No actors at the altar?

Agence France-Presse reports that the Greek Orthodox Church is including actors among the professions that would make unsuitable candidates for the clergy. Apparently the Greeks regard acting as a “most soul-corrupting and harmful” vocation.

Hmmm. If the Roman Catholics had followed this rule, they would have deprived themselves of one of their best Popes.

FWIW, other professions barred from the Greek Orthodox clergy include “wine-shop keepers, members of the armed forces and, given a recent embarrassing series of corruption scandals, politicans and lawyers.” Gynecologists and coroners need not apply, either. However, appointment to the clergy is open to “farmers, fishermen, beekeepers, candle-makers, carpenters and cobblers,” as well as men who work in more modern fields like “seismology, meteorology, biology and astronomy.”