In his ARTICLE  advocating a married priesthood, Chris McDonnell (“One man, two vocations”, 19 July) does not mention that within the Eastern Rite Churches the concept of episcopal, priestly and diaconal vocation is different from that within the Roman Catholic Church. Whereas in the Latin West priesthood is seen as a vocation from God, in the East it is a vocation from the Church. Hence, the stories of the Fathers are replete with men running off into the desert to avoid ordination at all costs, at times being dragged back to be ordained as a priest or, more commonly, a bishop by their congregations. Another major difference in Eastern ecclesiology is that the deacon, priest and bishop remain members of the laity. Whist there has been a tendency to clericalism in some Or