www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Marriage East and West, CCC #1623

Why the change?

Is the Church now saying that the priest/bishop is not the minister of the sacrament?

1623 According to Latin tradition, the spouses as ministers of Christ's grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. In the tradition of the Eastern Churches, the priests (bishops or presbyters) are witnesses to the mutual consent given by the spouses,124 but for the validity of the sacrament their blessing is also necessary.125
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124 Cf. CCEO, can. 817.
125 Cf. CCEO, can. 828.

1623 Secundum traditionem latinam, sponsi, tamquam ministri gratiae Christi, sibi mutuo Matrimonii conferunt sacramentum, suum consensum coram Ecclesia significantes. In traditionibus Ecclesiarum Orientalium, sacerdotes — Episcopi vel presbyteri — testes sunt consensus mutuo ab sponsis praestiti, 275 sed etiam eorum benedictio ad validitatem sacramenti est necessaria. 276

Filipe YTOL:

Christ is in our midst!!

ajk's quotation is the wording of the second edition of the CCC. Do you have the first? Maybe that is why you have a discrepancy. As to why a change was made, that is a question for Rome from which the revised second edition came.

Bob

1623 In the Latin Church, it is ordinarily understood that the spouses, as ministers of Christ's grace, mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. In the Eastern liturgies the minister of this sacrament (which is called "Crowning") is the priest or bishop who, after receiving the mutual consent of the spouses, successively crowns the bridegroom and the bride as a sign of the marriage covenant.

EWTN Catholic Q&A
Minister of the Sacrament of Matrimony
Question from John on 05-03-2001:
Dr. Carroll, The Catholic Church holds that the Eastern Church's teaching that the priest confers the sacrament of Matrimony upon the the couple is a valid Catholic opinion. The NCCB's document, "Eastern Catholics in the United States" says, " Marriage in the Eastern Church is a sacrament confered by the priest by means of the "crowning" and nuptual blessing, not by the couple as in the Latin Church." It was authored by my bishop, Andrew Pataki. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "1623. "In the Latin Church, it is ordinarily understood that the spouses, as ministers of Christ's grace, mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. In the Eastern liturgies the minister of this sacrament (which is called 'Crowning') is the priest or bishop who, after receiving the mutual consent of the spouses, successively crowns the bridegroom and the bride as a sign of the marriage covenant." It is therefore an error to dismiss the Orthodox view as heretical because the Magisterium has ratified it as a valid opinion. ,John
Answer by Dr. William Carroll on 05-05-2000:
I am now aware of this fact, which as you say is in the Catholic Catechism. - Dr. Carroll

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Question is why the second edition of the CCC changed what, to me, was a much better explanation of the differences in theology expressed in the marriage rites.

4) FINAL CONSIDERATION The Sacrament of Marriage -- or lack thereof -- touches most if not all of us, directly or through family friends etc.. The Church owes us a clear, unambiguous theological foundation for understanding the mind of the Church, uniting and reconciling East and West, and from which details and specifics are consistently formulated. I believe that theological foundation should be based on a theology of Person and the Church, Ecclesiology as the Body of Christ and His Spouse, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and the mon-archē of the Bishop.

The change in the CCC may be attributed to commentary that developed after the promulgation of the CCEO. In his commentary, _Eastern Catholic Marriage Law_, the late Archimandrite Msgr Victor Pospishil notes, “Because the contract of marriage is a sacrament for the baptized, the parties of the contract are also the ministers of the sacrament.” In _A Guide to the Eastern Code:

A Commentary on the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches_, Fr Josef Prader writes, “The minister of the sacrament of marriage is the one who posits the sacramental sign... In the Eastern Catholic Churches, the sacramental sign essentially consists in the indispensably reciprocal consent of the parties and, by ecclesiastical disposition, in the sacred rite, that is, in the priestly blessing...” so Fr Prader is of the opinion that both the baptized parties and the priest are ministers of the sacrament. Fr Prader was an associate professor of Canon Law at the PIO, and a consultor of the PCCICOR (the Pontifical Commission on the Revision of the Code of Oriental Canon Law).

In fact, it is worth reading through to page 205, where this issue is discussed further and in some detail, with different positions explained. The change in the wording of the CCC is also mentioned.

The fact that sacred rite is an essential element of the canonical form of marriage brings up another difference between the Eastern and Latin traditions, namely the minister, or the ministers, of the sacrament of marriage.63 For the Latin tradition, the matrimony is a consensual contract which becomes a sacrament through the exchange of the consent between the two spouses.64 In fact the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “According to the Latin tradition, the spouses as ministers of Christ's grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the church.”65 According to the doctrine of the non-Catholic Oriental churches the minister of the sacrament of marriage is the priest or the bishop who carries out the sacred rite through which the matrimonial sacrament is celebrated.66 Considering the minister of the sacrament of marriage, the Russian contemporary theologian Evdokimov affirms: “The priest is the minister of the sacrament that is instituted by God; mutual consent indicates that the betrothed are not bound by any other engagement, but the grace results only from the rite performed. In no way, nor in any sense, can the spouses be the ministers of the sacrament.”67

In the Catholic Oriental Churches there are two opinions concerning the ministers of the sacrament of marriage.68 One of them underlines the mystical and sacramental factor of the marriage and as a result considers the priest as the minister of the matrimony. The other opinion is closer to the Latin principle and regards the consent of the parties as the efficient cause of the marriage and consequently acknowledges the spouses as ministers of the matrimonial sacrament.69 In fact, this difference of opinions made its way in the process of preparation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Thus, the first edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church stated that in the Oriental liturgies the minister of the sacrament was the priest or the bishop who, after receiving the mutual consent of the spouses, crowned them as a sign of the matrimonial covenant.70 Prader argued that this assertion referred only to the non-Catholic Oriental Churches.71 However, in the second edition there is no direct affirmation that the priest is the minister of the sacrament of marriage: “In the traditions of the Eastern churches, the priests (bishops or presbyters) are witnesses to the mutual consent given by the spouses, but for the validity of the sacrament their blessing is also necessary.”72 This change is significant because on one hand it underlines the value of the Oriental tradition by maintaining the necessity of the nuptial blessing, while on the other hand prevents the supposition that the sacrament of marriage has a different configuration in the Eastern Catholic Churches than it does in to the Latin Church.73

The two different opinions are indirectly present even in the current legislation. The CCEO does not specifically designate the minister of the sacrament of marriage but agrees with the 1983 CIC that consent constitutes the marriage.74 However, in order to remain faithful to the Oriental tradition CCEO stipulates in canon 828 § 1 that only those marriages are valid which are celebrated with the sacred rite in the presence of the competent priest or bishop. The second paragraph of the same canon explains that the sacred rite is carried out through the intervention of the priest who assists at and blesses the marriage.75

58 Salachas, Il Sacramento del Matrimonio, 184. The Oriental concept that marriage is a sacrament conferred upon the parties through the priest‟s blessing brings out two other differences between Western and Latin traditions. First, in the Eastern tradition, marriage, as any sacrament, pertains to the eternal life in the Kingdom of God and cannot be dissolved by the death of the parties but creates between them an eternal bond, unlike the Latin belief where the matrimonial contract is dissolved by the death of one of the spouses. Second, in the Eastern tradition, marriage as a sacrament is a gift of grace. The parties might have made a mistake in asking the grace of marriage when they were not ready for it or they might show themselves unable to make this grace fructify. In these situations the Church may admit that in fact the grace was not received and consequently tolerate separation and allow remarriage. In opposition, in the Latin Church the matrimonial covenant has always been considered indissoluble. See Meyendorff, Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, 54.

The conclusion of the second section of the first chapter was that until the eighteenth century there coexisted in the Eastern Byzantine Tradition two doctrines concerning marriage: one that considered consent as the fundamental element of the constitution of marriage and the other one which considered the blessing mandatory for the validity of marriage. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that the matrimonial doctrine underwent a significant change and the priestly nuptial benediction was considered to be the most important element of the sacrament of marriage.