Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1887 — Beards Among the Clergy. [ARTICLE]

Beards Among the Clergy.

The question of beards was a fruitful subject of discussion in the early councils of the church. The early fathers wore beards, and there was a particular canon adopted in the third century forbidding the priosts to shave. The Popes wore beards until the separation o£ the Latin and Greek Churches, in the eighth century, when, under the decree of Pope Leo lIL, the Latin clergy were ordered to cut off their beards as a mark of disfmction from the Greek priests, who retain theirs to this day. Pope John NIL was deposed in '. 63 for having, among other crimes, worn his beard. At several councils of the church since that time the question has been discussed, but the decision has been uniform tnat the clergy shall be shaven, in order to be unlike other men.