Clerical marriage Orthodox Communion (Constantinople, Alexandria Egypt, Antioch Syria, and Jerusalem). As stated above, the majority of Roman Church Priests at that time were married. Therefore, when some churches that followed western rites and traditions were brought back into communion with the Orthodox Churches beginning in the 20th century, their right to have married clergy, provided they were married before ordination, was restored. The practice of clerical marriage was initiated in the West by the followers of Martin Luther, who himself, a former priest and monk, married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, in 1525. It has not been introduced in the
Catharine Merrill 1867 and served on its board. The Catharine Merrill Club, an Indianapolis literary organization established in 1885, was named in her honor; Indianapolis Public Schools renamed Public School Number 25 the Catharine Merrill School in 1900; and Merrill's friends and former students endowed Butler University's Catharine Merrill Chair of English in 1907 (the endowment lapsed in 1930). Merrill was born on January 24, 1824, in Corydon, Indiana, to Samuel and Lydia Jane (Anderson) Merrill. Her father, a native of Vermont who attended Dartmouth College, was an early leading citizen of Indiana. He moved to Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, in 1816,