www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Help me understand Eastern Marriage and how it contrasts vs. West

Correct me if I am wrong. Marriage in the West is man and wife being ministers of the Sacrament, conferring the Sacrament on one another. The priest is just a witness to affirm that it is valid.

In the East, the priest has to bless the marriage to make it a Sacrament. What else am I missing here?

What you posted abt. the minister (-s) of the Sacrament of Matrimony is certainly a place to start. I'd suggest looking closer at the fact that the Orthodox do not consider marriage to be indissoluble in the same way the Catholic Church does. It allows for ecclesiastical divorces and re-marriages under certain circumstances.

But when it comes to the details of Orthodox teaching and practice, I'm an outsider looking in, so I hope Orthodox posters will respond more fully to your question, "what else?"

Christ is in our midst!!

There are many threads that deal with this topic in our archives. You might start with reading some of them and see if they help your understanding.

Bob

I did try searching but it got varied results.

Okay, here's the thing. I was reading about annulments in another forum and then I realized, based on how I understand contracts and agreements in the legal sense, that marriages that are annulled have a defect in the first place. And probably many who do not seek annulment probably has defective marriages to begin with. Of course the Church says that until a marriage is proven null, it is valid. But I can't wrap myself around that idea. What other Sacrament would allow for such a thing? If say I would bake bread for Communion and I unknowingly used rice flour or any other kind of flour that is not wheat, to make the bread, so I believe its wheat, the priest believes its wheat, but in fact it is not. Is it a valid Sacrament? Of course not! So why is a marriage valid even though it has defects that upon investigation, it can be found to be null and void?

This all goes down to how marriage is defined as a Sacrament. I want to understand better how it is in the East, and then compare it with how it is in the West.

That is not what the Church says. The Church says a marriage is to be *presumed* valid. And if two people can in good will labour successfully under the misconception that theirs is a valid marriage, certainly we can trust in the divine care to offer them the necessarily grace, if extra-sacramentally. As for the difference East to West, I have a feeling they (Eastern Christians) would say not to be so legalistic and to stop worrying. God will take care of it. I think this kind of question hardly makes sense in the view from the East.

Good point. Still I'm a little unsettled with the notion that I could unknowingly be in an invalid marriage. Of course I want to be without a doubt a valid marriage.

So whats different with an Eastern marriage? Once the priest carries out the Rite, thats it? I guess I need more understanding on what constitutes a sacramental marriage in the East.

If you're going to look at it that way, you might as well give up on all the sacraments, since they all depend to some extent on the intention of another whose mind you cannot fully know. If you were a friend, I might say an examination of why this troubles you may prove a more fruitful search.

Well, for every other Sacrament, its normally done by a priest. And its usually quite simple and clear. For the most part we'd know if the priest misspoke on the words for the Eucharist or Baptism, etc. Sure, we might not know if the bread was made of something non-wheat. But what troubles me in this instance is the number of Roman Catholic annulments. I agree with the point of the Church that if its proven a marriage is void and null, then it is. I'm fine with that, but the fact that so many marriages are void and null is concerning. Especially that these are people who have lived years together, and only because they now have a reason to find out if their marriage was valid or not do they actually know that fact? What about the rest of us who do not run into such marital problems? I wouldn't be concerned of the theology behind it if the Church ensures that the ministers of the Sacrament, the man and woman for the West, understand fully what they are about to get themselves into, and how to go about it validly. But a lot of these people who are getting annulments went through the same process everyone else who never sought for annulment did. So something is defective in the process, and its concerning because now someone like me who wants to have a valid Sacramental marriage isn't so sure that maybe we unintentionally did something wrong to make our marriage null and void.

And from what I understand, the East has more certainty. Sure, a priest can still make mistakes, but just how a marriage is a marriage in the East is a different thing that a priest invalidating the Sacrament would be a rarity.

There's no moral guilt incurred from being in a putative marriage.

Just as you can't know perfectly the mind of your bride, you can't know perfectly the mind of a priest. In this way, your uncertainty about one sacrament carries over to all.

There is no mistake a couple or individual can make that will render an attempt at marriage a failure. Either you were both fit to consent and meant to do so, or you weren't or didn't. If you weren't, or didn't, it makes no difference east or west.

If you are morally certain of a defect, speak to your priest. If you are not morally certain of a defect, forget about it.

On the matter of the numerous declarations of nullity being made, this is easily explained in two reasons:

1) Most of our countrymen have a fatally flawed understanding of marriage. Many cannot consent to it because they simply don't know what it is.

2) They declare nullity with all the gravity and care of giving away candy.

Many of the nullity cases in the States are administrative cases, i.e., the invalidity of the marriage is determined through documentation. An example would be the "marriage" of 2 Catholics bound by canonical form who did not observe it. This situation is especially common among Mexican immigrants who, in their home country, must marry civilly before any church wedding can take place. A lot of them carry this mentality with them when the come up here and, for various reasons, never get around to having the "marriage" convalidated..

While I agree with the statement that many of our countrymen (not only in Canada but in the States as well) have a fatally flawed understanding of marriage, it's flippant and crudely dismissive of matrimonial tribunals' integrity to say "they declare nullity with all the gravity and care of giving away candy."

Tain't so, bro.

Flippant and crudely dismissive! I love that. I may get a t-shirt made. Anyway you've identified one of my worst character flaws; about which flaw I am characteristically flippant and crudely dismissive. Wonderful stuff. Anyway you may have a point. On the other hand, I have never heard of a case which was examined and not found to be null. It's only anecdotal, and not really pivotal to the discussion. I'm sure there are many good people working within tribunals who strive to maintain the integrity and sanctity of marriage.