Church seeking wives for priests
The Church of Greece yesterday launched a campaign to help young priests overcome a growing problem – finding a wife in an age when Greek women are more and more reluctant to embrace an austere lifestyle. The highly conservative church announced that a new committee would examine «pastoral methods to obtain and prepare priests’ wives.» Young Greek would-be priests are expected to find a wife before being ordained. But many run into problems because potential wives are often discouraged by constraints on entertainment and by the dress code associated with their future husbands’ profession, church officials admit. «They just need to be told convincingly that life with a priest is not substantially different from that with any other husband,» said one priest, who declined to be named. But a church spokesman rejected media speculation that church-run catechism classes could be turned into matchmaking courses. (AFP)
