Met. Hilarion comments on discipline of celibacy

Moscow, June 3, (Interfax) – Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk believes there will be time when Catholic priests would be allowed to have a family.

"I think that the Catholic Church will introduce married priests sooner or later, there's nothing new in it," the Metropolitan said on air the Church and World program on Rossiya 24 TV answering the question whether the Orthodox Church is likely to face the same sex scandal as the Catholic Church.

He reminded that priests and even bishops of the early Church were married.

According to the Metropolitan, married priests "minimize the problem existing and crucial for the Catholic Church."

Dozens of Italian women, who are in close relations with Catholic priests and lay monks, have recently wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI of Rome urging him to abolish celibacy for clerics.