and Blessed Fathers Who Assembled at Neocæsarea, Which are Indeed Later in Date Than Those Made at Ancyra, But More Ancient Than the Nicene: However, the Synod of Nice Has Been
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The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
Faustinus the bishop, legate of the Roman Church, said: So far as has developed by the confession of your holiness as well as of the holy Alypius, and of our brother Jocundus, I believe that some of t
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The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen · Sozomen
Chapter XXIII.—Canons appointed by the Council; Paphnutius, a certain Confessor, restrains the Council from forming a Canon enjoining Celibacy to all who were about to be honored with the Priesthood.
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The First Ecumenical Council: The First Council of Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
Proposed Action on Clerical Celibacy. [The Acts are not extant.] Notes. Often the mind of a deliberative assembly is as clearly shown by the propositions it rejects as by those it adopts, and it wo
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The First Ecumenical Council: The First Council of Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
If this account be true, we must conclude that a law was proposed to the Council of Nicæa the same as one which had been carried twenty years previously at Elvira, in Spain; this coincidence would lea
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The Letters of St. Jerome · Jerome
do not look to your military experience for a standard of clerical obligation. Under Christ’s banner seek for no worldly gain, lest having more than when you first became a clergyman, you hear men say
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Elucidation. ———————————— (Marriage lawful, p. 39.) St. Peter was a married apostle, and the traditions of his wife which connect her married life with Rome itself render it most surprising that th
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
OF THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH, AND ITS PRINCIPAL USE IN CENSURES AND EXCOMMUNICATION. This chapter consists of two parts:—I. The first part of ecclesiastical discipline, which respects the people,
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
14. But the Romanists have another end in view when they say that the power of interpreting Scripture belongs to councils, and that without challenge. For they employ it as a pretext for giving the na
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