Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/Additional Canons 1/The Council of Neocaesarea/Canons/Canon VIII

Canon VIII.

the wife of a layman has committed adultery and been clearly convicted, such [a husband] cannot enter the ministry; and if she commit adultery after his ordination, he must put her away; but if he retain her, he can have no part in the ministry committed to him.

Notes.

A layman whose wife is an adulteress cannot be a clergyman, and a cleric who keeps an adulteress shall be expelled.

Although the Eastern Church allows the clergy to have wives, even priests, and permits to them the use of marriage after ordination, nevertheless it requires of them the highest conjugal continency, as is seen by the present canon.&#160; For here it is evident that the Fathers wished even the smallest possible kind of incontinence to be absent from men dedicated to holiness.

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian&#8217;s Decretum, Pars I., Dist. xxxiv., c. xi.