Yes, that's a good point. I guess it could be read as implied, but it would have been good if there were some explicit acknowledgement of single people here.
It's certainly problematic. Usually if interest grows in that direction, the lay person ends up having to move parish/church. We do have provision for pursuing such a relationship under the oversight of the bishop, usually in situations (such as very remote areas) where just moving parishes isn't an option, but it's an exceptional circumstance. And it does produce problems for single ministers who would like not to be single, because the pool of people you might meet who are outside your church whom you yet spend enough time with to build a relationship, and who understand and support what you do enough to put up with what it does to a relationship, is typically very small!
No, I don't disagree at all.
Look, even when your relationship with your bishop is not toxic, it can be a real conflict of interest if they're both providing you with pastoral care, and your "boss" in the practical sense. Right now I am dealing with some significant personal stuff, and I've deliberately chosen not to talk to my bishop about it, because if he doesn't respond well it's not just pastoral care I forfeit, but potentially a good working relationship for every other aspect of what I do. It's a big risk.
But yes, some questions about your relationship to authority within your church structure would be helpful.
No, they're not. Tasmania has some strange extra-provincial status despite being part of the Anglican Church of Australia.
These are good points. Regarding the church I am considering joining, you raise a valid point, however, my friend who is a bishop would not actually be my boss, because he is a suffragan bishop, and there is a diocesan bishop who I would actually be working for directly. It is also the case before the diocesan bishop reposes, I would be ordained after a certain number of years as the bishop of a Western diocese, because as it stands they have offered to grant me faculties to ordain readers, which would make me functionally a chorepiscopos.
However, historically, it was the ideal in the Eastern churches that bishops would be the confessors of their priests, a relationship like that of an abbot and his monks. The antagonism between bishops and some clergy in the Roman Catholic Church is rare in the Eastern churches. Generally, tensions tend to be between bishops, rather than between bishops and priests. And you can only get ordained if you build a personal relationship with a bishop, whereas in many Western denominarions, there is a clear pathway whereby if you pass psychological evaluations, vocational coaching and so on, go through seminary, go through defined procedures, and so on, you will get posted as an assistant pastor or curate, and then in many denominations, congregations call the pastor, whereas in the Eastern churches, they are assigned, like in most Western churches with bishops.
Also, Eastern bishops tend to visit their parishes frequently and are highly venerated by the laity (Slavs call them Vladkya, meaning Master, and Syriacs call them Mar or Mor, meaning “My Lord”, so Barekh Mor means “Give a blessing, my Lord,” and in Middle Eastern congregations, when a bishop shows up or is ordained, or a priest is ordained, the women will engage in ululation. Also, when priests are ordained or when bishops visit in Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches, the congregation at the end of the liturgy sings a hymn “God grant them many years” or “Many years to you, O Master.” And bishops are ceremonially vested in the nave.
They are also generally either monks or in some cases, widowers, but mostly monks; a handful are elderly married men who have taken a credible vow of chastity. Chorepiscopi, who are like Mitred Archpriests or Archimandrites (monastic archpriests, whose ranks most bishops are chosen from), and mainly exist in the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Assyrian Church of the East, and some Eastern Catholic churches, but I think there are a few among the Eastern Orthodox, can be married and have children. For example, I am good friends with an Assyrian Chorepiscopi who is the priest of a large parish, the only one in its area, which serves a huge conversation, and he has a loving wife and several beautiful daughters, who are all active in the parish. Because of these differences between the function and relationship of bishops with the laity and presbyters and protodeacons in the Eastern churches vs. the Western churches, I feel like some questions should perhaps be changed to reflect the cultural distinction.
Which really, is not a huge difference; this questionaire is a great template, but for each major family of denominations I can think of appropriate variations. For example, Congregationalists and Presbyterian churches have teaching elders and ruling elders, and Presbyterians and Continental Reformed churches also have Presbyteries or Classis led by moderators, who are elected annually, and there is a General Synod with a moderator who also serves a fixed term. And the Baptist conventions have Presidents who serve a one year term. So there is scope for different sets of boundary violations, potential exploitation, and problems due to intentional abuse or accidental ignorance of boundaries which should not be crossed, for example, potential conflicts of interest if your best friend gets elected the moderator of your presbytery. And the Calvary Chapel, whose Moses Model polity gives each senior pastor unlimited power over their church, the only check on this power being the ability of the denomination to revoke their right to use the Calvary Chapel name, would require a lot of additional questions I think.
Which takes me to another point: in the Syriac Orthodox Church, married men need the permission of their wives to serve as priests, because of the duties involved in being a presbytera. It seems to me that the spouse or potential spouse of a man or woman in Holy Orders should either consent for their husband or wife to be ordained to major orders (the diaconate, priesthood or episcopate), with the spouse considering ordination fully disclosing all of the lifestyle changes this will cause (traditionally this was a conversation held with the bishop, who would be present to protect the interests of the wife if she was not keen on it or the husband was understating what was involved), and in terms of single priests considering getting married, they have got to disclose the lifestyle to their potential spouse, and make sure they understand it. You may not agree with this at all, but I think it is important, and perhaps not the bishop, because there is a conflict of interest in that, what if he really needs more priests? Lots of churches have a serious shortage of vocations. However, a neutral third party, like a pastor, being present, perhaps another pastor who has married, and perhaps one who also is licensed as a marriage counselor* who could make sure the spouse or prospective spouse understood the situation.
*This is common in the United States to the point that it played a major role in the plot of the American remake of the classic British political drama House of Cards, with the President who was having marital problems being forced to resign after being tricked into thinking the marriage counseling he and his wide were having, provided by a pastor, whose church they were not even members of, would be protected by pastor-penitent privilege, when it was not, since it was not confession, and involved multiple people, and for various reasons violated the principle as established by the courts, and thus the pastor leaked information, and was subpoenaed by a special judicial subcommittee which was out to get the President, and in this way Kevin Spacey’s character, the Vice President by this point, secretly engineered his ascent to the Oval Office.
