MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

Economia and Pastoral Guidance

by Bishop Athenagoras (Peckstadt) of Sinope[1]
International Congress; Catholic University of Leuven (18-20 April 2005)

1. INTRODUCTION

The question is often asked what the Orthodox position is on marriage. The answer to this question should be sought in the Orthodox teaching on the “mystery or the sacrament” of marriage. We also know that the Roman Catholic Church considers marriage as a sacrament. There is however a very important difference which should be clarified here. In the first place, the Roman Catholic Church holds that the bride and bridegroom execute the marriage themselves, in their vows to each other. In the Orthodox Church it is the priest or the bishop who consecrates the marriage, who calls upon God in the name of the community, and asks that the Holy Spirit be sent down (epiclesis) on the man and woman and in this way make them “into one flesh”. In addition marriage is for the Orthodox Church rather a spiritual path, a seeking after God, the mystery of oneness and love, the preparatory portrayal of the Kingdom of God, than a necessity for reproduction.

2. THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE: MYSTERY — SACRAMENT[2]

Marriage is a mystery or sacrament that has been instituted with God’s blessing during creation. The chosen people saw it then as a mystery that had its beginnings at the divine creation. This is confirmed by Christ who says: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female’. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and two will become one flesh”. (Mark 10, 6-8).

According to the Holy Scriptures marriage is built on:

  1. the distinction, at the first creation of man, between man and woman (“Also God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”, Gen. 1:27)
  2. the creation of the woman out of Adam’s rib (Gen 2:21-24);
  3. the blessing of God on the first created with the words: “be fruitful and increase in number” (Gen. 1:27-28).

These three elements make marriage a spiritual praxis par excellence, not only due to the simple covenant between two people, but especially due to the fact that it is an expression of God’s will. The natural covenant of marriage becomes as it were also a divine covenant, hence also its fully mystical character which the church emphasizes. The principal and therefore the most essential element of marriage is the joining of each person with one single person of the opposite sex. This element of one single person in marriage is maintained even after the fall of the first created creatures in the Old Testament, although this may not always have been adhered to in practise.[3] This element of marriage assumes a resemblance to the relationship between God and the chosen people. This element of one single person in marriage is confirmed by Christ’s teaching on marriage.

Paul is the first to understand the essence of Christ’s teaching on marriage and its sanctity. He describes it as “a great mystery in Christ and in the Church” (Eph. 5, 32) The definition “in Christ and in the Church” means, according to Paul, that the spiritual bond of love, of commitment, and of the reciprocal submission of the partners — which is the bond of their complete oneness — only exists when it conforms to the love of Christ for His Church (Eph. 5, 22-33). The relationship of the partners that grows out of marriage is, in other words, so essential, so intense and so spiritual, as the existing relationship between Christ and the Church.[4] The oneness of the Church — as community of the baptised — with Christ, and its maintenance, takes place through the sacrament of the Divine Eucharist. This is the centre of all the sacraments and puts mankind in an eschatological perspective. In this way marriage also “transfigures” the oneness of man and wife into a new reality, namely, seen in the perspective of life in Christ.[5] This is why the apostle Paul does not hesitate to call this decisive step in human existence “mystery” (or … sacrament) in the image of Christ and His Church. This is the only reason why a truly Christian marriage can be unique, “because it is a Mystery of God’s Kingdom, that introduces mankind to eternal joy and eternal love”.[6] This oneness — brought about with the sacrament of marriage — is no one-sided action of the Church. Man is not called after all to participate passively in the grace of God, but as God’s co-worker. And even when man becomes a co-worker, he remains subject to the weakness and sinfulness of human existence.

In this light even reproduction (1 Tim. 2, 15) is seen as man’s co-operation with creation. The mystery or sacrament of marriage becomes immediately related to the mystery of life, of the birth of human souls, of immortality and of their death.

3. THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE

Here it becomes evident that the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church differ in their understanding of the purpose of marriage. In orthodox theological thinking this is firstly the reciprocal love, the relationship and the help between the marriage partners with view to their completion in Christ. Only subsequently comes the restraining of their sexual passion[7] and the reproduction of the human race.[8] It is remarkable that in the New Testament we find no reference relating marriage to reproduction. In the Roman Catholic Church it is evident that the ultimate purpose of marriage is “procreation” or reproduction. To see reproduction as the principal purpose of marriage is a narrow perspective on the conjugal life of man and wife. What value does sexual intercourse have between man and wife in the case of sterility or after the menopause, or if the wife is medically unable to have any more children? It is certain that the married couple have precedence above the family, however praiseworthy the purpose of family is.[9] The story of the establishing of marriage is found in the second chapter of the book Genesis, which deals with the fact that “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2, 24), without mention of reproduction. The Holy John Chrysostom refers to this: “There are two reasons for which marriage was established …to cause the man to be satisfied with one single wife and to give him children, but it is the first which is the most important…As for reproduction, marriage does not necessarily include this…the proof is to be found in the many marriages for which having children is not possible. This is why the primary reason for marriage is to regulate the sexual life, especially now that the human race has already populated the whole world". [10]

4. MARRIAGE AS THE HOUSE CHURCH

The Church Fathers say it characteristically: “Where Christ is, there is the Church”, which demonstrates that the marriage relationship has a church character. This is why Paul speaks of “the church that meets at their house” Rom. 16, 5) and John Chrysostom of the “small Church”.[11] At Cana in Galilee Jesus “revealed his glory” (John 2, 11) in the womb of a “house church”. Paul Evdokimov suggests, “this marriage, as it were, is the marriage of the bridal couple with Christ. He is the one who leads and – according to the Church Fathers does so in all Christian marriages".[12] The reciprocal love of man and wife is a communal love for God. Every moment of their lives becomes a glorifying of God. John Chrysostom says it this way: “Marriage is a mystical icon of the Church”.[13]

5. HOLINESS AND INDISSOLUBILITY OF MARRIAGE

We have already said that marriage in its purest form is a natural order according to divine intention. It is the basis of the family, which is the community where man’s noblest feelings are able to develop. Marriage is in its essence a holy institution and its holiness has been sealed through the Church, which views marriage as a divine institution and mystery.[14] It is not therefore the agreement and free will of the marriage partners that establishes the marriage, but it is the grace of God in particular which is essential, and this is given through the approval of the Church, in the person of the bishop.[15]

Doctrine regarding the indissolubility of marriage is based on its holiness. The holiness and indissolubility of marriage exalt monogamy. References are often made to the Old Testament in this regard (Mal. 2, 14).

But as mystery or sacrament the Christian marriage is undoubtedly confronted with the “fallen” state of mankind. It is presented as the unachievable ideal. But there is a distinct difference between a “sacrament” and an “ideal”, for the first is “an experience involving not only man, but one in which he acts in communion with God”, in this he becomes a partner of the Holy Spirit while remaining human with his weaknesses and faults.[16]

The theory of the indissolubility of marriage has a strong pedagogical significance. The motivation Christ gives is a command. Those who commit themselves to the covenant of marriage should do all they can not to separate, as they have God to thank for their oneness. But the additional motivation: “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Mark 10, 9; Math. 19, 6) does not signify a magical adherence. In every mystery or sacrament, excluding baptism, the exertion of man’s free will is required. The “not separate” is a divine request, as is “do not kill”. But man is free and can dissolve his marriage and kill his fellow man. In both cases he commits grievous sin.[17]

The Church has been faithful throughout the centuries to the principle referred to by Paul, that a second marriage is an aberration of the Christian statute. In this sense the orthodox doctrine confirms not only the “indissolubility” of marriage, but also its uniqueness. Every true marriage can be uniquely the “only” one.

6. DIVORCE

The problem of divorce is a very delicate question as it often touches on a painful human reality.

The tradition of the Church of the first centuries — which continues to have authority for the Orthodox Church — put the emphasis very strongly on two related points:

  1. the “uniqueness” of the authentic Christian marriage,
  2. the permanence of married conjugal life.

We may recall here the analogy that Paul makes between the unity of Christ and his Church and that of the bride and bridegroom. This analogy that is as it were at the root of the mystery assumes the real and continuing unity of the married couple, which therefore totally excludes a simultaneous polygamy and views one single marriage as the ideal.

Divorce does not heal the diseased marriage but kills it. It is not a positive action or intervention. It is about dissolving the “mini-Church” that has been formed through the marriage relationship.[18] The Holy Scripture attributes divorce to the callousness of man.[19] This is seen as a fall and sin. And yet the Orthodox Church can however permit divorce and remarriage on the grounds of interpretation of what the Lord says in Matt. 19:9: “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” According to Bishop Kallistos Ware divorce is an action of “economia” and “expression of compassion” of the Church toward sinful man. “Since Christ, according to the Matthaean account, allowed an exception to His general ruling about the indissolubility of marriage, the Orthodox Church also is willing to allow an exception”.[20]

A question we can ask ourselves is whether Christ considered marriage as being indissoluble? We need to be very clear in this as when Christ teaches that marriage may not be dissolved that does not mean that He is stating that it cannot occur. The completeness of the marriage relationship can be tainted by erroneous behaviour. In other words, it is the offence that breaks the bond. The divorce is ultimately a result of this break. This is also the teaching of the Eastern Church fathers. A quotation from the testimony of Cyril of Alexandria will be sufficient to make our point here: “It is not the letters of divorce that dissolve the marriage in relation God but the errant behaviour”.[21]

The violation of a marriage relationship is divided into two groups:

  1. those resulting from adultery (unfaithfulness and immoral behaviour)
  2. those proceeding from the absence of one of the partners (this absence must however have certain distinctives).

According to the spirit of Orthodoxy the unity of the married couple cannot be maintained through the virtue of juridical obligation alone; the formal unity must be consistent with an internal symphony.[22] The problem arises when it is no longer possible to salvage anything of this symphony, for “then the bond that was originally considered indissoluble is already dissolved and the law can offer nothing to replace grace and can neither heal nor resurrect, nor say: ‘Stand up and go’”.[23]

The Church recognizes that there are cases in which marriage life has no content or may even lead to loss of the soul. The Holy John Chrysostom says in this regard that: “better to break the covenant than to lose one’s soul”.[24] Nevertheless, the Orthodox Church sees divorce as a tragedy due to human weakness and sin.

7. REMARRIAGE

Despite the fact that the Church condemns sin, she also desires to be an aid to those who suffer and for whom she may allow a second marriage. This is certainly the case when the marriage has ceased to be a reality. A possible second marriage is therefore only permitted because of “human weakness”. As the apostle Paul says concerning the unmarried and widows: “If they can not control themselves, they should marry” (1 Cor. 7, 9). It is permitted as a pastoral concession in the context of “economia,” to the human weakness and the corrupt world in which we live.

There is in other words a close relationship in every dimension between divorce and the possibility of remarriage. It is important here to explain a fundamental element of the Orthodox Church’s doctrine, namely that the dissolving of a marriage relationship does not ipso facto grant the right to enter into another marriage. As we look back to the time of the primitive Church, the Church of the first centuries, then we will have to agree that the Church did not have any juridical authority with regard to marriage, and did not therefore, make any statement concerning their validity. The Holy Basil the Great, for example, referred not to a rule but to usage, as far as this problem was concerned.[25] Speaking concerning the man who had been cheated by his wife, he declares that the man is “pardonable” (to be excused) should he remarry. It is good to remember that the Orthodox Church has in general always had a sense of reluctance regarding second marriages. It would subsequently be completely wrong to assert that orthodox Christians may marry two or three times!

Orthodox canon law can permit a second and even a third marriage “in economia”, but strictly forbids a fourth. In theory divorce is only recognized in the case of adultery, but in practise is also recognised in light of other reasons. There is a list of causes of divorce acceptable to the Orthodox Church. In practise the bishops sometimes apply “economia” in a liberal way. By the way, divorce and remarriage are only permitted in the context of “economia”, that is, out of pastoral care, out of understanding for weakness. A second or third marriage will always be a deviation from the “ideal and unique marriage”, but often a fresh opportunity[26] to correct a mistake”.[27]

8. ECONOMIA

The question arises here, what is this “economia”[28] exactly? In a theological, scholarly contribution, the present Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos, while still the Metropolitan of Philadelphia, explained in a clear and concise way what “economia” is. He suggests that it is generally accepted that the ecclesiastical economia is an image of the divine economia and love and kindness. That the economia is as old as the Church itself is evident from a reading of the New Testament. This is very clear for example in Acts 16, 3 “so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek”. However the economia in the Orthodox Church has never been systematically or officially defined. “It concerns a characteristic, a true privilege and precious treasure of the Church”.[29] In the pan orthodox meetings of the 20th Century there have been attempts to give a definition to economia, but in the end this has been abandoned, “because economia is something that is rather experienced than described and defined…in the Orthodox Church, in which it is a characteristic and ancient privilege".[30]

But now the question remains, what is “economia”? Well, according to the canon law of the Orthodox Church economia is “the suspension of the absolute and strict applications of canon and church regulations in the governing and the life of the Church, without subsequently compromising the dogmatic limitations. The application of economia only takes place through the official church authorities and is only applicable for a particular case.”[31] This is allowed for exceptional and severe reasons, but creates no precedent. The Church, which continues to extend Christ’s redeeming work in the world, has on the basis of the Lord’s commandments, and of the apostles, determined a number of canons. Through these the Church helps the believers to come to salvation. But it should be noticed that these rules are not applied on a juridical basis, for the Church always holds in mind what the Lord Himself has said: “The Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2, 27).