The near Elimination and Subsequent Restoration of the Married Presbyterate in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church in America

Abstract

This paper chronicles the evolution of the presbyterate of the Ruthenian Byzantine Metropolitan Catholic Church in the United States of America from the time of the first wave of immigrants to the United States to the present day. It looks at critical junctures in the history of this sui iuris Church regarding (1) the importation of married priests from Europe serving in the Metropolia during the first wave of immigration; (2) the restriction of consideration for priestly formation and ordination to celibate men; (3) the more recent importation of married priests from Europe in response to the critical shortage of clergy; and (4) most recently, the admission of American-born married men to priestly formation and ordination. This paper will examine in more detail the changing face of the presbyterate across the Metropolia, beyond the boundaries of the Passaic Eparchy. This paper also discusses how the Metropolia has adapted to forming married men alongside single men for the presbyterate as well as developed a policy for the formation of married deacons for the married presbyterate. The Byzantine Catholic Seminary adapted from having a student body of celibate men to one that includes celibate men, men who are dating, and others who are married. This paper also discusses the reception of married priests and their families by the lay faithful as well as the reception and acceptance of married priests and their families by celibate clergy. Finally, this paper discusses how the restoration of the married presbyterate to the Metropolia has been a positive development for the Church.

1. The Roman Catholic Church in America Meets the Byzantine (Greek) Catholic Church

The arrival of the Greek Ruthenian Catholic Church in the United States has been well documented (Zugger 2023a, pp. 230–315)—it was an uneasy meeting of the faithful of Byzantine and Roman Churches. The Roman Church, though somewhat more established, was still working to acculturate, be accepted, and not be feared by the Protestant majority. In fact, one of the seminal opponents of the presence of married Byzantine Catholic priests in the United States was Archbishop John Ireland of Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was a strong proponent of the “Americanization” of the American Roman Catholic Church and had already found himself “leading the opposition of the English-speaking bishops against the German demands to have their own parishes, preserve their language in their schools, and receive a greater voice in the American Church” (Fogarty 1974, p. 17). The Byzantine faithful found themselves misunderstood by their Roman brethren, not least of all by the Roman clergy, as will be seen in the next section. As for laypersons, it was not uncommon for Byzantine Catholics to need to convince their peers that they were indeed Catholics in union with Rome. To this day, when Roman Catholics attend a Divine Liturgy, the priest or deacon typically explains to those “not accustomed to attending the Byzantine Divine Liturgy” that all Roman Catholics, properly disposed, are welcome to receive the Eucharist and then proceeds to explain how Holy Communion is distributed to the faithful.

1.1. Married Priests Serving in the Metropolia from Europe from the First Wave of Immigration

As can be inferred from the prior section, the faithful Greek–Ruthenian Catholic immigrants to the United States wrote to their bishops back home requesting they send priests to minister to them. That they did, and the priests they sent were, in large part, married since the long-held practice of ordaining married men in the Christian East continued in those Eastern Churches that had reunited with Rome. The response of the American Roman Catholic hierarchy was generally icy at best and, practically speaking, hostile and rejecting. In 1890, the American hierarchy—led by Archbishop John Ireland and Bishop Tobias of Erie—petitioned the Vatican to give American hierarchs jurisdiction over Eastern Catholic laity and clergy coming to the United States, and further that the clergy must be celibate (Fogarty 1974, p. 18). Whilst no formal decree was forthcoming, instead, the Vatican Propaganda office responded by issuing a letter in October 1890 to John Ireland and Bishop Tobias Mullen “supporting them in their actions toward oriental rite Catholics and decreeing that ‘priests of the Greco-Ruthenian rite, who desire to go to and remain in the United States of North America, ought to be celibate’” (Fogarty 1974, p. 18). This response coincided with an unfortunate, ugly interaction between Archbishop Ireland and Father Alexis Toth of the Greek Catholic Diocese of Eperjes. As Fogarty (1974, p. 17) reported, Ireland “refused to recognize Toth as a validly ordained priest because the latter had been married even though then a widower.” With this, the unity of the Greco-Ruthenian Church was dealt a blow.

On 25 March 1891, Father Toth—together with his congregation of about 365 immigrants—was received into the Orthodox Church by Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky of San Francisco. During the next few years, Toth became a zealous missionary for the Orthodox Church among the Uniate Catholics, especially in Wilkes-Barre. The work of Toth and men like him, aided by the intolerant stance of the American hierarchy, was eminently successful, for over the next few decades, more than 225,000 Carpatho-Russian and Galician Uniates entered the Orthodox Church (Fogarty 1974, p. 18).

Magosci (2004, p. 31) reported that

the Russian Orthodox Church was only too willing to accept Toth and his flock, for at the time, Russia’s tsarist government was supporting liberally the spread of Orthodoxy both in Europe and the New World. The talented Toth was before long sent on missionary work to Pennsylvania, where he succeeded in converting many more Carpatho-Rusyns to the Orthodox faith. It has been estimated that by the time of his death in 1909, this energetic priest “brought back” more than 25,000 Carpatho-Rusyns (three-quarters of whom were from the Lemko Region in Galicia) into the fold of Orthodoxy. These converts and their descendants have since then formed the largest portion of the membership in the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America (later the “Metropolia” and now the Orthodox Church in America). For his services, Toth has been hailed by the church as the “father of Orthodoxy” in the United States and in 1994 was proclaimed a saint.

As for those who remained in union with Rome, this and other directives from the Holy See were, in part, ignored. To gain more control over the situation in America, archbishops—at a meeting in Baltimore in September 1893—composed a letter that was sent to the Holy See that stated the following:

“[T]he presence of married priest of Greek [Eastern] rite in our midst is a constant menance to the chastity of our unmarried clergy, a source of scandal to our laity, and, therefore, the sooner this point of discipline is abolished before these evils obtain large proportions, the better for religion, because the possible loss of a few souls of the Greek rite bears no proportion to the blessings resulting from the uniformity of discipline”.

(Fogarty 1974, p. 18)

The Holy See issued in 1908 the Ea Semper decree in response to the American bishops’ concerns regarding the Eastern Churches. In specific regard to the issue of clerical celibacy, it contains the following:

Article 10. Since there are not yet any Ruthenian priests who were either born or even educated in the United States, the bishop of the Ruthenian rite, in consultation with the Apostolic Delegate and the local [Latin-rite] bishop, will make every effort to establish seminaries to educate Ruthenian priests in the United States as soon as possible. In the meantime, Ruthenian clergymen will be admitted to the Latin seminaries in the area where they were born or in which they are domiciled. But only those who are celibate at present and who shall remain so may be promoted to the sacred orders.

This latest decree, if anything, added fuel to defections to the Russian Orthodox Church. Even after Toth’s death in 1909, at least seventy-two “parishes or communities were received into Orthodoxy, most of them containing ’Carpatho-Russian’ Greek Catholics who were being urged to seek their ‘true home’ in the Russian Orthodox Church during the tenure of Archbishop Platon Rozhdestvensky, head of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America from 1907 to 1914” (Magosci 2004, p. 31).

The Holy See was not anticipating the strong negative reaction to the imposition of clerical celibacy in the Greco-Ruthenian Church as other Eastern Churches had already been moving toward conformity with the Roman practice (Zugger 2023a, pp. 383–84). Thomas J. Loya (2021), himself a celibate Byzantine priest and the grandson of a married Byzantine priest, explains the strong reaction against the imposition of clerical celibacy:

When confronted with such an almost hysterical prospect, it is important to consider the recent history related to this issue. When the Latin hierarchy, in concert with Rome, stopped the practice and presence of married priests in the Eastern Catholic churches in the “New World”, the grave injustice was not simply that one church encroached on a tradition of another. It was not that a bunch of men had their wives taken away from them. What was missed by the Latins and not even fully recognized by the Eastern Catholic churches themselves to this day was that a married priesthood was part of the very structure and character of the Eastern Catholic churches. Removing the custom of having married priests was like kicking one of the four legs of a table out from under it and still expecting that table to stand normally. The table at best will wobble, and indeed the Eastern Catholic churches have been wobbling ever since the Cum Data Fuerit debacle. But the worst part of the grave injustice was that after kicking the leg out from under the Eastern Catholic churches, the Latin Church offered nothing to replace that leg. The Eastern Catholic churches to this day have never really been given—nor have they themselves established and articulated—a suitable replacement for the missing leg. (pp. 202–203).

So, though pronouncements were made, enforcement was lax until years later when the Vatican document Cum Data Fuerit (1929) was promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Pius XI on 1 March 1929.

The promulgation of Cum Data Fuerit occurred four and a half years after the Greek–Ruthenian Church in the United States was given the status of exarchate on 1 September 1924. With the establishment of the exarchate, the Most Reverend Basil Takach was sent to the United States to serve as its first bishop. At the time of the exarchate’s establishment, there were an estimated 300,000 Greek–Ruthenian Catholics in one hundred fifty-five parishes served by one hundred twenty-nine priests. Zugger (2023a, p. 373) documents that Bishop Takach had one hundred twenty-nine priests, mostly married, to serve the one hundred fifty-five parishes of the exarchate. These parishes were mostly near the coal mines, steel mills, and factories in the northeast. The seat of the exarchate was moved from New York City to Munhall, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, to be in proximity to the largest major population center of Greek–Ruthenian faithful.

Cum Data Fuerit was, on the surface, a largely positive document affirming the right of Greek–Ruthenian Catholics to exist and flourish alongside their Roman Catholic brethren in the United States. The document states that the Greek–Ruthenian Rite bishops appointed to serve in the United States “have the right and power to rule and govern their flock and to enact laws and statutes in matters which are not contrary to common law. Their chief duty will be to see that doctrine and good morals, as well as the rites and discipline peculiar to this Church, be observed faithfully and in their entirety” (Cum Data Fuerit, Chapter I, Article 3, p. 14). (Emphasis added.) Further, the document instructs that “ordinaries see to is that, when the opportunity presents itself, at least a major and minor seminary be erected...for the education of the clergy of the Greek-Ruthenian Rite” (Cum Data Fuerit, Chapter II, Article 11, p. 16). The document also prohibited Latin clergy from inducing any Greek–Ruthenian Rite to transfer to the Latin Rite contrary to, or aside from, the canonical provisions that govern the change of Rite (Cum Data Fuerit, Chapter III, Article 30). However, one statement overshadowed all others because, once and for all—or so it seemed—it prohibited married priests from serving in the diaspora: “...as has already several times been decreed, priests of the Greek-Ruthenian Rite who wish to go to the United States of North America and stay there, must be celibates” (Chapter II, Article 12, p. 17). (Emphasis added.)

The years immediately following the promulgation of Cum Data Fuerit were difficult as documented in detail by J. A. Loya (1995). According to J. A. Loya (1995), the primary reason for arguing against the imposition of mandatory celibacy for Greek–Ruthenian Catholic clergy in the United States was that [the married presbyterate]

was not so much a granted right as it was an age-old tradition that was recognized, affirmed, guaranteed, and protected by the popes who forged the establishment of the Eastern Catholic churches with former Orthodox bishops and clergy in the Unions of Brest-Litovsk (the Ukrainian union of 1596) and Uzhorod (the Ruthenian union of 1646). Never had it been explicitly stipulated that this protected privilege could be subject to geographical restriction (p. 150). (Emphasis added.)

Division and acrimony over Cum Data Fuerit in the Greek–Ruthenian Catholic Church soon led to yet another schism when, in July 1935,

thirty-seven parishes that were in opposition to Latinization attempts by the Roman Catholic Church petitioned that a Church Congress be called to decide the future of Carpatho-Russian Churches in the United States. The first Diocesan Council-Sobor was called in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 23 November 1937 by Father Orestes P. Chornock who was appointed administrator of the Diocese being formed. The Sobor abrogated the 300-year-old “Unia” and returned the Carpatho-Russian people to the ancestral Orthodox Faith. The clergy at this Sobor elected the Rt. Rev. Orestes P. Chornock as the Bishop-Nominee of the new Diocese (www.acrod.org/about/history, accessed on 12 May 2025).

The story of one priest, told to this author by his son Mr. Adrian Zapotocky (A. Zapotocky, personal communication, 8 April 2025), is very indicative of how the schism caused by Cum Data Fuerit impacted individuals and families at a deeply personal level. Reverand Andrew Zapotocky was the last of a long line of married Greek Catholic priests in his paternal lineage dating back to at least 1623. Father Andrew’s paternal grandfather, Father Ivan Zapotocky, was one of the first priests to come to America, most likely in the early 1870s. The young Andrew was twenty-two when CDF was promulgated. Intent on responding to his call to the married priesthood, he left the Greek Catholic Church for Orthodoxy in 1937, married Klotild Magyar, and was later ordained an Orthodox priest. Father Andrew was a founding father of Christ the Savior Cathedral, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and cathedral of the newly formed American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese History (n.d.). Klotild was the daughter of the cantor–choir director–religious education teacher Professor John Magyar at the Greek Catholic Parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was warned that if he attended his daughter’s wedding in the Orthodox Church, he would lose his job. For fear of losing his livelihood, Professor Magyar did not attend his daughter’s wedding. Father Andrew went on to serve as a priest for ACROD until 1965 when he was received into the Byzantine Catholic Church (BCC) and served in the Eparchy of Passaic. Son Adrian became a Byzantine Catholic prior to his father, as “I saw the direction in which my father was heading.” Adrian married his wife Barbara in the Byzantine Catholic Church, albeit before his father’s reception into the BCC. Of note, Father Andrew’s return to the BCC was facilitated by Father Alan Borsuk, a priest of the Eparchy of Passaic, and Cardinal Krol, then Archbishop of Philadelphia. What would have been unthinkable for an American Roman Catholic bishop in 1937 was deemed the right thing to do in 1965.

Father Andrew Zapotocky’s defection to the Orthodox Church was not an isolated event. Upwards of 200,000 Ruthenian Catholics became Orthodox due to the Cum Data Fuerit Decree of 1929 (Zugger 2023a, p. 397). In some cases, the schism took place in families where some members left for the Orthodox Church. Scandalously, as reported by Zugger (2023b, 26:00-26:56), the Roman hierarchy in the United States acknowledged the likelihood of the Byzantine Church losing faithful secondary to the imposition of a ban on a married presbyterate. However, this was seen as an unavoidable consequence of the quest for uniformity of discipline. These ancillary losses of 200,000 souls from the Catholic communion were deemed acceptable by the American Roman Catholic hierarchy. That is an astonishing and tragic sixty-seven-percent loss of people from the American Greek–Ruthenian Church.

These losses notwithstanding, the Byzantine Catholic Church continues in America, and married priests have been serving it to this day. Despite opposition to the married presbyterate among the American Roman Catholic hierarchy, the tradition was never completely discontinued. Those who had come to the United States in the 1920s continued to serve until their retirements or deaths as late as the 1970s, albeit in much smaller numbers than previously. This author grew up in a parish (SS. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church, Elizabeth, New Jersey) that had been served by a married priest, Reverend Orestes Koman, who retired in 1973. Father Koman was one of the last married priests to retire. By that time, the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh had been forming celibate men for the presbyterate ever since it inaugurated its program of theological studies in 1950. At its peak, the seminary enrolled one hundred eleven men in its program of priestly formation in September 1960. From its beginning, only single men were considered for priestly formation and accepted into the seminary.

The practice of admitting only unmarried, celibate men to the seminary for priestly formation was a strictly held policy that continued with the elevation of the Most Reverend Nicholas T. Elko as the first American-born Byzantine Catholic hierarch on 6 March 1955. Although a charismatic figure whose leadership facilitated the expansion of the Byzantine Catholic Church in America, he was also a controversial figure for his role in “Latinizing” the Church to create a more “American” Byzantine Catholic Church (Zugger 2023a, p. 573). In 1963, with the establishment of the Passaic Eparchy led by Bishop Stephen Kociscko, the “conventional wisdom” (J. G. Basarab, personal communication, 30 April 2025) is that Archbishop Elko transferred the few married priests remaining within his archeparchy to the newly formed eparchy.

1.2. Seeds of the Restoration of the Married Presbyterate in the Twenty-First Century

Orientalium Ecclesiarum, promulgated by Pope Saint Paul VI on 21 November 1964, marked a turning point for the Eastern Churches in union with Rome as the legitimacy of the Eastern Rite was affirmed, and they were instructed to return to their ancestral practices. More specifically, it instructed the following:

6. All members of the Eastern Rite should know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, and that these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic improvement. All these, then, must be observed by the members of the Eastern rites themselves. Besides, they should attain an ever-greater knowledge and a more exact use of them, and, if in their regard they have fallen short owing to contingencies of times and persons, they should take steps to return to their ancestral traditions.

The restoration of the “ancestral practices” began, especially regarding the removal of “Latinizations” such as statues and certain prayer services. Several examples offer a feel for the changes that most immediately, albeit not uniformly, took place. In fact, restoration has been slow in more than a few parishes.

• Parish churches removed statues and altar rails. In their place, iconostases and icons were installed in many, though not all, churches.
• The Roman Catholic service of the Stations of the Cross had been the norm during the Great Fast (Lent) in Byzantine Catholic churches. The Second Vatican Council led to the restoration of the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts in place of the Stations.
• English translations of the Divine Liturgy replaced the Church Slavonic. At present, most parishes celebrate Divine services primarily, if not exclusively, in English.

One can presume that the re-assignment of Elko to a curial position in the Vatican in 1967 facilitated these restorations.

While these changes were taking place, the policy of admitting only unmarried men to the seminary for priestly formation continued, and the few remaining married priests were reaching retirement from active ministry or dying. There were a handful of cases of individual married priests who came into the Metropolia by way of Orthodoxy or immigration after the deaths or retirements of the few remaining married priests who had originally arrived on these shores in the early twentieth century. There was the case of a married priest of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese who was received in the Byzantine Catholic Church in 1969 with the facilitation of Cardinal John Krol, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, and Rev. Alan Borsuk of the Passaic Eparchy (G. Noga, personal communication, 30 April 2025). The priest continued to serve until 2000 when, for unspecified reasons, he returned to the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church. While this priest was still serving in the Passaic Eparchy, another priest arrived in the United States with his wife and their children in the mid-1980s. He served several parishes in the Eparchy of Passaic for twenty-one years until his death. This priest was ordained in Mariapocs, Hungary, and then served in the Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy of Toronto for eight years before coming to the United States. A married Slovak priest came to the United States in 2005 to serve in the Eparchy of Parma, as did another married Slovak priest, who similarly served in the Eparchy of Toronto (for five years) before coming to the United States to serve in the Eparchy of Passaic in 2011. Due to the great need for priests and the shortage of home-grown vocations, the American hierarchs of the Byzantine Catholic Church increasingly relied on priests brought in from Transcarpathia in far western Ukraine and eastern Slovakia—most of these priests are married. However, this could not be a long-term solution to the shortage of priests.

In a move that partially opened the door to the ordination of married men to the presbyterate in the United States, Pittsburgh’s Metropolitan Archbishop Judson Procyk promulgated new Norms of Particular Law of the Byzantine Metropolitan Church Sui Iuris of Pittsburgh, USA (1999, on 29 June). These Norms state, Concerning the admission of married men to the order of the presbyterate, the special norms issued by the Apostolic See are to be observed, unless dispensations are granted by the same See in individual cases; this is consistent with Canon 758 art. 3. of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which states, “The particular law of each Church sui iuris or special norms established by the Apostolic See are to be followed in admitting married men to sacred orders.” Essentially, though the ban on the ordination of married men to the presbyterate held, the American Byzantine Eparchs could petition the Apostolic See for dispensations to the ban on a case-by-case basis, effectively opening the door to the ordination of married men to the presbyterate in the United States. It is worth noting here that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council affirmed the existence of the married priesthood in the Eastern Churches in the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis (1965), which states

[…][Though] celibacy is held by the Church to be of great value in a special manner for the priestly life...it is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches, where besides those who with all the bishops, by a gift of grace, choose to observe celibacy, there are also married priests of the highest merit. This holy synod, while it commends ecclesiastical celibacy, in no way intends to alter that different discipline which legitimately flourishes in the Eastern Churches. (Emphasis added.)

From that time through 2014, very few married men were ordained to the presbyterate in the United States.

It was not until the fall of 2011 that the Byzantine Catholic Seminary inaugurated a program for the priestly formation of married men with two married deacons from the Eparchy of Phoenix and one layman from the Eparchy of Parma. Interestingly, when this author (together with his wife) interviewed for the deacon formation program in the Eparchy of Passaic in 2010, he was told by one of the interviewers that any deacon might one day be called to the presbyterate, so, as such, “there is no ‘permanent’ diaconate.” The door had been opened, if only partially.

1.3. Full Restoration of the Married Presbyterate in the Byzantine Catholic Church of America

Over the past twenty or so years there has been a steady flow of priests, the vast majority of whom are married, coming into the United States, primarily from the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, and to a lesser degree, Slovakia. The flow of priests has slowed to a trickle since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The role of these married priests from the ancestral homeland in paving the way for the admission of married American men to the presbyterate cannot be underestimated. As will be detailed in the following section, these married priests have been serving the Metropolia in various capacities in addition to their parochial ministry.

The current make-up of the presbyterate in the Metropolia is documented in

Table 1. Breakdown of celibate and married priests by ecclesial jurisdiction.

	All Married	All Celibate	Totals
Pittsburgh	20 (38%)	33 (61%)	53
Passaic	24 (50%)	24 (50%)	48
Parma	11 (46%)	13 (54%)	24
Phoenix	7 (37%)	12 (63%)	19
Totals	62 (43%)	82 (57%)	144

and

Table 2. Breakdown of celibate and married priests by country or continent of ordination and by ecclesial jurisdiction.

	US Married	US Celibate	Euro Married	Euro Celibate	Totals
Pittsburgh	12 (23%)	32 (60%)	8 (15%)	1 (2%)	53
Passaic	5 (10%)	22 (46%)	19 (40%)	2 (4%)	48
Parma	5 (21%)	12 (50%)	6 (25%)	1 (4%)	24
Phoenix	6 (32%)	12 (63%)	1 (5%)	0 (0%)	19
Totals	28 (19%)	78 (54%)	34 (24%)	4 (3%)	144

. As per the data on eparchial websites or directories, Table 1 shows that 43% of the priests serving in the Metropolia are celibate. The Eparchy of Phoenix has the lowest proportion of married priests at 37%, while the Eparchy of Passaic has the highest proportion of married priests at 54%.

It is worth keeping in mind that the numbers are fluid—owing to immigration, ordinations, deaths, and, more rarely, priests leaving the active ministry—but the numbers are generally stable, especially when the numbers are looked at for the Metropolia. That said, the celibate cohort is older than the married cohort. For example, in the Eparchy of Passaic, of the twenty-four active married priests, one is in his mid-seventies and three are in their sixties, or seventeen percent of the married presbyterate. Eighty-three percent of the married presbyterate range in age from their late twenties to mid-fifties. In contrast, only about twenty percent of the celibate presbyterate of the eparchy of Passaic range in age from their late thirties to mid-fifties, while eighty percent of the celibate presbyterate range in age from the sixties through eighties. Given these demographics, within the next ten years, there is likely to be a shift for a larger married presbyterate. All these priests serve as parochial administrators. Does this suggest the inevitable disappearance of the celibate presbyterate? Not necessarily. As seen in Table 2, the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh and the Eparchy of Phoenix have the largest proportion of American-born celibate priests at sixty percent and sixty-three percent, respectively. Of significance, these two jurisdictions collectively had several ordinations to major orders (diaconate and priesthood) recently. Together with the Eparchy of Passaic, these jurisdictions have ordained nine presbyters and one deacon in priestly formation since the spring of 2024. Of these ten men, three are celibate and seven are married. The three celibates are young adults, as are four of the married men; thus, 43% of the young-adult ordinands are celibate. Additionally, there are two Byzantine men’s monastic communities in the United States: the Holy Resurrection Monastery in Wisconsin, formerly linked to the Eparchy of Phoenix but now under the Byzantine Romanian Eparchy of Canton; and Duchovmy Dom in Oregon, linked to the Eparchy of Phoenix.

In the span of a generation, the married presbyterate has been restored in the Byzantine Metropolia; initially, through the importation of married priests from Europe, and more recently, through the ordination of American-born men. The flow of priests from Ukraine has been dramatically slowed since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Presently, of the sixty-two married priests serving in the Metropolia, twenty-eight—or forty-five percent—are American-born. Since becoming Eparch of Passaic in December 2013, Bishop Kurt Burnette has ordained eight men to the presbyterate, of whom three are celibate and five married.

The Council of Hierarchs of the Metropolia established a policy whereby the normal route for deacons who had completed their diaconal training at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary (BCS), if called to the presbyterate, is to return to the BCS to complete two years of full-time formation in residency. To date, several married deacons from Pittsburgh and Passaic have taken this route of priestly formation to ordination to the presbyterate. The number of men entering the Byzantine Catholic Seminary has increased over the past several years and now seems to have plateaued but, in numbers, have doubled what they were fifteen years ago.

Over a relatively short span of time, the Metropolia has transitioned from forming single men for the celibate priesthood to forming men who are either married or, if single, are more likely to be discerning marriage as well as discerning the priesthood. This has been no small task. The Byzantine Catholic Seminary has put in place a policy on married couples (https://bcs.edu/policy-married-couples/, accessed on 7 May 2025) that has no doubt evolved and will continue to evolve. The policy in its current form welcomes wives and children to attend all liturgical services and community meals (weekday lunch and dinner after Saturday evening Vespers). Wives may also audit classes at a reduced rate. One notable way in which the BCS differs from its Orthodox counterparts and their long history of forming married men for the presbyterate is its lack of on-campus housing for married seminarians, as is the case at Saint Vladimir Orthodox Seminary (https://www.svots.edu/, accessed on 7 May 2025). One vocation director opined to this author that “better housing options should be available to married seminarians.”

A policy for the priestly formation of married deacons who are called to the presbyterate was established by the Council of Hierarchs of the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia. It requires that married deacons who completed the diaconal formation program at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh, return to Pittsburgh for two years to complete a Master of Divinity degree as well as receive additional pastoral, human, and spiritual formation.

1.4. The Acceptance of Married Priests and Their Families by Celibate Priests and the Laity

It is one thing to bring people into an organization; it is quite another thing to have the new people accepted. It has been the experience of this author and other married priests that they and their families have been accepted by celibate priests—both brother Byzantine Catholic priests and Roman Catholic priests—and laity alike.

For laity in their mid-sixties and older, having a married parish priest harkens back to a time when they either had a married priest or at least knew of one serving or having served in their parish or a neighboring parish. There is a sense of gratitude expressed by some that “we can finally be ourselves.” Roman Catholic visitors seem accepting when attending a Divine Liturgy celebrated by a married priest. One woman, a lapsed Roman Catholic, expressed appreciation that her adolescent daughter was being initiated into a Church that has married priests. Although it is too soon to tell, it may well be that a healthy married priesthood may serve to facilitate more conversions from Protestant denominations as happened with the earliest waves of immigrants to America (Zugger 2023b, 18:36–21:30). The laity may also have a greater appreciation for the sacrifices made by their celibate clergy, knowing that they freely chose to forego marriage. As the married presbyterate becomes more established, these are questions that will be worth examining.

What can be said at this juncture is that married priests throughout the Metropolia serve as parochial administrators, pastors, or parochial vicars. In addition to their parochial ministries, married priests may be found throughout the Metropolia serving in various capacities at the eparchial level such as on the College of Consultors, the Eparchial Tribunal, the Presbyteral Council, Cathedral Rector, and formators and adjunct professors at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary. Some have taken positions as hospital, military, and police chaplains and, as such, have received bi-ritual faculties that require the blessing of both the priest’s Byzantine bishop and the Roman bishop in whose (arch)diocese the priest intends to serve in a special ministry. Additionally, a few of these priests are adjunct professors at local Catholic colleges and universities. This author has continued his ministry in service to a Roman Catholic seminary.

This rich tapestry of married priests serving in the American Byzantine Catholic Metropolia, in the predominantly Roman Catholic United States, is testimony to the growing understanding and acceptance of the rightful place of these priests in the Eastern Churches. The married presbyterate is, once again, an integral part of the American Byzantine Catholic experience. In the end, it was the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council in Orientalium Ecclesiarum, Pope Saint John Paul II in Orientale Lumen, and Pope Francis who, collectively, over a span of one-half century gradually facilitated the restoration of the health of the Eastern “lung” of the Catholic Church. The married presbyterate has been an essential element to that restoration of health, having led to a more robust, authentic expression of Byzantine Catholicism in America in the spirit of Orientalium Ecclesiarum and has, at times, unwittingly infused vitality into some otherwise floundering parishes. For example, there are small parish communities in the Metropolia with few, if any, children that suddenly find themselves with a new parish priest and his wife and young children in tow.

A married American born of the Metropolia remarked in a personal communication (27 March 2025) on how his parish has responded to his wife:

“… I have found that my wife, who is very much a behind-the-scenes person, has added to the experience of the community as people have found that she takes an interest in them just as much as I their priest do. Although she is not the priest and does not have any authority, nor is she in charge of anything, the faithful have found that she is very much an extension of my presence, and thus they feel they have been seen and heard, even if I was not able to visit with them in a social setting. So, in a sense, I can touch twice as many people with her help. Not to mention the obvious comments I get that families have a priest that understands their challenges.”

Parish communities must adapt whenever one priest leaves and a new one arrives to serve the community. When that new priest is married with a family, the parish community adapts to the priest and his family. It has been the observation of this author that, in general, parishioners love their parish priests as well as the families of the married priests. In the Byzantine Church, priests’ wives are commonly given the title Pani, meaning “Lady,” a title of respect, perhaps because—as the priest said in the preceding quote—the priest’s wife may be seen as an extension of her husband. Father Thomas J. Loya’s (2021, p. 203) experience growing up with his priestly paternal grandfather echoes this sentiment, as outlined below:

The wife and family of an Eastern Catholic pastor served as a built-in sense of community and support for the pastor and most of the time contributed significantly to the life and community of the parish. There was a great fraternity among the married priests’ families, as their children could play together, grow up together, form lasting bonds, and even, as in the case of my own patrimony, meet their future spouses.

The married presbyterate in the Byzantine Catholic Church in America is no mere band-aid to the shortage of priestly vocations. If anything, it restores to the Church a form of priestly ministry that has a spirituality distinct from that of the celibate priest. Father Lawrence Cross, a married Russian Catholic priest in Australia, observes, “Those who are called to the married priesthood are, in reality, called to a spiritual path that in the first place, is characterized by a conjugal, family form of life.” He further states that priestly ordination builds upon the marriage, and the priest is called “to love more, to widen his capacity to love, and [as] the boundaries of his family are widened, his paternity is widened as he acquires more sons and daughters; the community becomes his family” (Dumko 2013). T. J. Loya (2021, p. 201) argues that the restoration of the married presbyterate should take place concomitantly with the “renewal of monasticism and a positive articulation of celibacy, [other] wise our approach will be only superficially ‘Eastern’ and not true to the real Eastern genius for integration.” More specifically, T. J. Loya (2021, p. 206) notes, “monasticism takes the question of a married priesthood out of the constraints of the either/or. Monasticism, and with it a positive and adequate articulation of celibacy, raises the choice of being a celibate priest to the level of being perhaps as attractive as being a married priest.” To be sure the spirituality of the married presbyterate in the Byzantine Catholic Church is in the process of re-developing, a recent volume edited by DeVille (2021) provides an important collection of articles, some of which discuss the distinct spirituality of the married presbyterate.

For example, drawing from Pope St. John Paul II’s 1994 Letter to Families Gratissimam sane, Petra (2021, pp. 242–43) stated the following:

The theological meaning of a married clergy is that it seeks to become, by its conjugal and priestly existence, the living image of the deep unity of the “great mystery,” both as domestic church and as community church. “There is no ‘great mystery,’ which is the Church and the humanity of Christ, without the ‘great mystery’ expressed in the ‘one flesh’ (Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:31–32), that exists in the reality of marriage and the family.” Such are the words of the pope.

Petra (2021, p. 243) states that the married priest performs a priestly mission, which “exhorts him to continue that priestly mission in joy by ‘making of [his] life a constant gift to God, to [his] family and to the community entrusted to [his] cares.’” Cross and Petra (2021, p. 222) explain, “The husband, by becoming a priest, unites two sacraments, and in sharing both with his wife, is called to love more, not less, and in particular to widen his capacity to love. The boundaries of his family are widened: He acquires sons and daughters; his paternity is widened; his family becomes the community; and the community becomes his family.”

The restoration of the married presbyterate in the Byzantine Catholic Church of America, more than righting a wrong that tore families and congregations apart, has allowed for the return to an authentic and complete expression of the Byzantine Catholic Church’s lived experience in which married presbyters, with the full consent and cooperation of their wives, are able to “widen their paternity” in service to not only their biological families but to their spiritual families as well. It is in this light that the restored married presbyterate in the Byzantine Catholic Church of America can be seen as a gift to the American Roman Catholic Church rather than as a threat or source of scandal little more than a century ago.