Clergy Wife Confessions

Every now and then, a search term will set me thinking of a topic for this blog. This is one I found when I checked into the blog today for the first time in a long busy while: do Orthodox priests wives confess to their husbands? 

I can only tell you about a couple of responses I heard from two different clergy wives soon after I became an Orthodox clergy wife myself: Clergy wife A said : “Horrors! That would be spiritual Incest!” and Clergy Wife B said “Yes, I have no other choice, he’s just my priest when he confesses me, it works fine.” 

So, that’s two very different views!

I know of other clergy wives who have a regular confession appointment over the phone with their confessor. It is certainly difficult in some cases where the clergy wife finds herself at quite a distance from her confessor and only able to go once in a long while.  She may not be able to find a new confessor when she moves. In some jurisdictions, only some of the clergy have permission to hear confessions; but if it is the custom in that jurisdiction to receive communion regularly without confessing each time, this only becomes difficult if some unusual situation arises and an immediate confession is needed. 

I haven’t much else to say on the matter– what about you? Have you ever had difficulty getting to confession, and what did you do about it?