(c) Council of Gangra, A. D. 355-381, Canon 4. Bruns, I, 107.
The canons of this council were approved at the Quinisext together with those of Ancyra and Laodicæa and others. This canon is directed against the fanaticism of the Eustathians.
Canon 4. If any one shall maintain, concerning a married presbyter, that it is not lawful to partake of the oblation that he offers, let him be anathema.
(d) Socrates, Hist. Ec., V, 22. (MSG, 67:640.)
That the custom of clerical celibacy grew up without much regard to conciliar action, and that canons only later regulated what had been established and modified by custom, is illustrated by the variation in the matter of clerical marriage noted by Socrates.
I myself learned of another custom in Thessaly. If a clergyman in that country should, after taking orders, cohabit with his wife, whom he had legally married before ordination, he would be degraded.[157] In the East, indeed, all clergymen and even bishops abstain from their wives; but this they do of their own accord and not by the necessity of law; for many of them have had children by their lawful wives during their episcopate. The author of the usage which obtains in Thessaly was Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca in that country, under whose name it is said that erotic books are extant, entitled Ethiopica, which he composed in his youth. The same custom prevails in Thessalonica and in Macedonia and Achaia.
(e) Quinisext Council, A. D. 692, Canons 6, 12, 13, 48. Bruns, I, 39 ff.
Canons on celibacy.
The Trullan Council fixed the practice of the Eastern churches regarding the celibacy of the clergy. In general it may be said that the clergyman was not allowed to marry after ordination. But if he married before ordination he did not, except in the case of the bishops separate from his wife, but lived with her in lawful marital relations.
Canon 6. Since it is declared in the Apostolic Canons that of those who are advanced to the clergy unmarried, only lectors and cantors are able to marry, we also, maintaining this, determine that henceforth it is in nowise lawful for any subdeacon, deacon, or presbyter after his ordination to contract matrimony; but if he shall have dared to do so, let him be deposed. And if any of those who enter the clergy wishes to be joined to a wife in lawful marriage before he is ordained subdeacon, deacon, or presbyter, let it be done.