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But that's not really the point, is it? The real point is whether your pastoral practice is in full accord with Tradition, and it is pretty clear that it is not. In other words, at some point--possibly in the 17th century, some portions of the Orthodox Church altered their practices in a way which can only be considered an innovation.


I can snark as well as you, Father--probably better. Yours is not a substantive response to my argument.


What hath that to do with the price of beans? As I pointed out, prior to the ninth century (which is pretty recent by Church standards), the Orthodox Church did not even bless second marriages, let alone celebrate them in Church. Those who wished to remarry did so in a secular service, because civil marriages were covered under Roman law (indeed, it was quite some time before a Church wedding was seen as being sufficient to establish marital status under law--some four or five centuries after Constantine).

All the Church did was readmit to communion (after suitable penance) those who had taken advantage of civil marriage to remarry after divorce or widowhood. Very, very simple: one sacramental marriage, no exceptions; remarriage was tolerated for second and occasionally third marriages, but no Church blessing, and an extended period of excommunication. Why? Because marriage was both unique and eternal.

As I wrote, the Emperor Leo VI abolished civil marriage, putting the Church in charge of the whole shebang, and the Church had three choices here--either to stick to its guns and never blessing remarriage; or abandonment of its Tradition and the theology of marriage by allowing fully sacramental second and third marriages; or following a third path in which the Church did perform second and third marriages, but only under economy, not in a sacramental form, and still with a penitential requirement.

That's history. Those are the facts, which cannot be avoided. As I like to say, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but nobody is entitled to his own facts.

In discussing the Orthodox theology of marriage, you have to deal with these facts (which, by the way, answer your question as to why the Fathers never said second marriages weren't sacramental--because in the time of the Fathers there were no second marriages, period). If you want to say that the present pastoral practice of the Church has departed from the Tradition, that is fine. Let's not pretend that it is the Tradition, though. Tradition cannot be defined as "Whatever we were doing the day I was baptized". It has a context and a continuity. And sometimes the Church wanders away from both. Then it is the job of the Church to determine how best to restore the Tradition, the return to the mind of the Fathers.


But, Father, if you examine the history of the practice and the development of the rite, it is quite clear that it was not, and was never intended to be, a sacrament. Again, facts, not opinions.

OK, I concede. You are right. While I have been saying for decades that when I marry those who are divorced or widowed they are being united in the Sacrament of Marriage in fact they were not. Rather than a Sacrament they have been given some sort of perverse "blessing" from a priest to have sexual intercourse and to cohabit without the Sacrament of Marriage. I have been guilty of deluding them, only because I myself have been deluded by my bishops.

I feel I have fallen down the rabbit hole. Has it ever, ever, ever been taught in Christianity that Christians may live in sexual cohabitation WITHOUT sacramental marriage?

If anybody can produce statements from either Church that sexual intercourse and cohabitation without sacramental marriage is approved by Christ, then I shall continue to perform these non-sacramental blessings for cohabitation...

Bless Father,

I just had a question on an earlier post of a list of reason for divorce in the Russian Orthodox Church-


I think the question is obvious. Why would abortion be okay even with the fathers consent? It just seems to be a little misleading and I don't believe that the Russian Orthodox Church is okay with Abortion but I just found that a little odd to be on the list of reasons for divorce. Thanks.

I think StuartK is trying to show that over time the idea of remarriage in the Eastern Church has evolved to today’s teaching in regards to divorce in the EO Church.

I am more partial to the Catholic Churches teaching but I do see the Eastern Orthodoxs view as well. It is a tough question to restle with but then again so are most matters of faith.

It's not OK ever, but if both husband and wife have agreed on abortion there are no grounds for divorce since both have sinned.

But if the wife obtains a secret abortion without the husband's knowledge, then he may have a divorce. She has sinned againt him as well against the child.

Thank you for the clarification- I never thought for a second it was ok in the ROC but I just wanted to ask- since it could and was misleading for me.

please pray for me!

You seem to have very little faith in the divine grace and descent of the Holy Spirit, "which heals all sickness and makes present that which is absent". Christian marriage is more than a personal relationship between a man and a woman, it is an eschatological action, a sign of the Kingdom, and as such the Church cannot and should not dilute its meaning. The Church, through second marriage, makes a concession to human weakness, for a failure to live up to an ideal. You act as though that failure somehow had juridical implications, which I would expect from a Roman Catholic theologian, but not from an Orthodox one.

Though the second marriage is not a sacrament, and though it is in fact a kind of legitimized cohabitation (see some of the more jaundiced early Western views of marriage for more of that), through the divine grace, it can in fact become more. But it is not a manifestation of the Kingdom, which is what all the Holy Mysteries are in truth.


Well, we would have to go back to all those ante-Nicene Fathers, not to mention Basil the Great and Gregory Nanzianzen. Because, we have to be absolutely clear, here, Father--the Church did not "do" second marriages until the ninth century. So, I would have to say that for the first eight centuries, in the case of people who remarried, it did. Hence the requirement for excommunication, penance and readmission to communion.


You resort to this tactic constantly, and the outcome is always the same. You demand that the Fathers to spell out in canonical language things which are quite plain from their other statements. The Fathers have stated time and again that second marriages are only tolerated. They did not even bless or perform second marriages, which is why they never said "the rite of second marriage is not sacramental".

Put plainly, you are thinking anachronistically, superimposing present-day practices, beliefs and attitudes into the past in an attempt to justify what you do. There is no need for the Fathers to speak more plainly than they did. If you, you bishop, all of ROCOR choose to do otherwise, that is within the power of the Church to bind and loose--but don't say you are acting in accordance with the Fathers, or that the Church has always done as you do. It most definitely did not.

To some extent, but that is only part of it.

I wish to show that the Orthodox Church's teaching on the singularity and eternal nature of sacramental marriage has never wavered, even though the Church allows remarriage for widowers and divorces. To the extent that Father Ambrose and his brothers consider these second marriages to be "sacramental", I consider that to be an abuse and distortion of the Tradition, and I think I have presented sufficient evidence to show that the rite of second marriage, which was devised in the 9th century to meet a pastoral need, was never intended to be a sacrament equivalent in any way to "Crowning".

That it has become so, I think, shows an false application of the Church's oikonomia that undermines its teaching on the nature of marriage (so much so, that Father Ambrose refuses to admit that the Church's traditional understanding of marriage transcending the grace is even correct--despite patristic evidence). Anyone who disagrees is a "revisionist" (which, given the people to whom Father Ambrose has extended the epithet, I would gladly wear as a badge of honor).

Understanding the development of the Orthodox doctrine of marriage and its pastoral practices allows us to view the matter objectively, and then to ask if the current practices are consistent with Tradition, and if not, what might be done to restore them to the fullness of the Eastern understanding of marriage.

I think my suggestion that the Church return to the practices of the second through eighth centuries should be discussed more fully, given that the situation of the Church today is quite close to what the Church faced in its first centuries; i.e., living in a pluralistic society in which there was a strong civil government that maintained and administered marriage as both a civil ceremony and legal institution. In those circumstances, the Church dealt with marriage in a strictly sacramental sense, which is why, in accordance with its doctrine, it only blessed first marriages, and never blessed second or third marriages. It also explains why remarriage, for whatever reason, required a period of excommunication and penance before readmission to communion. That these penalties were the same as the canonical penalties for adultery says all you need to know (after all, everybody is quick enough to point out that the canonical penalties for abortion were and are the same as those for homicide).

Today, it might be better all around if the Church got out of the remarriage business, directed those who wished to remarry to have a civil ceremony (hey, I was married in one, myself!), and then concerned itself with reintegrating those people into the communion of the Church.

At last we get back to the original point, which was the Pope's mistaken understanding that the Orthodox do not consider a second marriage as a Sacrament.

We count it a holy Sacrament. Every second marriage which I and all Orthodox priests perform is a Sacrament. Not all the arguments and mountains of artful words are able to abolish the Sacrament and make out that we are giving Christians a "blessing" to fornicate -for that is what sexual intercourse without the Sacrament of Marriage is.

Did we?


Don't bother with facts? Interesting approach.

If you could offer substantiation that the Church (whether Orthodox or Catholic) allows people to live in a state of sexual cohabitation without the Sacrament of Matrimony, then we would indeed have a solid fact before us.

So far all we have is a rather wild assertion that the Orthodox allow people to live in sin in a pseudo-married state for which they have received no Sacrament. What a thought!

dear Fr Ambrose:

Bless!

How does the ROC(A) grant a divorce?

Are penances still imposed before a second marriage is performed?

In this diocese papers must be filled out by both spouses (or only one if the other cannnot be found); the priest must also submit a report.

The matter is considered by a church court composed of the bishop and some of the senior priests of the diocese.

Penances? None that I am aware of. Fr David Straut may have information on this matter and how it is handled in the States.

Which explains why Father Ambrose has to think of second marriage as a sacrament, though of course, all the evidence, historical, liturgical and canonical is against that reading. It was through repentance, prayer and fasting that the second marriage became something more than legitimized adultery (which is precisely how the Church viewed it, no matter what Father Ambrose might say).

In the oldest Tradition of the Orthodox Church, the Church did not perform or even bless remarriage for any reason. Those who wished to remarry could do so through a Roman civil ceremony. By doing so, the Church considered that they were committing either bigamy or adultery. But the Church would readmit them to communion after a period (typically 2-5 years) during which time they had to follow a regime of fasting and prayer. Once readmitted to communion, the second marriage of the couple, though not sacramental (after all, it was not even blessed by the Church) could still become a vessel of divine grace.

As I have related--ad nauseum!--the Church was forced into the business of handling remarriages in the 9th century, when the Emperor Leo VI (he of the fourth marriage) abolished civil marriages and made the Church responsible for all marital issues. At that point, the Church developed the rite of second marriage as a substitute for the civil marriages that were no longer available to those wishing to remarry. All the sources--I repeat, all the sources--agree that this service was not considered a sacrament. In its original form, there was no crowning, there was no Dance of Isaiah, and there were a lot of penitential prayers. Unlike Crowning--which, in the original Byzantine usage did take place within the Divine Liturgy and was sealed with the Eucharist (like all other sacraments)--the service was held in private, and all the priest did was pray over the couple at vespers.

All of the previous canonical requirements for excommunication, repentance, prayer and fasting remained in place. Commentaries by various bishops--including those of the Slavic Orthodox Churches of the 10th-16th centuries--indicate that the underlying understanding of remarriages being gravely defective and in need of "healing" did not change at all.

So, the penances in fact are the key element of the doctrine of remarriage, without which there can be no healing, no reconciliation. Having abandoned this aspect of remarriage (mainly, I believe, under social pressure--the Russians were the first people to include the crowns in remarriage, mainly because crowning had come to be associated with "real" marriage, and because remarriage was both common and popular in Russia), the Russian Church has had to devise a new theory of how a second marriage can become a vessel of grace. And they did so by elevating--probably without consciously thinking so--the rite of second marriage to that of a sacrament.

Of course, this wreaks havoc with the entire theology of marriage as it developed in the Byzantine-Orthodox Tradition, but as so few of them seem even to know what the authentic Tradition is, it does not bother them overmuch.

It's interesting that the Trebnyk refers to the 2d Marriage ceremony as "Second Crowning". And the book actually seems to prescribe a Crowning.

I was told at one point, by a cleric, that there was only 1 Crowning and the others were not Crownings - I guess he was wrong?

I was also told that the Second Crowning was a penitential service. There is a couple of prayers which have some penitential theme to them, but not nearly as much as I thought. Having looked at the Trebnyk.

So now I'm even more confused because an Orthodox told me that their church basically never does the Second marriage but does the ordinary Crowning service - even after a case of divorce.

any help out there?

No, it's just that the Russians began diluting the teaching at an early point. According to Eve Levin, in Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900-1700 (Cornell University Press, 1989):


So, as I mentioned, the Russian Church bowed to social pressure to make second marriage look more like "real" marriage. But they kept the heavy penitential aspects, and in Russia the fees charged for marriage increased exponentially for remarriages: