Preparation for matushkas / married clergy

[Olympiada]

Do seminaries prepare women to be matushkas and if not, what does prepare women to be matushkas? Also how does clergy marriage differ from lay marriage?

Olympiada

[Father David Moser]

In my experience there is no preparation for a person to be a matushka. The task of a priest's wife is to support the priest in whatever manner is appropriate. That can take all kinds of forms depending on the priest, on the parish, on the diocese, on the woman and the skills that she may or may not have. The only requirement for her is that she is willing to support her husband in any way possible in any situation without question or without complaining. Some women can do this and some cannot, thus it is important for the man who strives for ordination to be selective in the woman that he asks to marry him.

Fr David Moser

[Andreas Moran]

In Russia, the seminaries have associated centres where young women are educated in Church life and trained to be priest's wives. At Sergiev Posad, the centre for the young women is within the Lavra adjacent to the seminary.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Also how does clergy marriage differ from lay marriage?

It occurred to me that it might be worth pointing out that, in terms of the rite of marriage itself, there is no such thing as 'clergy marriage'. According to the tradition and canons of the Church, a man ordained to the clergy cannot marry. However, a married man can most certainly be ordained - but this is the order: the marriage comes first.

I imagine the original question was referring, however, not to the rite of matrimony as to the estate of married life; but I thought it might be worth mentioning this all the same.

INXC, Matthew

[Andreas Moran]

Save that a Reader can marry/re-marry.

[Herman Blaydoe]

Save that a Reader can marry/re-marry.

Well, that depends on the jurisdiction and/or bishop. This is Orthodoxy after all. Of course there are those who would debate that Reader is not an ordained office, it is a tonsure, and there are some people who actually claim to know the difference between a "tonsure " and an "ordination ", but I am not one of them. I just know there are people out there.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Herman,

So far as I know, there are no jurisdictions that enforce any regulation against the marriage of readers, as there are no canons (to my knowledge) that mandate against it.

The 'disputed case', as it were, is that of subdeacon. Strictly speaking, the canons prohibit and man ordained to the subdiaconate from marrying (and from ever again cutting his beard!). Whilst in many jurisdictions this canon is not applied, and subdeacons are often married, in others it is held more rigidly. This is certainly the case in the Russian Orthodox Church - though it is meted out with economia. Still, the practice is fairly consistent.

INXC, Matthew

[Father David Moser]

So far as I know, there are no jurisdictions that enforce any regulation against the marriage of readers, as there are no canons (to my knowledge) that mandate against it.

However, in my experience, even where readers are permitted to marry, they are not generally permitted to remarry and remain in the office of reader.


The 'disputed case', as it were, is that of subdeacon. Strictly speaking, the canons prohibit and man ordained to the subdiaconate from marrying (and from ever again cutting his beard!). Whilst in many jurisdictions this canon is not applied, and subdeacons are often married, in others it is held more rigidly. This is certainly the case in the Russian Orthodox Church Matthew

I am acquainted with one monastic clergyman in the Russian Church who was caught in that no man's land. As a seminarian he attended a school in a jurisdiction where subdeacons were allowed to marry and as a single young man was persuaded to accept tonsure in that rank. However, after graduation, he was faced with the conflict in the Russian Church where subdeacons are not allowed to marry. He was given a choice by the hierarchs, to either marry and remain in the rank subdeacon for life with no possibility of higher ordination, or to accept monastic tonsure and remain eligible for ordination. He chose monastic life (and knowing him now, it was definitely the right choice) and was indeed ordained to higher orders. He is now a huge asset to the Church in his present position.

One of the ways that the Russian Church does tend to cope with this conflict though is that a reader can be given a blessing to wear the crossed orarion (which is worn by a subdeacon) and to function in that capacity without actually being tonsured. Thus an unmarried reader can at times "look like" a subdeacon (especially when he travels with the bishop) but remain a reader.

Fr David Moser

[Andreas Moran]

My own experience is that, as a reader (tonsured by Bishop Eirenaios), I was blessed to marry after the death of my first wife by Archimandrite Zacharias, and in our parish in Moscow, the priest accepts me as a reader, and has, indeed, asked me to learn to read some Epistles in Slavonic so as to read in our church there. I might add that Fr Joseph is a hieromonk and no softy when it comes to Church order. When the Lavra Fathers have officiated here at the monastery in Essex, they have accepted me as a reader to read the Epistle. I suspect things would not have been the same had I been divorced and re-married.