Folia Canonica 4. (2001)
STUDIES - Pablo Gefaell: Clerical Celibacy
CLERICAL CELIBACY 81 practice, introduced by the oriental discipline through the council of Trullo which allowed the married clergy to engage marital intercourse. I am not an historian and I shall not furnish any new key-document to support my point: many authors have written on this topic with contrasting positions. In my opinion, the interpretation of the numerous pre-trullan documents on the matter (counciliar and sinodal canons, patristic writings, etc.) can be carried out under two different suppositions: a) The first supposition is that these texts reaffirm the pre-trullan existence of a married clergy who engaged in marital relations outside the periods of service to the altar. For those who maintain this interpretation, Trullo has simply ratified for presbyters and deacons the ancient discipline of apostolic origin that was in use, but it introduced the novelty of demanding bishops either celibacy or total and perpetual continence.18 Under this supposition, as we will see subsequently, the interpretation of all the primitive texts assumes a married clergy who engaged in marital relations. b) The other supposition - with which I agree - interprets the pre-trullan texts regarding married clergy as referring to a clergy that was married, yes, but also perpetually continent from the moment of receiving Holy Orders. In this way, the discipline of Trullo is considered innovative in what refers to the permission of the use of marriage by priests and deacons, as a condescension to a situation of fact in that epoch. Concerning bishops, instead, according to this vision Trullo did not do anything other than maintain the discipline which originally applied also to priests and deacons. We think that this interpretative criterion can be assumed not because of an absolutely irrefutable historical text, but mainly in light of three questions about the traditional discipline in the East: * Why does the oriental tradition insist on the celibacy of bishops?; * Why does the most ancient tradition - recognized both by Orientals and Westerners - allow a married man to become a clergyman and yet it absolutely forbids a celibate clergyman to get married?; * And, why can a widower clergyman not marry again? These are questions that do not find an answer on the basis of the first interpretative supposition. Moreover, if before Trullo the bishops were free to use their marriage, it is difficult to imagine that after Trullo there would have been such a pacific acceptance of the imposition upon the bishops of a norm so gravely restrictive of their rights. If - instead - we use the second supposition, 18 Cf., v.gr., D. S ALACH AS, II sacramento del matrimonio ne l nuovo Diritto Canonico de lie Chiese orientali, Roma-Bologna 1994, 110; J. Voronovski, Le Chiese di rito orientale e il celibato ecclesiastico, in Aa.Vv., Solo per amore. Riflessioni sui celibato ecclesiastico, Cinisello Balsano (Milano) 1993, 110. For the texts of canons 12 and 48 of the Council of Trullo, see below, footnote n. 22.
