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Who says that marriage is eternal? As a Catholic we are taught that marriage ends with the death of the spouse.

The Priestly Pugilist has commented on my article in America magazine of last year. Welcome comments, and even the criticisms I agree with...my treatment of marriage was too cursory, but that's the problem with working to a word limit.

Still, it begs a question which, since I can't see a way of adding comments on that blog, I'll post here. What exactly is the patristic warrant for the notion that, in Orthodox theology, there marriage is "eternal." It is a notion that is tossed out so casually in so many places (remember, it turned up recently in that statement from Europe on contemporary moral questions). But where exactly is the evidence that this notion satisfies the classic test of Tradition, "believed always and by all?"

In the Roman Church, Father Cantalamessa seems to hold that all earthly marriages are transformed; the bond remains and is transformed in Heaven.

Father Cantalamessa on Marriage in Heaven [catholiconline.org]

The biblical passage seems to me to mean that once you die, you are no longer able to be married (marriage only happens on Earth, not in Heaven).

However, it is Sacred Tradition that determines Sacred Scripture. I wonder if any Fathers of the Church speak about Eternal Marriage.

Personally, I think that the context of the passage is indeed saying that marriage is for this life; not the next.

Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine, vita mutatur, non tollitur, et, dissoluta terrestris huius incolatus domo, æterna in cælis habitatio comparatur.
(Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended [not taken away]. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.)

On this occasion I would like to treat a theme that is of definite interest not only to widows and widowers but also to all those who are married, especially during this month in which we remember the dead. Does the death of a husband or wife, which brings about the legal end of a marriage, also bring with it the total end of communion between the two persons? Does something of that bond which so strongly united two persons on earth remain in heaven, or will all be forgotten once we have crossed the threshold into eternal life?

One day, some Sadducees presented Jesus with the unlikely case of a woman who was successively the wife of seven brothers, asking him whose wife she would be after the resurrection. Jesus answered: "When they rise from the dead they will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will be like angels in heaven" (Mark 12:25).

Interpreting this saying of Jesus wrongly, some have claimed that marriage will have no follow-up in heaven. But with his reply Jesus is rejecting the caricature the Sadducees presented of heaven, as if it were going to be a simple continuation of the earthly relationship of the spouses. Jesus does not exclude the possibility that they might rediscover in God the bond that united them on earth.

According to this vision, marriage does not come to a complete end at death but is transfigured, spiritualized, freed from the limits that mark life on earth, as also the ties between parents and children or between friends will not be forgotten. In a preface for the dead the liturgy proclaims: "Life is transformed, not taken away." Even marriage, which is part of life, will be transfigured, not nullified.

But what about those who have had a negative experience of earthly marriage, an experience of misunderstanding and suffering? Should not this idea that the marital bond will not break at death be for them, rather than a consolation, a reason for fear? No, for in the passage from time to eternity the good remains and evil falls away. The love that united them, perhaps for only a brief time, remains; defects, misunderstandings, suffering that they inflicted on each other, will fall away.

Indeed, this very suffering, accepted with faith, will be transformed into glory. Many spouses will experience true love for each other only when they will be reunited "in God," and with this love there will be the joy and fullness of the union that they did not know on earth. In God all will be understood, all will be excused, all will be forgiven.

Some will ask of course about those who have been legitimately married to different people, widowers and widows who have remarried. (This was the case presented to Jesus of the seven brothers who successively had the same woman as their wife.) Even for them we must repeat the same thing: That which was truly love and self-surrender between each of the husbands or wives, being objectively a good coming from God, will not be dissolved. In heaven there will not be rivalry in love or jealousy. These things do not belong to true love but to the intrinsic limits of the creature.

I encourage you to re-read closely. Of course, I have bolded some points that I find to be relevant.


It seems to me that the article relays that any bond made before God in Marriage will not be broken by death, but rather be transformed; perfected.

Of course, this thread is about what the Church Fathers have to say on the matter, not Father Cantalamessa.