Clerical celibacy in East and West

About this book

Through a rigorous examinaton of early Church legislation, the author shows that there is a solid basis for the doctrine of clerical celibacy, and that it is not a mere disciplinary matter which the Church could change at will; and he examines how the divergence between the Churches occurred. Readers of this study will learn much about the customs of the clergy in the first centuries of Christianity, and about the development in the Western and Eastern Churches.