Daily life of a married priest

[Elvis_George]

Notice he’s born and brought up in NJ. but the previous priest was a missionary priest from Ukraine (tho he was only at the church for like 2 years). prior to that there was an American born priest serving at the parish since 1959. until he retired a few years back.

so that one priest served from '59 until '16 or '17… wow… is that common in the BCC?

Yeah in the Syro Malabar church we only have 4 priests who were born and raised in America, and around 10 in the seminary. The same kinda applies to the other churches. The MOSC have 16 priests, but becoming a priest in the MOSC does not require celibacy or 12 (8) years of studies. The JSC have around 4 or 5.

 

[ReaderT]

What is the typical day of a married priest like, including those who hold a second job? What kind of work do they do all day regarding their priestly duties? What kind of administrative work do they do they do and how much time of their day does it take up?

My priest has 4 children (all under the age of 10), and he and his wife are unusually busy. They schedule their lives around the services though: Wednesday Vespers, Saturday Vespers & confessions, and Sunday Divine Liturgy. Everything else fits around those “blocks”. If there is a feast day, they schedule the Liturgy as best they can around work, which may mean 10am or it may mean 7am. If there is a special event (like a guest speaker), we schedule that in the evening after work. All in all, their work lives don’t really affect parish life.

It’s common for married Orthodox priests to have a second job; I know of priests who do computer programming, librarian work, roasting coffee, iconography in other churches, etc.

Like @babochka said, this is a cultural problem in the West - ideally a priest should have enough money from the parish to not work a second job. The problem may come from the small congregations in our Protestant nation, or it may come from low tithing.

 

[Tenzin]

I wouldn’t brush over all Eastern Churches. Read this article. 3 Eastern Churches according to the article adopted mandatory clerical celibacy.

 

[Alexandria2020]

Yes the SyroMalabar Church is heavily latinized. We do not have married priests.

But not sure why the Malankara Syrian Catholics went with celibate priests as well (their counterpart the Malankara Orthodox have married priests). I guess because Latins and SyroMalabars are celibate priests, they went with that. They joined in communion with Rome in 1930.

 

[RyanBlack]

I was already aware of that. The fact is, most Eastern Catholic Churches do ordain married men. For those that don’t, it is a departure from tradition.

 

[Alexandria2020]

I was already aware of that. The fact is, most Eastern Catholic Churches do ordain married men. For those that don’t, it is a departure from tradition.

some EC churches are in a strange situation.

For example, our SyroMalabar Church (SMC) is from the East Syriac tradition (Church of the East). The Church of the East and it’s modern version the Assyrian Church of the East (ACoE) are to this day still considered kinda heretical by both the Eastern Orthodox (EO) and Oriental Orthodox (OO). It’s the odd one out of the apostolic churches. the ACoE tried to join in communion with the OO Syriac Orthodox in the 90s, but things did not work through.

Now the SMC was directly under Latin jurisdiction from 1599 to 1887. That’s a long time. By the end of it, most SMC laity and clergy started to think just like the Latins. Sure the liturgy is from the East Syriac tradition- but most common prayers and the overall attitude of the average laity are all very much Latin at heart. So celibate priests became the normal. I see it more like a hybrid Latin - East Syriac church. At this point, for many people, an extreme form of de-latinization would only hurt many of the laity and even clergy. And since the ACoE is not an Orthodox church either, I’m sure for most people, it would be kinda weird to be more like the ACoE. They would rather be in communion with Rome and be more Catholic (Latin) - their pov.

 

[Elvis_George]

They would rather be in communion with Rome and be more Catholic (Latin) - their pov.

Hmmm not exactly I know many who just want to go to their roots, which does not mean copying everything from the ACoE…tbh tho, joining the Catholic church was a huge mistake done by Palliveetil Mar Chandy…Sure, we would have adopted the West Syriac rite and sure we would have been embroiled in the many fights but again, unlike our clergy, bishops in the other Eastern Catholic Churches want to delatinize 100%. In our church, it’s more of “go back to our traditions, but shorten the Qurbana” or like “Facing the East was a practice adopted by Constantine, so facing the East would be like worshipping him” and all this other nonsense propagated by the Archeparchy of Ern-Angamaly. There are definitely those who want to delatinise, but those who risk being attacked.

 

[Elvis_George]

One must also understand how far the latinisers have went.
The Latinisers changed from being “latinisers” to “indianisers.” They probably did so, so they went recieve a bad name from Rome. They want to make a new Anaphora, but refused to use anaphoras that were used centuries. They refused to use the traditional host, which is the unleavened host with coconut flour as part of the Holy Malka. Once, Mar Jospeh Powathil decided to remove crucifix’s and replace them with the Mar Thoma Sleeva, which is a distinctly Indian cross with many Indian features. The thing is though, a couple of these crosses had palahavi inscriptions, so they made this whole scene stating that the Mar Thoma Sleeva was Manichaean and BURNT the cross. Imagine, burning crosses and still calling yourself christian. It’s is important to note that the Mar Thoma Sleeha is revered among the Jacobites, MOSC, Latin Catholics, the delatinsed section of the Syro Malabar church, and even the Latinised Syro Malabarese. Plus, when did the Manichaeans arrive in India or revere crosses? Then there is the notorious Onam Qurbana. Onam is a holiday celebrated in Kerala. We Nasranis celebrate Onam because #1, we are Mallus and #2, cause Onam and the Jewish holiday Sukkot are very similar and we nasranis have adopted many Jewish practices. Celebrating Onam was banned in the Synod of Diamper, but we celebrate it nowadays because the Synod of Diamper is one of the dark ages of Nasrani history. Usually, we just celebrate a normal Qurbana on Onam. But what happened in one church? They made an Onam Qurbana. The priest wore a veshti, and sanskrit hymns wore sung, with songs sung in a Hindu tune!

Onam Mass strikes a cultural chord | Onam Mass strikes a cultural chord

Is this not Syncretism? I think our Holy Father must do something about this!

 

[Alexandria2020]

Hmmm not exactly I know many who just want to go to their roots,

but there are many who want to latinize as well. They prefer to be like Latin. Especially those people from the eparchies of Ernakulam-Angamaly and Thrissur/ Irinjalakuda.

I think Vatican II complicated it for the Syro-Malabars. As the ordinary form (OF) became the norm for the Latins- eparchies of Ernakulam-Angamaly, Thrissur, and Irinjalakuda tried to model the Syro liturgy just like the OF.

at the core- it’s a matter of identity. I think latinized Syros want to be just like Latins. So for them they are struggling with identity. “Am I Latin (Catholic) or East Syriac?”

 

[Elvis_George]

Yes, that was what happened…Mar Joseph Parecattil was the reason for this