www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Annulments and Divorce

I've found it very interesting to read about the Catholic annulments process (which I already knew) vs. various Orthodox methods of divorce.

I get the impression that, at first, these divorces or annulments would be things which royalty, nobility, etc. would be getting and perhaps used their power to push the Church to grant them an "out". Other than various emperors and kings, is there any historical evidence that the Church (East or West) was granting annulments or divorces to commoners?

The impression which Matthew 19:6-10 gives me, however, is that Jesus really meant "once you're married, you're married" and that's why the disciple's said "if the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry" instead of saying "it will be a real nuisance now to go through a marriage tribunal to get rid of the woman..."

It seems like whether it is the Catholic Church conveniently discovering that one spouse lacked maturity twenty years before committing adultery and leaving or the Orthodox Church granting a divorce because of irresolvable differences that have come up, that it gets away from what Christ called for.

In all this thread I see only the application of akrivia (akribeia) not economia (oikonomeia). Of course in the entire farrago of the Canons of the Eastern Churches there is nary a mention of economia. That's one of the reasons why I say that reunion will take place fifteen minutes after the parousia!

What is akrivia and parousia anyway?

23 years or so of being Roman Catholic, so far less than 2 years of Greek Catholic...

It is hard mentally to move away from the RC attitude that everything must be clearly defined. A couple of weeks ago I was late for Sunday liturgy, arriving just as the sermon started, and, based on RC reasoning, realized I would have to go to another liturgy to meet my "Sunday obligation". Afterward the priest told me that it was OK, that even though it would be possible to go to another liturgy, that I wasn't bound to make it up. Well, it is a different way of thinking, but one which makes some sense-- how does the chance of being late by two more minutes and missing the Gospel really make the difference of meeting an obligation?

Hey now, don't go multiplying burdens, eh? We hard-headed, no-hearted RC's meet our minimum obligation by hearing Mass from the Offertory to the priest's communion. You were way under the wire, man.

Do the BC's do annulments differently than the RC's? I have a friend that went through a RC annulment... cost him about $1000 and six months!

Just to point out that lacking maturity clause is from the 1983 code and was heavily criticised by more conserative catholics at the time, its completely absent from the earlier code, moral theology and theologians.

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

So? The 1983 Code of Canon Law is where the Latin Church is now. But what does this have to do witht he Eastern Churches?

May I suggest you go to Town Hall, read the section entitled "Who We Are" and the decide if you're in the right place. Eastern Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox have had plenty of Latin Catholic triumphalism in history. We--and I humbly count myself among these my brethren--don't need more of this.

This forum is a place for all of us to learn about the Eastern Churches and their history, approach to the Mystery of God living among us, spirituality, theology, and practice.

Maybe the addition of "maturity" is a growth for the Latin Church. Ever think of that?

Bob

Whats with the aggression??

I merely made an observation, one should be able to express ones opinion without having others jump down ones throat merely because they disagree.

As it stands I did consider whether 'maturity' was a growth, as I said there is a difference between legitimate and illgetimate growth, frankly I find it illegitimate, but thats my opinion.

As for what it has to do with the eastern churches, It was mentioned by someone, hence my reply.

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

No agression here. Merely meeting your tone--which is, BTW, not the tone of this forum.

We are not Latin Christians on this Board and the teaching of the Latin Church is not the teaching of all the members here. Again, for the sake of Christian charity, please read the post--everyone who comes here is assumed to have already done that. Your tone is simply something that we don't wish to have. We've worked hard to make this a place where people can come to learn in mutual respect and charity. We've lost many a good Orthodox member because this sort of tone has come in one too many times. This is not a Catholic Board, though it may have started as one. So what mya be to you de Fide may mean nothing to many others here.

Bob
Moderator

Ah I did get confused, as Catholic was in the name. I am not being disrespectful or uncharitable and my tone is not angry, so I cannot see why your responding was frankly an open attack on my position.

Dave,

parousia is the Second Coming or the Day of Judgment.

akrivia or akribeia refers to strict adherence to the letter of the law or the Canons, as opposed to ekonomia which refers to the exercise of discretion in satisfying the spirit of the law. I'll readily admit that the precise distinction that Father Roman is making in his post, as it relates to Andrew's comment and question, is eluding me.

Many years,

Neil

If I correctly understood the opening post by my brother, Andrew, he was expressing his view that the Catholic stance vis-a-vis granting canonical annulments and that of the Orthodox vis-a-vis granting canonical divorces both appear to be at odds with Christ's Words in Matthew 19.

He also wondered whether acceptance by the Churches of these practices began as an accommodation (my term, not his) to the ruling classes for whatever reason.

Andrew, please correct me if I'm wrong on either point ...

Now, let's start afresh and deal with the OP's query.

Many years,

Neil

The premise here is mistaken, as easy annulments are not a traditional Latin thing. I am ignorant of Eastern practice so I won't comment on that, but traditionally in the Latin Church annulments were very very difficult to get, and for the sake of following Christ's words I hope we go back to such a serious understanding of marriage.

It is important to understand the history and theology of marriage in the East and the West, and one of the most important things of all to understand is that, over the course of a thousand years of full ecclesial communion, the differences between the Churches in the area of marriage never, ever constituted grounds for dispute (save in the issue of Emperor Leo VI's fourth marriage) nor was it ever the cause of a schism in the Church.

That said, the primitive Church believed in the absolute indissolubility of Christian sacramental marriage. Once one was married sacramentally, that bond could not be dissolved, even by death. The universal rule was one sacramental marriage per lifetime, regardless of whether one divorced or was widowed. But the Church, also from a relatively early point, took cognizance of reality, recognizing that not every person was suited for celibacy. In the words of St. Paul, it was better to marry than to burn.

So, the Church sought to accommodate those who felt they could not remain single, either after divorce or after widowhood. The Church did not perform second marriages, but allowed people to remarry in civil ceremonies, then sought to reintegrate them into the Body of Christ through a regime of prayer and fasting--two years for a second marriage, five for a third marriage, according to the Canon of St. Basil the Great, who also prohibited fourth marriages as being "swinish".

At this point, with the rapid disintegration of the Western Empire, and with it any centralized civil authority, the theology and administration of marriage in West began to diverge from that in the East. First and foremost, the Church became the only real authority capable of administering the institution of marriage, so it began making all of the rules. Because of the chaotic nature of governance in Dark Age Western Europe, it was often not possible for people--especially the peasantry--to be married in a Church service. So it became common practice for the man and woman to "marry themselves"--they would present themselves before their village, plight their troth, and announce that they were living together as man and wife. At some point, they would get to a church, or a priest would pass through the village, and he would sanctify the union in the name of the Church. This remains fundamental to Western marriage to this day: the man and the woman are the ordinary ministers of the sacrament, the priest (or even a deacon) stands as witness on behalf of the Church. Hence the presence and importance of the vows in the Western Church, totally absent in the Eastern rite of Crowning.

On the other hand, in the East, where civil authority remained intact, and where ecclesiastical administration was more regular, the priest remained the ordinary minister, united man and woman as one flesh through the power and descent of the Holy Spirit (which is why, in a mixed marriage between a Latin Catholic and a Greek Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, a priest must preside, even if the ceremony takes place in a Latin church).

Also, because of the difficulty of life and the high mortality rate in Western Europe, marriage was perceived more as a life contract, terminated by the death of one of the spouses ("until death do us part"). One might marry as many times as one wished, as long as there was no surviving spouse, and all of these marriages were considered sacramental. This stands in sharp contrast to the belief and practice of the East, which allowed for just one sacramental marriage, and no more than three marriages in total.

Both Churches thus affirmed the indissolubility of marriage, albeit in different ways: the East by recognizing only one sacramental marriage per lifetime, the West by allowing sacramental remarriage but only after the death of the spouse. Thus, Emperor Leo VI (whose cognomen "the Wise" may have been sarcastic) appealed to Rome when he wished to make his current mistress his fourth wife in order to legitimize his only living male child. The Patriarch of Constantinople, of course, refused, but the Pope agreed, in accordance with the Western understanding of marriage. The Patriarch of Constantinople refused to bless the wedding, and was deposed. His successor did bless the wedding, but insisted that (a) no more fourth marriages, period; and (b) that Leo and his new wife should abstain from communion thereafter. Leo, who got what he wanted, said yes.

It's ironic, therefore, that at the end of the 9th century, Leo VI abolished civil marriage in the Eastern Empire and made the Church responsible for all aspects of marriage, sacramental, social, and legal. For the first time, therefore, the Church had to think about things like divorce, abandonment, inheritance, and so forth. With the end of civil marriage, the Church had to find a way of allowing remarriage without compromising its view on the indissolubility of sacramental marriage. It did so by inventing a "rite of remarriage", not sacramental, but contractual (effectively a civil union administered by the Church), without the distinctive crowning, and penitential and mournful in tone. The ecclesiastical penalties of fasting and abstinence from communion for three to five years remained in place.

At the same time, the Church had to determine the conditions under which one could dissolve a marriage, and limited these to adultery, cruelty, desertion, insanity and life imprisonment; marriage could also be dissolved if one party wished to enter monastic life. The Church determined that only the innocent party could remarry, so that the adulterer or wife beater would not be free to start over again. Also, please note that "incompatibility" or "unresolvable differences" were not accepted; it was both an ecclesiastical and a civil offense to conspire or collude to obtain a divorce, and those found guilty were not permitted to remarry (so they were stuck with each other).

Surprisingly, in the West, until relatively late in the day, divorces were granted--divorces, not decrees of nullity. The latter were far more common, and were usually granted to royalty and nobility, with "consanguinity" being the most common excuse. Given that the upper classes in Europe were all related to each other one way or another, this meant in practice that any noble marriage could be nullified, provided one could convince the Church to do it (and the nobility had many ways of influencing the Church). Abuses became so outrageous that the Church actually changed its canon law to prohibit marriages only within four degrees of consanguinity, rather than the previous seven.

However, real divorces were not unknown, the most famous being that of Eleanor of Acquitaine from King Louis VII of France (some sources call this an annulment on grounds of consanguinity, others call it a divorce, since it required Louis' consent, whereas an annulment would have been automatic once the requisite conditions were met).

From the Middle Ages until quite recently, unless one was a member of the nobility, the failure of a marriage left one in the lurch. Human nature being what it is, people dealt with the inability to obtain a divorce or annulment, and the consequent inability to remarry in Church by (a) simple cohabitation with a new partner until the death of the surviving spouse(s) allowed for remarriage; or (b) civil marriage (when it became available once more. Those who study genealogy will not be surprised by the number of people in traditionally Catholic countries like Spain and Italy who opted for (a)--often resulting in a number of illegitimate offspring.

Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has opted for a more lenient policy regarding annulment, but nowhere in the world is the policy more loosely and broadly applied than in the United States, which records about 25,000 decrees of nullity per year--more than the rest of the world combined (this might be due to the fact that the rest of the world just doesn't care as much about what the Church thinks as do American Catholics, at least as far as fancy church weddings are concerned). This has led to a high degree of cynicism among the laity, who rightly refer to this as "Catholic divorce".

Most tendentious is the use of the failure of the marriage itself as prima facie evidence of a "defect of form or intention". This is tautological thinking: the marriage, failed, ergo there was no marriage. The innocent parties in these proceedings are justly outraged at this logic, especially after committing twenty or more years to the marriage. Attempts to tighten the criteria have not been successful, possibly (probably) because U.S. bishops are afraid of losing the divorced altogether.

A final note: until the issuance of a uniform Code of Canons in 1917, the Eastern Catholics used the same regulations pertaining to marriage as did the Orthodox Church. In my mind, for the sake of unity, and in light of the fact that the difference in marriage regulations never affected communion between the Eastern and Western Churches, we should return to that practice, given the differences in our theology of marriage, and the grave defects in current Latin pastoral practice.