Jobs incompatible with priesthood: Discussion is still underway

In each case, an issue of compatibility of priesthood with another occupation is to be left to the discretion of a ruling archbishop a cleric is subordinated to. It is written by Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan of Volokolam Hilarion in his critical review of the document “Jobs Compatible And Incompatible With Priesthood”, reports Bogoslov.

“The draft document contradicts with its title since it does not contain a list of jobs being compatible with priesthood. Most criticized, no matter how strange it might seem, are the occupations related to either creativity or good deeds.

Many questions are raised by the assumed prohibition of the profession of a physician for those priests who have medical education. Following the letter of the document, a doctor-priest will have to refrain from providing medical assistance, since in the case of death he may be accused of “negligent homicide”. At the same time if he does not interfere into the situation and a patient dies, he will be free from any accusations.

A canonical prohibition of combining a job of a priest with that of an actor is clear. However, can there be any grounds for extending the notion of the acting profession onto the “stage performance”? Should they also include here performances of choirs on the stage? Such performances are a common and popular practice, one of the kinds of missionary activities of the Church in the secular world.

What are canonical grounds to forbid clerics from doing professional sports and what is the criterion of a professional level of such an activity? Cleric of Odessa diocese Viktor Kochmar is a world champion in powerlifting. Should he be disgowned for that reason then?

The text raises more questions than gives answers. Probably, it would be right to leave it to the discretion of a ruling archbishop a cleric is subordinated to in each particular case. I assume our holy hierarchs will be able to have enough sensibility to determine, based on all set of facts, what activity is proper for their diocesan priests and what is improper,” believes Metropolitan Hilarion.

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