Bishop Nicholas Samra was enthroned as Bishop for Melkite Catholics in the USA in August, 2011
Posted on 11/09/2011 11:02:16 AM PST by NYer
Bishop Nicholas Samra was enthroned as Bishop for Melkite Catholics in the USA in August, 2011
At his recent enthronement as the Melkite Greek Catholic Bishop in the USA, Bishop Nicholas Samra stated that the Melkite Catholic Church (an Eastern Catholic Church in union with the Pope of Rome) will begin ordaining married men to the priesthood in the USA.
Bishop Nicholas Samra, Bishop of the Melkite Eparchy of Newton, Massachusetts made the comment in a dinner speech following his enthronement on August 23, 2011. The Bishop’s speech, newly published in the Melkite journal Sophia, contains the first published public statements by the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of their intention to ordain married men to the priesthood for the American Melkite Church.
Bishop Nicholas, the first American-born Bishop to serve the Melkite Church in the USA, noted that “we are on a shoe-string of clergy to serve our Church as priests.” At present, the American Melkite Eparchy, with 35 parishes and approximately 27,000 members has only “one priest to be ordained next year.” Worldwide, Melkite Catholics number about 1.6 million and are part of the Melkite Partriarchate of Antioch. The Melkite Catholic Church shares similar traditions with the Antiochian Orthodox Church, but entered communion with Rome in 1729.
Encouraging vocations among his American flock is one of Bishop Nicholas’ goals:
We are grateful for our ancestors — priests and laity and bishops who came from the Middle East and brought us to where we are presently. But now we have come of age and we need priests from among our people in this American Melkite Catholic Church.
Bishops at the Enthronement of Melkite Bishop Nicholas Samra in Newton, Massachusetts
Towards the end of his speech, Bishop Nicholas spoke of the need to both study and implement the training of married men to the priesthood in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church so that “hopefully soon we can see the growth of properly formed married clergy”:
God calls men and women to religious vocations. And I believe he also calls married men to the priesthood. We need to study this situation in our country and develop the proper formation for men who are truly deemed worthy of this call. The Deacon Formation Program is a good program; however is not the backdoor to the priesthood. Married men who are called to priesthood need the same formation as those celibates who are called. I have already discussed this issue with those involved in priestly formation and hopefully soon we can see the growth of properly formed married clergy. Of course there are also major financial issues to be looked at and we will embark on this also.
I began my talk with vocations and I end with it also. We need priests for your sanctification and the mysteries of the Church. Seminary formation is a must — please send us vocations. The Church is in our hands, mine and yours. Together we build His Body. [(Sophia, Summer 2011, pp. 8-9; issue released October 2011)]
The Sophia article did not discuss the issue of earlier restrictions on the ordaining of married men to the priesthood in America. Bans on ordaining married men to the priesthood for Eastern Catholic Churches in the USA were imposed by Rome in the last century, but enforcement of the Ban has waned in the past fifteen years causing many Catholics, both Eastern and Latin Rite, to wonder if the Ban should be taken seriously. Earlier, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Melkite Church ordained five married men for service in America as priests but the ordinations were ruled illicit by Rome and their priestly faculties were removed. However, a 1996 ordination of a married Melkite deacon to the priesthood was noted by the press but was considered “hardly a trend” with no recorded public reaction by Rome. At the time, the 1996 ordination was seen by some as “testing the waters,” but there was no push by the previous American Melkite Bishops to encourage married men to enter seminary. Nonetheless, the Melkite Catholic Church has long felt that their right to have a married clergy is an important part of their canonical tradition.
Changes have also slowly begun to appear in other Eastern Catholic Churches in the USA. The Ban is no longer absolute in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Metropolia of Pittsburgh, though that Eastern Catholic Church has to obtain individual dispensations from Rome for any married men it might ordain. Ordinations of some married men to the priesthood in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the USA and Canada are also now beginning to occur. The Coptic Catholic Church, with no hierarchy in place in the USA, made a formal request to Rome last year for an end to the Ban so that married Coptic Catholic priests could serve American parishes.
However, the Ban is apparently still viewed by Rome as being in effect. An official of the Eastern Congregation, one of the offices of the papal curia in Rome overseeing the Eastern Catholic Churches, stated in 2003 that the Ban “remains unchanged,” but that it would no longer suspend the priestly faculties of married men ordained by Eastern Catholic Bishops in the USA. America reported:
Msgr. Lucian Lamza, an official in the Vatican’s Congregation for Eastern Churches, said on May 22[, 2003] that the Vatican’s ban on the ordination of married men for the Eastern churches in the West “remains unchanged.” The ordinations “are against the norm,” he said. “But, of course, these priests can validly celebrate the liturgy and sacraments,” since the ordinations are sacramentally valid. He would not discuss the Vatican’s reaction or lack of reaction to the ordinations.
Censures from Rome over this issue have not occurred since 1996, though tensions between celibate Latin Rite priests and married Eastern Catholic priests have erupted; for example, in Italy in 2010.
Bishop Nicholas’ public call for married men to be included in the call for priestly vocations for American Melkite Catholics is a first and is likely to signal greater acceptance of married clergy for Eastern Catholics in the USA. Greater acceptance of married Eastern Catholic clergy by Rome in Western lands may also now be occurring. Will it lead to a full repeal of the Ban on the ordaining of married men in Eastern Catholic Churches outside their traditional territories? Only time will tell.
>> Peace between the Latins and the Byzantines in union with Rome doesn’t equal us surrendering our rights as good colonials. <<
No, of course not. But you’re in the Latin Patriarchate, not Syria or the Levant. That means some attention must be paid to the discipline of the Latin Patriarch. People switching rites just to avoid one rite’s discipline would be terrible for the Melkites: consider the case of the Polish Old Catholic Church
The Latin patriarchate is Western Europe. But no, I think that the Latin Church should leave us alone and let us be ourselves.
There’s no comparing the Melkite Church with groups that splintered from the Latin Church to avoid celibacy.
Few things make my blood boil more than arrogant Latins who think that being a Catholic is the same as being Latin. We can have our pretty liturgy and nothing else.
If Latins want to become Melkite or any other form of Byzantine Catholic they should be allowed, but they shouldn’t be accepted as candidates for ordination if they do so for self-serving reasons.
We don’t need Latins who have no regard for our spiritual, theological or liturgical patrimony in our priesthood.
Roman Catholics need to grow up and accept us as equals and not as inferiors. It’s little wonder why the Orthodox fear reunion with Rome.
It can start with how it treats the Eastern Christians in its own communion. The Melkite patriarchate covers all Melkites wherever they may be and isn’t tied to a set area.
The only people Bishop Nicholas’s move is disastrous for is the Latins, and he is right to defend our rights against bigoted and intolerant Roman Catholics.
Let’s be clear, here:
Should the Russian Orthodox church, for instance, reunite with the Roman Catholic church, then Russia would be under the discipline of the Russian patriarch, and may continue ordaining married priests.
The Americas are in the Latin Patriarchate. They were settled, explored, populated and missionized by those under the discipline of the Latin Patriarchate.
The Latin patriarchate only includes those of the Latin rite.
Your point is moot considering that the Latin archdiocese of Lvov in Ukraine overlaps that of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
What we need to be clear about is that all Catholic traditions are equal and we Eastern Christians shouldn’t be worried if we scandalize our Roman Catholic brethren by being ourselves.
The only thing barring us from having married priests and governing ourselves does is send the message to the Orthodox to stay away.
If anything is promoting the temptation to schism, it is the intolerance of the Latins. If Abp. John Ireland and the rest of the Latin hierarchy had been tolerant of legitimate diversity.
If you have a problem with our bishop’s decision. That is your problem. Don’t tell us what it means to be a Catholic.
I never said I disagree with the Bishop’s decision; I only contradicted the notion that it was none of the Bishop of Rome’s business. I actually sincerely hope that the Bishop of Rome permits the eparchy to ordain married men... so much so that I immediately wrote off taking advantage of the policy myself, because I believe as a Latin I would be a case for not approving it.
As a Latin, I’d attended many Eastern-rite masses. I chose the one that’s probably the most dissimilar of the ones I’ve attended to the Latin rite to adopt as my own, the Melkite. So I assure you, I certainly don’t want the Melkites to be more like the hyper-politicized, leftist-ingrained, Protestantized, masonically filtered Latins that are all too common.
My cause from concern from you is that you were ready for schism at the mere suggestion that the Pope MAY not permit the ordination of married men; I was not asserting that the pope should or reasonably could override the Melkite bishop. I was asserting that the pope’s interests were entirely legitimate.
You write as if you bitterly oppose the union of the two churches. That’s sad. The West needs to be re-evangelized by the East, and the East needs to be universalized, because the Christian presence in Lebanon and Syria is looking vaporous and the Melchite churches in America have relied heavily on the ability to cooperate with the West. As a case in point, the previous Melkite bishop closed the only Western seminary, to the strong dismay of Rome, and is now thoroughly dependent on non-Melkite resources for the education of its priests... or else send them to Lebanon.
oh, and for the record: the Roman Catholic diocese of Lviv of the Latins exists because there was no church in union with Rome until 1595 in that region, so the Polish/Slavs living in the area had to turn to Rome for a priesthood. By the time that some of the Orthodox church in the Ukraine rejoined the Catholic church, there was a separate, Latin tradition within the Ukraine.
The Latins have their discipline. We have ours. You have the right to your celibate-only priesthood, but we have the equal right to our married priesthood.
All I was doing was pointing out how the unfortunate actions of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and successive Popes created nothing but schism. The problem isn’t with the Eastern Christians, but rather with narrow-minded Roman Catholics who refuse to accept unity amid diversity.
Also, there is far more to being Melkite or Eastern Catholic than celebrating a different Divine Liturgy.
I’d say far more ignorance and intolerance today comes from Latin Catholic laity who associate Latin practices with being Catholic.
From the Sixth Ecumenical Council at Trullo:
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 their wives, we, preserving the ancient rule and apostolic perfection and order, will that the lawful marriages of men who are in holy orders be from this time forward firm, by no means dissolving their union with their wives nor depriving them of their mutual intercourse at a convenient time. Wherefore, if anyone shall have been found worthy to be ordained subdeacon, or deacon, or presbyter, he is by no means to be prohibited from admittance to such a rank, even if he shall live with a lawful wife. Nor shall it be demanded of him at the time of his ordination that he promise to abstain from lawful intercourse with his wife: lest we should affect injuriously marriage constituted by God and blessed by his presence, as the Gospel saith: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder;” and the Apostle saith, “Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled;” and again, “Art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed.” But we know, as they who assembled at Carthage (with a care for the honest life of the clergy) said, that subdeacons, who handle the Holy Mysteries, and deacons, and presbyters should abstain from their consorts according to their own course [of ministration]. So that what has been handed down through the Apostles and preserved by ancient custom, we too likewise maintain, knowing that there is a time for all things and especially for fasting and prayer. For it is meet that they who assist at the divine altar should be absolutely continent when they are handling holy things, in order that they may be able to obtain froth God what they ask in sincerity.
If therefore anyone shall have dared, contrary to the Apostolic Canons, to deprive any of those who are in holy orders, presbyter, or deacon, or subdeacon of cohabitation and intercourse with his lawful wife, let him be deposed. In like manner also if any presbyter or deacon on pretence of piety has dismissed his wife, let him be excluded from communion; and if he persevere in this let him be deposed.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XIII.
Although the Romans wish that everyone ordained deacon or presbyter should put away his wife, we wish the marriages of deacons and presbyters to continue valid and firm.
My point about the Latin Church in Lviv is that Eastern Catholics cohabiting the same area as the Latins means absolutely nothing when it comes to celibacy.
The Ukrainian Church kept its married clergy after union with Rome despite the fact it was in Poland, which was part of the Roman patriarchate as you put it.
I might also note that Pope Benedict XVI suppressed the patriarchate after he became Pope.
I hope someone told this guy:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/new-ukrainian-prelate-speaks-of-hope-for-church-unity/
(IOW: No he didn’t.)
And you’re still completely missing my point: The Ukranian Greek Catholic church was an historically established church in the Ukraine, but there were also many Polish Latins who had remained in union when the UGC was in schism. There’s no such situation here in America with the Melchites. The Melchites never had Americans priests who were married, and their presence in the US was established long after the Latins.
That said, if they can work it out some way to have married priests without encouraging men to switch rites to become priests, let them go for it!
I think your point is irrelevant. Frankly speaking. We are a Church not a rite that has its own traditions and canonical disciplines.
And trust me the last thing we are going to do is go poaching for Latins who want to skirt their Church’s rules.
If Roman Catholics such as yourself are too insecure about Eastern Catholics acting as Eastern Orthodox Christians in communion with the Holy See then that is your problem.
There is a lot more to being a Melkite than using a different rite of Mass, and we don’t want them if they are going to come into our Church and try to be good little Roman Catholics who say Mass differently.
If they want to be fully Eastern and decide to pursue the priesthood after a decade of being a Melkite layman then that’s perfecly fine.
My parish has a married deacon who is studying for the priesthood. And we also have a married priest who was ordained in Israel.
So I fail to see what you are so insecure about. I say mind your own business, and we will mind ours.
My point regarding the UGCC was they were not forced to give up their married clergy even though it might scandalize the Latin Poles.
The problem with Eastern Catholics is that we are neither fish nor fowl. We are too Catholic to be Orthodox and too Orthodox to be Catholic.
More from the Melkite Eparchy’s website: http://www.melkite.org/misunder.htm
1. I support married priests among the Melkites.
2. I have “converted” to the Melkites.
3. I would even think of being a priest, except I would not want to make it looks AS IF the Melkites poached me.
4. I think it would be wonderful if the Melkites grew exponentially in influence in the West, I am that far from being “insecure” about it.
5. The Latin Patriarch, however, does have some authority in the Latin Patriarchate, and America is within the Latin Patriarchate.
6. I would deeply hope that neither the Latin Patriarch, Benedict VXI, nor the Melkite Patriarch, nor the Melkite eparch appeals to mere authority in their actions in this matter.
7. My issue is that you seem ready for schism at the drop of a hat.
8.I would readily concur that many Americans do not recognize the existence of other Patriarchs, nor understand their independent authority. But this is not aggression, merely ignorance. Why does it make your blood boil? Take it as a reason to be interesting at the next social gathering.
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