I am pleased to hear that your walk in the Lord has led you to seek to serve Him in the Orthodox Church. I have been Orthodox since my Baptism as an infant and have had to check and re-affirm my faith many times. I still find that it offers the clearest and best way to the Father while recognizing that others may not find it to be so.

One of the challenging things in Orthodoxy is that there is considerable lee-way in canonical questions. This is not to say that we are "liberal", simply that our approach generally emphasizes pastorship of souls, with compassion and mercy being at the fore. We also have the concept of "economy" whereby certain canonical stipulations *may* be relaxed in certain instances without this then becoming a legal precedent for similar cases in the future.

All this is as a preamble to my answer that there is no certainty about your being permitted to enter the diaconate or priesthood. The Orthodox Church in America has been, in my experience, most firm in adhering to the canonical stipulation that a deacon or priest must be married prior to ordination and that re-marriages, while permitted, involve relinquishing the priestly ministry.

There are some Orthodox Churches that have been more lenient in this regard for reasons known between the bishops and the candidates for priesthood - or continued priesthood - that were successful in their quest to establish or re-establish a conjugal life while ministering or preparing to minister as a priest.

Please remember that there are *many* ways to be faithful to the Lord - the ordained, sacramental priesthood is only one of them.

God bless you in your continued quest. The road is not easy but it *is* good and you are never alone in your joy or your pain.

Please see another article on this site on becoming a priest.