Celibacy in the West is a valued and lauded tradition that should be maintained.

But we need to be careful with accurately understanding the position of celibacy in the Byzantine, Syriac, Alexandrian, Armenian, and Indian (Malabar/Malankara) heritage coming down from the Apostles.

St. Paul recommended celibacy, but did not mandate it. That is in the Bible, but we have a living body of Tradition to draw from in our understanding as well.

The Byzantine East has always had both married and celibate clergy.

The matter was not settled on the side of celibacy in the early Church.

See the canons of the Synod of Elvira Spain (ca. 300 A.D. which is a Synod of the Western Church) especially Canon 33 'Bishops and ministers to abstain from relations with their wives.' and Canon 65: 'The adulterous wife of a cleric'.

{And understand that the Synod of Elvira also contains some pretty lousy theology, like: Canon 50 "If any of the clergy or the faithful eats with Jews, he shall be kept from communion. . ."}

See also the records of the proceedings of the Council of Nicea where the aged, one-eyed, white-martyr St. Paphnutius of Thebes urged his fellow bishops to not add clerical celibacy to the agenda of the Council and to leave the ancient tradition of the Church in place - those married before ordination to remain in the married state and those who were celibate before ordination were to remain celibate.

And be careful too when saying "celibacy goes back to the apostles and reflects the divine will of Christ." If we study history well and realize that there has always been a married priesthood along side celibacy, then if we reject the possibility of married clergy, we would teeter on the edge of a heresy by calling conjugal marriage a filthy thing (which it is not).

Again the tradition of exclusively celibate clergy in the West is a beautiful and laudable discipline and a ministry of availability. But it is important to accurately characterize the historical (and current) practice of the Eastern lung of the Church. And mind you, no one in the Eastern Church is trying to get the Western Church to change her position on celibacy.

To the first line of the article and the words of the pope - that there has never been (East or West) a situation of priests marrying AFTER ordination as the above article seems to be saying, "[Pope Francis:] There is no contradiction for a priest to marry” - yes - priests marrying would be a contradiction of all ecclesial discipline for 2,000 years.

To be clear and to be fair, the churches in the East descending from the apostles have always had both married priests and celibate priests. In the West the discipline of exclusively celibate priests was a later development.

The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (promulgated by Rome) is built off of the motu proprio 'Cleri sanctitati' which as it relates to married clergy references the early councils of the Church. As Canon 374 (CCEC) says, "Clerics, celibate or married, should shine forth with the splendor of chastity;. . ." (English translation from Canon Law Society of America)

We must be careful that we don't denigrate marriage in claiming to uphold a standard (a discipline) of the celibate clergy, and fall into ancient heresies ourselves.

The presence of the Eastern churches (and their different practices in the same unity of the sacraments) is a witness to the apostolicity of the Church and a defense against error - see the canons of the councils of Nicea, Contantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon (predominately Eastern bishops) and the gift of the great (Eastern) theologian Athanasius to understand the value of listening to and valuing something that is different than yourself.

No one in the Eastern church is trying to impose married clergy on the Western church.