Question about Laicised Priests.

[JasonV]

Can a Laicised Priest ever be given the opportunity to give the Sacraments again?

 

[gorion]

If his Bishop restores him I suppose he could.

 

[Orthosdoxa]

I've never heard of one being restored. Either they accept their new role or they go off and start some wingbut schismatic group.

LK

 

[repentant]

What is a Laicised Priest?

 

[JasonV]

If his Bishop restores him I suppose he could.

So a Bishop could technically restore the Priest? Though it appears very rare?

What is a Laicised Priest?

From the word "Laity" means to make a Priest into laity. In western terms, we would say the Priest has been deposed.

 

[repentant]

Ahh, ok thanks.

 

[gorion]

Yes they can. I have heard about Metropolitan Philip restoring a priest after some repentance. My priest told me a story about it when I was an inquirer so it has been a while.

 

[JasonV]

I assume it would depend on what the Priest in question did if he would stand a chance at being un-deposed?

 

[repentant]

Does the deposing of Priests happen often? I have never really heard anything. Thank God we do not have the problems of the RCC. But I think we all know why we don't..

 

[JasonV]

A friend of my is/was an EO Priest. He has been laicised, and I don't know why just yet. All I know is that he's moving to a Monastery, and never planning on leaving.

Im pretty bumed out about it.

 

[Khaleas]

This is one of the problems Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR is having that still needs to be solved (as of now after communion is re-established). There are some priests who have been excommunicated by one jurisdiction but is now serving in the other. So while ROCOR isn't in communion they are not heretic either, but soon they will be in communion and it could be a problem.

 

[rusmeister]

Just speaking in general, but I don't like terms like 'laicized'. They seem designed to hide the status - you have to know the 'secret language' to understand it. Like many PC terms used to describe certain groups of people.

I think in this case the term normally used is 'defrocked', but 'deposed' is clear enough.

 

[choirfiend]

Laicised is a perfectly common and understandable term. It is rather precise, in fact, since we evidently differ from the RCC in our understanding of the priesthood--I have been told (permission to correct if wrong is granted) that the RCC holds that once one is ordained, they are a priest forever--whether or not they are removed from priestly duty--which is why you can have "valid" but "illicit" and whatnot. In Orthodoxy, a priest can absolutely be "laicised," and is no longer a priest, their name having been struck from the records of clergy.

 

[JasonV]

Laicised is a perfectly common and understandable term. It is rather precise, in fact, since we evidently differ from the RCC in our understanding of the priesthood--I have been told (permission to correct if wrong is granted) that the RCC holds that once one is ordained, they are a priest forever--whether or not they are removed from priestly duty--which is why you can have "valid" but "illicit" and whatnot. In Orthodoxy, a priest can absolutely be "laicised," and is no longer a priest, their name having been struck from the records of clergy.

So in Orthodoxy, if a Priest is laicised, he cannot even perform "illicit' sacraments?

 

[choirfiend]

Correct. One is either a priest, or he is not, and I personally do not know of anyone being reinstated as clergy after being laicised. I know one priest who chose to leave the priesthood in order to marry (his first wife had deserted him and their children decades earlier), and he was laicised. In another situation, a priest was laicised when he and his wife divorced. I believe that these might be the most common reasons--being defrocked for improper practices, teaching heresy, and other situations would generally require an unrepentant and uncorrectable mindset, and is much less common.

 

[Grigorii]

This question came up in Canon Law last semester. Fr. Alexander Rentel (prof. of Canon Law) had us read a text (I think by Archbishop Peter L'Hullier) concerning deposition of clergy. The gist of it was deposition is irreversible because it is aimed at being permanent. He also asked us to stay away from the term laicized since it is a technical term in RCC Canon Law and has a specific meaning that does not necessarily correspond to Orthodox views of Canon Law (I forget what his beef was exactly).

So,.. in principle, a deposition is permanent and thus irreversible.

Gregorios

 

[gorion]

Hmm. I'll have to go and ask my priest again. Maybe I am remembering a story incorrectly. I was not kind to my memory in the 80's

 

[JasonV]

I'll tell you this is bad news for me. This EO priest was the best guy I ever met. Practically a Saint in many people's eyes.

His letter to me was very repentant, and I suppose that's why he's moving to a Monastery to be near his Spiritual Father.

I think it's a shame that a Priest needs to be more perfect than the Laity.

 

[hungrytiger]

I'll tell you this is bad news for me. This EO priest was the best guy I ever met. Practically a Saint in many people's eyes.

His letter to me was very repentant, and I suppose that's why he's moving to a Monastery to be near his Spiritual Father.

I think it's a shame that a Priest needs to be more perfect than the Laity.

I'm sorry for your friend's troubles, Jason

I don't know what kind of problems he had/is having but it's good to hear that (from the sound of it) he is acknowledging them, attempting to repent of them, and seeking spiritual help. Being out of a leadership position and near his spiritual father in a monastery is probably a very good thing for him. I think it speaks well of the church that they are helping him to heal him like that. If there are higher standards for clergy then it is at least in part for their own spiritual well-being.

(I'm new and still just a catechumen so please forgive and correct me if I have said something wrong.)

 

[drpepper101]

A priest is a shepard of a flock, of course there are higher standards for leaders. When is that ever not the case?