Marriage

DAN SANDU

Marriage is the Holy Mystery celebrated in the Orthodox Church which blesses the bond of mutual love between a man and a woman, for the purposes of sharing their love more fully, the creation of children, and the common attainment of salvation. The union between man and woman originates in Paradise, where God created and placed Adam and Eve (Gen. 1.27) so that human nature could be “very good” (Gen. 1.31). It was reemphasized and blessed by the Lord Jesus who participated in the wedding at Cana and taught more deeply about the relationship between a man and woman. Marriage signifies the admission of the couple into the Christian community as husband and wife, following their request to have their union blessed in the church. It involves a free, individual intent, based on a shared vocation of love and sacrifice, and thus becomes a redeeming event.

Plate 40 Orthodox wedding ritual. Ed Kashi/Corbis.

The union of a man and a woman is founded on two theological components: our ontological need for interpersonal relationship and our social need for shared and responsible love offered by a free, intelligent person. Through marriage, man and woman become “one flesh” (Eph. 5.31) and belong to each other eternally (“into the Kingdom”). Orthodox marriage is not seen as being only “Until death doth you part.”

Holy Scripture does not prescribe any specifics regarding the celebration of marriage. It does use the wedding feast in Cana (Jn. 2.1–11) to show where the Lord performed the first miracle of his earthly economy, symbolically turning water into wine. The symbol of the wedding feast is also used habitually in the parables to describe the joy of the Kingdom of God, and the symbol of the bridal chamber is used many times in Orthodox tradition to depict the soul’s union with Christ its Lord. In Eastern Christiantiy, marriage is compared to the bond between Christ and his church, like a groom and bride existing in a state of sacrifice and faithfulness to each other (Eph. 5.21–33). We have no definite information about how marriage was celebrated in early Christian centuries, but the practice of having Christian blessed by the bishop or priest during the liturgy was established by the 4th century. Crowning was an ancient rite throughout the Roman Empire, which Orthodoxy Christianized.

The legal obligation for the Orthodox to conduct marriage in a church ceremony occurred during the reign of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (895). After that time marriage in the Christian East was always celebrated in church, although later Bolshevik and secular legislation has sometimes tried to reassert the separation of the civil (legal) union and the church (religious) marriage which Christian Byzantium made one. The Orthodox marriage liturgy includes several important moments: the community’s prayer for the union of bride and groom, the blessing by the priest, the office of the crowning of the couple (Greek ritual with floral crowns, Slavic ritual with metal), the declaration of the wedding formula, the drinking from a common cup, and the promise of fidelity by the placing of hands on, and the kissing of, the Holy Gospel and the Cross. The Orthodox wedding ceremony is preceded by the office of betrothal involving the exchange of rings. In Byzantine times this was a separate ritual; now they are performed on the same day as the wedding.

To receive the mystery of marriage in the Orthodox church, at least one of the partners must be Orthodox. The couple must freely express their consent to marry, be of marriageable age and not have blood relationships (or spiritual kinship as established by the sacrament of baptism), and the service must observe the correct ritual. Orthodox practice requires the presence of another married couple who will act as spiritual parents (godparents or sponsors) and who pledge to guide the newlyweds in their family life.

The Orthodox marriage ceremony, as essentially a celebratory one, cannot be held on fast days (Wednesdays or Fridays, on September 14 and August 29, during Great Lent, including Cheesefare Week, the pre- Christmas Lent, or the summer Apostles’ Fast and Dormition Fast). Nor can marriages be celebrated on the Royal Feasts, during the (post-paschal) Bright Week or in the period running from Christmas to Theophany.

The holy mystery of marriage is intended to guide family members on the endless pathway to growth and salvation in Christ, and therefore emphasis is laid on the indissolubility of marriage (Mt. 19.3–12) and the practical exercise of Christian life together. Faith is a fundamental context for Orthodox married life, as it fosters mutual respect and fidelity and encourages spouses to recognize one another as “images of God» A wholesome family is built, by God’s grace, on the joint efforts of the spouses and on sacrifices justified by faith and love. Mutual sacrifice plays a significant role in the Orthodox theology of marriage, for it is the existential space where each person receives the freedom to be generous and forego the self out of a constant desire to enhance the happiness of the other. This is why marriage is a school of unconditional generosity, for love involves self-sacrifice, since there can be no true love without giving.

In Ephesians 5.21–33 the apostle emphasizes the essential and mutually subordinating roles of love in marriage: both parties are to be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ; the husband must love his wife “as Christ loved the church” (laying down his life), while the woman should reverence her husband as she does Christ (live in harmony and accord). This mystery of Christian marital love is everlasting because it flows out from Christ and makes the person eternal (deified by grace) through their partaking in the communion ofthe chosen one. Shared sexuality, or conjugal relations, are a very important aspect following the marital union. The body’s sexual identity is not seen in Orthodoxy as theologically irrelevant, but natural needs are satisfied and lifted up into the mystery of love in graced conjugal relations, fulfilling sexuality’s destiny in a context that reserves its expression to the married couple, and celebrates it in a full mutual knowledge of the consequences (caring love, protecting the welfare of the spouse, the creation and upbringing of beloved children). Christian marriage eradicates the tyranny of attempts to take advantage of another by reducing them to objects of pleasure. Orthodoxy no longer asserts earlier (Byzantine era) marital restrictions of the conjugal life, but instead asserts the essential principle that the spouses should mutually agree on all decisions, in the light of their spiritual advancement, and in harmony with St. Paul’s recommendation in 1Corinthians 7.5.

Divorce is actively discouraged because all the work of God in the church is aimed at unity. Divorce is anti-trinitarian, damaging the notions of motherhood, fatherhood, and communion. Divorce distorts love and may cause children to be unable to love freely. Nevertheless, the church does not preclude divorce (for the good of the separated parties) when all attempts to salvage the marriage have failed. Consequently, the Orthodox Church accepts a second or third marriage as a dispensation (1Cor. 7.9), after the first marriage has ended because of the death of one of the spouses, or was dissolved on grounds accepted by the church, or when it has been nullified by certain preexisting impediments. A divorce and permission to remarry can only be pronounced by the local bishop.