§ 166. Support of the Parish Clergy

In the sources of church law, monetary offerings of the faithful, firstfruits, and offerings brought to the altar are mentioned as sources of income for the support of the clergy.[1] But this does not forbid priests from receiving other things from the faithful people for their support as well, provided only that simony is not involved. The sources of priestly income have changed in the course of time, and have multiplied according to the zeal of the people toward the church and her ministers. These incomes differ according to the locality of each parish and according to the customs that exist in each place; and accordingly, in one parish certain incomes occupy the chief place, and in another, others; in one parish there exist certain sources of such income of a kind wholly absent in another; nor does it happen in any parish that only a single source of income exists and no others at all, but in general we find in every parish several such sources, which together combine to make the support of the parish clergy proper to their rank. Among these various sources of priestly income, we find that the following exist today, in various local churches, for the support of the parish clergy: a) fixed annual money payments; b) plots of land that yield produce; c) fixed dues from the produce of the land or from livestock, on the part of the parishioners; and d) epitrachelion revenues.

I. The oldest kind of priestly income is money income. We find the support of church ministers by fixed sums of money already in the apostolic age, for the faithful made their offerings for the greater part in money, and that money was used, as much to cover general needs, as likewise chiefly for the support of the clergy. This was also the principal kind of income for the clergy in that age when the Church did not yet possess immovable goods, and so it remained for many centuries afterward. The clergy in the towns could hardly count on any other kind of income; but the rural clergy too received, weekly or monthly, in money, whatever fell to them by the general division. This source of clerical support, on account of the various chance fluctuations to which money in general is subject, is not always the most reliable; but it is in any case the simplest, and it was on it that the urban clergy chiefly relied. In our time the general tendency is for the parish clergy, not only in the towns but also in the villages, to receive in ready money whatever they need for their support in a manner proper to their rank.

The amount of this support in money differs today in the various churches, according to the difference of local conditions; and where it exists, it is regularly regarded as a supplement to the incomes priests receive from other sources, and, in general, as a substitute for what parishioners in other places give their priest in kind.[2]

II. A second source for the support of the parish clergy consists, in some places, of a fixed quantity of land, the produce of which the clergy have the right to enjoy. This arose chiefly from the fact that it was not possible to give the clergy the corresponding reward in money. In the parishes of the older period we find this existing almost everywhere, except in the town parishes, where the clergy’s reward was given in money. This exists today, too, in the greater part of the Orthodox world.[3] The owner of this land, which is given to the parish clergy for their enjoyment, is the local church, and accordingly the clergy are answerable to the eparchial authority for that land. They may cultivate it according to their own discretion, but may only let it out on lease in keeping with the legal prescriptions that exist specifically for such land.[4]

III. A source of support for the parish clergy that is both general and very old is the ‘bir’—namely what parishioners give the priest every year from the produce of the land or from livestock. We find the giving of the bir to the clergy already in the Old Testament church.[5] From the Old Testament church this was received also by the New Testament church; and the oldest monuments of church law speak of a certain annual due from the fruits of the earth (a due generally amounting to a tenth part of the produce, and thus called the tithe, δεκάται) for the benefit of the church and clergy.[6] In the Western church, from this arose the theory de decimis, which, beginning with the sixth century, developed extensively in Roman Catholic church legislation.[7] In the general church legislation of the East there is nothing of this sort; rather, the faithful were left to give from the fruits of the land to their priests, of their own zeal, as much as they could, with no fixed amount.[8] It was established afterward, by church practice, how much anyone was to give of these fruits of the land to the priest, and that practice then became law for the parish concerned and was recognized by the competent authority of the respective local churches as a regular source for the support of the parish clergy. The circumstances of the times have gradually cooled the former zeal of the faithful in giving the bir to their priests, and today there is a general tendency to replace this priestly bir with a regular money salary.[9]

IV. A general source of priestly income found today in all churches is the so-called epitrachelion revenue (stole fee). It is so called from the epitrachelion, which the priest puts on when he performs some service for which he receives a fixed payment. In the earlier period of the Church this income did not exist, and any priest who should demand some payment from his parishioners for a church service was regarded as a simonist.[10] But if someone of his own good will made a gift to the priest for some service, this was regarded as a noble act, and the Church did not forbid the priest to accept such gifts at all. In the course of time these gifts passed into custom, and every priest could count on them as a regular income of his own. When later the clergy’s other incomes began to diminish, reliance began to be placed also on what the priest could obtain from the epitrachelion, and this became a special heading of parish income. And so that no abuse might creep into this, first the church authority and then the civil authority as well established by law for exactly which services, and how much, priests were to charge their parishioners. By this, epitrachelion charges acquired legal standing, which the parish priest could exact without fear of falling into simony. A priest falls into simony only when he seeks such payment from poor parishioners who themselves suffer want, or when he refuses to perform some service until he is paid for it.

Today, everywhere, epitrachelion charges are fixed by particular tariffs issued by the competent authorities, graded chiefly according to the class, age, and financial condition of the parishioners.[11] Since the epitrachelion tariff has the purpose of preventing any arbitrary or excessive charging by the clergy for the services in question, this same tariff is strictly binding on every priest and must be displayed in every parish, in a certified copy, in such a place that every parishioner may always see it. The exact observance of the prescriptions of these tariffs is subject to the oversight of the higher authority.[12] From poor parishioners, whom everyone knows to lack sufficient means of livelihood, the priest may demand no payment at all, but out of Christian love must perform the service in question for them free of charge; and parish clergy are subject to strict accountability should they seek such payment from the widow or relatives of some deceased, poorer parishioner, or compel them, for this reason, to sell or pawn something of their own property.[13] The priest must likewise bury free of charge foundlings and orphans supported in public charitable institutions,[14] just as he is obliged to issue free of charge extracts from the registers to those who need such extracts in order to obtain some assistance for their support.[15] At the request of the party concerned, the parish priest in question is obliged to issue a written receipt for the sum he has received for some service performed.[16] Every abuse on the part of the parish clergy of the epitrachelion revenues is subject to the judgment of the competent higher authority, which has the right to punish such abuses.[17]

V. In addition to these various incomes, the parish clergy generally have the right also to a free residence. In earlier times we find, attached to every church, separate buildings in which catechumens were instructed and in which poor and infirm members of the Church took shelter. Priests too lived in these buildings, to whose oversight both the church and those under the church’s protection were entrusted.[18] From this arose, in the course of time, the right of the parish clergy to a free residence—a right that is today conditioned, among other things, on the priest’s duty to reside continually in his parish, and on his house’s being a public official place, both from the standpoint of the church authority and equally for the state authority.[19]

All the kinds of income mentioned so far may be regarded as the regular income of the parish clergy.[20] They are conditioned by the circumstances of place and time, and none of them have always existed, to an equal degree and at all times, in all the local churches, just as they cannot all exist today either. Some are altogether absent in individual churches (for instance, land allotments in Dalmatia, or the bir under the rescript in the Metropolitanate of Karlovci), but are compensated for by another kind of income. In general, as regards the support of the clergy, the principle holds that ‘he who serves the altar has the right to be fed from the altar,’ and according to this principle the church authority is bound to see to it that the parish clergy receive their proportionate support (congrua sustentatio); and according to this same principle the clergy too, who must devote their whole being to parish service and may not occupy themselves with any business not directly connected with their parish service, have a full and lawful right to such support of theirs. And in view of the bond that exists in Christian states between Church and state, and of the great moral benefit that the state derives from the Church for the general social good, it is also the duty of the state to see to this support of the clergy, and to assist the Church in it always, whenever the Church’s own material means cannot satisfy all the needs of the clergy.