www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Remarriage after divorce

I recently became aware of the fact that the Orthodox permit remarriage for a number of reasons after a divorce has happened. In St. Basil's time I think the only such reason allowed was unfaithfulness (?) and the list has expanded alarmingly since then.

This led me to wonder if the Eastern Catholics followed the same teaching as Rome that there is no such thing as divorce (by this I mean the actual ending of the sacramental marriage - not a civil divorce) therefore there can be no remarriage.

Thanks for your input.

Eric

Dear Eric,

Even before the "tiff" in AD 1054, remarriage was allowed in the East, especially among the Emperors etc.

"Divorce" as such in the East was a formal annulment granted by the Bishops for a serious cause.

We need to be careful about what may be construed as finger-pointing re: laxity in the East on this matter.

The RC Church in the U.S. has what truly amounts to a system of divorce whereby the Bishops may grant an annulment on the basis of a psycholgical assessment of a couple.

So if the psychologist feels that a given couple should never have been friends, let alone a married couple, and says so in his report, bishops have been known to grant annulments on this basis.

I know several couples who have been given annulments this way and it is all "kosher" with the Church.

The Orthodox Church is much stricter in this respect and has little faith in Freudian psychologists.

Alex

Orthodox Catholic,

Even before the "tiff" in AD 1054, remarriage was allowed in the East, especially among the Emperors etc.

I think I'm hearing the Orthodox teaching - I *think* I have a handle on that. I'm looking to see what Eastern Catholics teach on the matter. Can remarriages happen and under what circumstances?

"Divorce" as such in the East was a formal annulment granted by the Bishops for a serious cause.

I have asked a couple of canonical Orthodox priests about this and all have told me that the Orthodox church does not grant annullments. All have told me that the Orthodox church does not deny that a true divorce has happened and that they really are remarrying 2 people that the Orthodox church admits were sacramentally and validly married the first time.

We need to be careful about what may be construed as finger-pointing re: laxity in the East on this matter.

It's not my intent to finger-point at all.
I have relayed the facts. It's OK to look at the facts as long as one is not trying to be mean about it - which I am not. It isn't my intent to discuss at length what the Orthodox teach or do on this. I only mentioned it as background for my question so I could find out what the Eastern Catholics do along these lines.

The RC Church in the U.S. has what truly amounts to a system of divorce whereby the Bishops may grant an annulment on the basis of a psycholgical assessment of a couple.

You won't get an argument from me there! But the Orthodox church is formally and officially admitting that there was a valid sacramental marriage, the partners got a civil divorce, and the Orthodox church is subsequently granting another marriage anyway. In their mind this is NOT an anullment. I have checked this out with the OCA and the Antiochian archdioceses. What the Roman Catholics are doing with anullments is an abuse rather than formally doing it. I think this only started late last century and is much more prevalent in this country than elsewhere in Catholicism.
But I'm really asking what the Eastern Catholics do - I already know what and why the Roman Catholics do and the Orthodox do along these lines.

Eric

Eastern Catholics at the present time have marriage tribunals and anulments like Roman Catholics do. Periodically, there has been some discussion of moving towards the practice employed previously by these churches -- but not one, AFAIK, has done that yet, and IMO that would be an extremely difficult thing to do under the present circumstances.

Brendan

Thanks, Brendan.

Dear Eric,

Actually, that is exactly what I am saying. When the East and West were still together, church annulment, divorce what have you was allowed in the East (i.e. when it was still, from our perspective, "Eastern Catholic").

The "Eastern Catholic" Churches of today follow the Roman traditions.

However, I feel that our Churches, thankfully, aren't as lax about it as some regions of the Latin Church.

Theologically and in principle, quite apart from the fact the Eastern Catholic Churches follows the Latin Church in lockstep on this matter, our spiritual tradition sees divorce and remarriage in a different way than the West.

The Orthodox perspective on this should ideally be ours as well.

I don't know which Orthodox Church recognizes civil divorce without a concomitant annulment/divorce (again "divorce" is seen differently in East and West) granted by the Church itself. That is not standard Orthodox canonical practice, if that happens. If it does happen, the Church or bishop(s) in question deserve censure.

I think the current practices of the Latin Church in this regard, as you know, are wrong, but perhaps we need to look at the theology and history of the sacrament of marriage before we start to bring social scientists into the fray.

So, the current "Eastern Catholic" practice on annulment and remarriage is that of the ideal Latin Church practice.

It is not, however, a legitimate reflection of our own spirituality of marriage.

Alex

[This message has been edited by Orthodox Catholic (edited 08-16-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Orthodox Catholic (edited 08-16-2001).]

Within the Greek Archdiocese, a civil divorce is just that...civil...and not recognized by the Holy Church.

One must receive a church divorce---through the bishop---before one can be married again.

Bill

Sorry Alex but you a very wrong in this case. An annulment is totally different from a divorice as night is from day!

A divorce ends a valid or invalid marriage merely civily.

1. A valid marriage can never cease to have a binding force until one of the spouse is deceased. Canon 1672
Mark 10:1-12
Matthew 19:1-12 (the exception text is no exception at all but forbidden (invalid) marriages, site the study of the greek word proneia.

2. An annulement is simply a declaration by the Church that a valid marriage never existed in this particular incident. Hence the person is free not to "remarry" but to enter into a valid marriage.

Corpus Iuris Canonici Promulgated in 1983
Canons 1673-1707
Matthew 16:18-19

There are a variety of reasons for the annulement to be granted:
Insanity at the time of marriage.
Use of fear to force one of the persons into marriage so as to rule out free consent of the will to marry.
Etc.

Those canons binding on Eastern Churches can be found in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches 1990
Canon 776- 866

Mir
Fr Stephanos



[This message has been edited by Stephanos (edited 08-16-2001).]

Fr. Stephanos,

I have been told that St. Basil had a canon which allowed divorced people to remarry if their partner had been unfaithful. And that this canon was quoted in more than one ecumenical council.

Do you have knowledge about this?

Eric and inquirer into Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

Dear Eric,
Infidelity can be a sign of an inability to enter into a valid marriage contract. Consent to true marriage is an understanding that it is permenant and exclusive. If this is not what is being consented to then the person has not entered into a marriage.

Perhaps there was not that great a clarity in the early church about the distinction. I do not know exactly.

I will do some research and get back to you.
I have an excellent book in my library that covers the history of marriage in the Church. Unfortunately it is in my office and I am at home.

God's Peace,

Fr Stephanos

Father Stephanos,

Infidelity can be a sign of an inability to enter into a valid marriage contract. Consent to true marriage is an understanding that it is permenant and exclusive. If this is not what is being consented to then the person has not entered into a marriage.

Respectfully I could agree that this might be the case if the person were habitually unfaithful but certainly not for one incident. Let me illustrate: most God-fearing folks are committed to the moral ideal that they should not lie. Yet for one reason or another they may tell a lie or two.
Does this mean they were never committed to not lieing? Of course not. They briefly slipped in their relationship with God and fell in this area.

Anyway, I look forward to what you find in the book at your office.

Here is what the beloved and highly respected Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Joseph (Raya) has to say about the matter in his book "Crowning: the Christian Marriage", which is used as a manual by the Melkite Church:

Indissolubility

The third part of the crowning ceremony emphasizes the permanent character of faithfulness, the indissolubility of the union of man and wife: "Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they two become one flesh (Gen 2:24). And Christ added, "What God has joined together , let no man put asunder" (Matt 19:6). It is only under such a condition that life become both radiant and dynamic.

God�s love is unbroken and inexhaustible: it is indeed faithful from eternity to eternity. In the ceremony of marriage, the Christian love uniting man and wife is intended likewise to last to all eternity. No one in heaven or on earth, and nothing, not even death, can ever dissolve the covenant they have made with each other in complete freedom.

The third prayer of the Sacrament is a magnificent hymn of theology breathing goodness and glory in this indissolubility that God himself is weaving:

O Holy God, you fashioned man from dust
And from his rib fashioned woman
And joined her to him as a helpmate for him.
For it pleased your Majesty
That man should not be alone on earth.

O Master, extend your hand
From your holy dwelling place,
And unite your servant (N.) and your handmade (N.)
For by you is a wife joined to her husband.

Join them together in oneness of mind and chastity,
And crown them with glory.
Wed them into one flesh.
Grant them the fruit of the womb
And procreation of good children
Who will lead blameless lives.

For your is the dominion,
And yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory,
Of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Now and always, and unto Ages of Ages, Amen.

The main point of the ceremony of crowning is that as Christ is eternally faithful to his Church, so also are man and woman to each other.

Remarriage

The first law of God at the beginning of creation was that the union of man and woman was to be permanent (Gen 2:24). Jesus Christ our Lord, referring to this will of the creator in Genesis, declared that, in the Kingdom of God which he was inaugurating, and which was already present, marriage was to be indissoluble. But in the Old Testament, Moses permitted divorce. The Book of Deuteronomy states: "When a man has taken a wife, and married her, and it came to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because she is in some way unclean; then let him write her a bill of divorce. . . she may go and be another man�s wife" (Deut 24:1-2). Our Lord and God Jesus Christ refused such an easy way to put away a wife. He refused to allow his followers the right to enter into later a relationship of marriage with the woman who had been put away so easily. Our Lord always sought to save the dignity and integrity of the human person: "Whosoever shall marry her who was put away commits adultery. . ." The disciples objected to this saying of the Lord as too hard an ideal: "Lord, if this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not good to marry at all" (Matt 19:10). He answered, "Not anyone can accept what I said, only those to whom it is given" (Matt 19:11). But in order to save the dignity and integrity of the human person, he added: "I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication. . . " (Matt. 5:23).

The Lord addresses the Gospel in its totality to every person in this world, but to each one in an individual way. He calls every person to the absolute of the Gospel, but he does not force it indiscriminately on all humanity. He simply offers his divine ideals as he offered the Beatitudes, as graces of blessedness and sources of security and joy:

Blessed are the poor in sprit,
Blessed are the merciful,
Blessed are the pure in heart. . . (Matt 5:3ff)

To the young man who asked what to do to gain eternal life, Our Blessed Lord answered by recommending the observance of the Ten Commandments as a good and sufficient practice. But the young man was wishing for more perfection. He asked for something special to elevate him above the ordinary. He was trying for a way of life on the level of the Gospel�s expectations. The Lord then said to him: "If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow me" (Mark 10:21-22). The young man went away disappointed: he was not made for such perfection. Jesus, Our Lord, did not condemn him in any way.

Let us also remember the scribe who came with enthusiasm and seemingly great generosity to follow him. But the Lord sent him away with a delicate and respectful refusal: "The foxes have dens, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" (Matt 8:20).

Following the teaching and example of the Master, the Christian Church upholds the rule of indissolubility of marriage, while admitting exceptions. The high ideals of the Gospel are presented to every human being, but never forced upon them because it would be unjust and an insult to human dignity to impose heroism indiscriminately. A person wronged by the permanent absence of the other would have to become overnight an exceptional soul, or perish.

Perfection is possible only for "those to whom it is given" (Matt 19:11). The Church understands the high ideals of Christ and has always proclaimed and upheld them while realizing that high ideals cannot be imposed equally no everyone and in all circumstances. Following the example of the Master, and in order to protect the honor and dignity of its children against the consequences of sin or of a partner�s death that separate and isolate the remaining spouse, the Church allows the innocent party or the survivor to taken another companion for life. People marry in order to avoid continence and solitude, a state to which few are called. No one has a right to impose the weight of the world upon another�s shoulders: only a giant, an Atlas or a Hercules, could face such a task.

The practice of discernment and compassion is called Oikonomia.

Oikonomia is the prolongation of the divine intention of God "to save what was lost" (Matt 18:11). Our Lord said it and repeated it again and again: "The Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost" (Luke 19:10). To the Lord, humanity is infinitely more precious than any law. He never hesitated to break the law for the sake of restoring sinners to their dignity. He saved the adulteress from the law by which she should have been stoned. He talked to a Samaritan woman and invited himself to her house�while Samaritans were to be shunned and avoided, He broke the law of the Sabbath, declaring, "The Sabbath is at the service of man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). The law of the Temple was clearer yet and stronger about keeping company with sinners: "He who frequents a sinner is worse than a prostitute". But in order to restore sinners to their human dignity, our Lord met with them, ate with them, and felt at ease in their company. This was the Oikonomia of the Lord.

The Holy Orthodox Church of Byzantium has been indulgent to widows and widowers, and to victims of abandonment. It did not allow legalism to take over, nor did it forget the divine Gospel commitment to love and forgive. It considered in all seriousness the words of the Lord, that "the Sabbath was made for man", and that laws existed only to enhance their sacramental reality and vitality, not to be a millstone around their necks.

St. Epiphanios of Cyprus, who lived in the fourth century, says that "he who cannot keep continence after the death of his first wife, or for a valid motive such as fornication, adultery or another misdeed, if he takes a wife, or if the wife (in similar circumstances) takes another husband, the Divine Logos does not condemn them or exclude them from the Church.

The Council of Neocaesarea imposed on the clergy the obligation to divorce an adulterous wife (See on this subject the study in Concillium, Vol.55-1970, p.76f). And Father Nicholas van der Wal adds: This position may have been reached in the early Byzantine Church by taking Matthew 5:53 as part of the Sermon on the Mount. It is indeed possible to see the exhortation of the Sermon as the precepts of an ideal ethic which the Christian striving after perfection must try to live up to (and here the Byzantine Church would first of all think of monks and nuns) while this would not be asked of ordinary people" (p.80) (See also Korbianman Ritzer for details, Concillium, Vol.55-1970, p.67 seq.).

St. Basil has a special dissertation on Oikonomia which was officially approved by the Sixth Ecumenical Council of the Undivided Church of East and West, the Second Council of Constantinople in 680. Canon 25 states: "Spouses abandoned without reason are excused, and this pardon means they will be accepted to communion if they remarry". St. John Chrysostom adds, "It is better to break up a marriage than be damned". Archbishop Elias Zoghby declared at the Second Vatican Council that "even the Church of the West maintained this practice for many hundreds of years with the positive approval of many bishops, popes and synods; and in fact, never attempted to condemn it in the East, even afte4r it had ceased to practice it" (The Melkite Church at Vatican II, p.24).

The single life presupposes a very special vocation and a very special calling, an heroic disposition, and a rare faith. Indissolubility is an ideal, a lofty ideal, a standard of supreme generosity worthy of the human person, but not every person is able to assume it. Faithfulness and the eternal character of the self-revelation made by man and woman to one another are truly precious and unbreakable. The compassion of the Church only permits and reluctantly admits remarriage. The ceremony that blesses such a marriage in the Byzantine Church is so full of sadness and sorrow for human weakness and misery that is a powerful testimony and proclamation of the indissoluble character of Christian "Crowning".

Remarriage after a death or divorce is called simply, "remarriage" , not "crowning", yet it is a binding covenant. It is a partnership of grace and refreshment. There are no crowns, no processions of priesthood, no singing or ringing of bells. There is no incense by which the Church glorifies the divinization of the human person, there is no cup of wine, nor the Body and Blood of the Lord. This is not a priesthood, but a contract made in a ceremony of penance, expressing regret for human frailty and the loss of Christian gifts caused by social conditions.

After ceasing to apply the principle Oikonomia, in its concern and solicitude for its children, the Western Church established the system generally known as annulment. It should rather be called "declaration of nullity". It consists in a declaration that since wone of the partners had entered a prospective marriage without fulfilling one of the basic conditions of indissolubility�full consent, freedom and understanding�the marriage actually had never existed, even after children had been born. Both partners are then free to remarry.

In some instances, this system has been extended by western Marriage Tribunals�rightfully or not, it is not for us to judge�to cases in which marriage were presently and actually dead, even though originally valid.

The Church of Rome uses its power over the sacrament of the priesthood, and releases some of its bishops and priests from the ministry of their priesthood. The bond of priesthood is no less sacred and no less eternal than the bond of matrimony. The Church of Rome allows bishops and priests to give up their life of ministry in the Church and marry, while still recognizing the eternal character of their priesthood. In fact, this same power is used [in the Byzantine Church] over the sacrament of marriage to help and heal a painful state of abandonment and solitude.

There are some unavoidable circumstances in which some people are totally unable to continue living with their original sacramental partner. If in such cases, a union is contracted with a different partner, this in fact honors the Gospel command making the human person more precious than the law of indissolubility. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Absolute enforcement would lead to cruel legalism.

Stuart wrote:

'St. Basil has a special dissertation on Oikonomia which was officially approved by the Sixth Ecumenical Council of the Undivided Church of East and West, the Second Council of Constantinople in 680. Canon 25 states: "Spouses abandoned without reason are excused, and this pardon means they will be accepted to communion if they remarry". St. John Chrysostom adds, "It is better to break up a marriage than be damned". Archbishop Elias Zoghby declared at the Second Vatican Council that "even the Church of the West maintained this practice for many hundreds of years with the positive approval of many bishops, popes and synods; and in fact, never attempted to condemn it in the East, even afte4r it had ceased to practice it"'

Several things need to be corrected here. First, the 2nd Council of Constantinople was not the sixth ecumenical council but rather the fifth. Second, neither the fifth nor the sixth ecumenical councils drew up any disciplinary canons. Canons were drawn up at the Council in Trullo which was accepted in the east as a continuation of the fifth and sixth councils (hence the name "Quinisext"). Needless to say, this council was never universally received in the west. Third, canon 25 of the Council in Trullo says nothing about marriage. The canon to which Stuart seems to be referring is canon 87. Here is what it states:

"She who has left her husband is an adulteress if she has come to another, according to the holy and divine Basil, who has gathered this most excellently from the prophet Jeremiah: "If a woman has become another man's, her husband shall not return to her, but being defiled she shall remain defiled;" and
again, "He who has an adulteress is senseless and impious." If therefore she appears to have departed from her husband without reason, he is deserving of pardon and she of punishment. And pardon shall be given to him that he may be in communion with the Church. But he who leaves the wife lawfully given him, and shall take another is guilty of adultery by the sentence of the Lord. And it has been decreed by our Fathers that they who are such must be
"weepers" for a year, "hearers" for two years, "prostrators" for three years, and in the seventh year to stand with the faithful and thus be counted worthy of the Oblation [if with tears they do penance.]" '

Note that the canon does not speak of the permissibility of remarriage for an abandoned spouse. It simply states that the one so abandoned is not held accountable for the sin of separation.

Ed

>>>Stuart wrote:<<<

Actually, Sayedna Joseph (Raya), Archbishop of Nazareth wrote it; I merely cite his words.

>>>Several things need to be corrected here. First, the 2nd Council of Constantinople was not the sixth ecumenical council but rather the fifth.<<<

Since the date is 680, it is actually the Third Council of Constantinople which is being cited, and the lacuna is due to my transcription error. One day, I WILL buy a scanner.

>>>Note that the canon does not speak of the permissibility of remarriage for an abandoned spouse. It simply states that the one so abandoned is not held
accountable for the sin of separation.<<<

Kyr Joseph follows the Constantinopolitan interpretation of the Canon, and if you have a difficulty with that, I recommend you take it up with him. In the meanwhile, please note that the people in question, having remarried after being abandoned, ARE TO BE ADMITTED BACK INTO THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH after completing their penitential regime. This is something the Roman Church does not allow today. Those who remarry after divorce are not allowed to receive communion for as long as their former spouse remains alive. Thus, whether you want to recognize it or not, the Canon does allow for the regularization of second marriages, even after divorce, and the admission of remarried divorces into the Church. So, in your zeal to sustain the current Latin teaching, you simply misread the import of the Canon.

In the meanwhile, I suggest you look at another point which Kyr Joseph made: that in the laicization of clergy, the Latin Church releases men from the bonds of the sacrament of Holy Orders without dissolving the sacrament itself. Under the same principle, the Eastern Churches release men and women from the bonds of the sacrament of Crowning, without dissolving the sacrament itself. This frees the innocent party to pursue a second (albeit non-sacramental) marriage within the Church.

I think that Kyr Joseph's critque of the current Latin useage is also spot-on.

One might also remember that many Greek Catholic jurisdictions followed Orthodox regulations governing divorce and remarriage until compelled to follow the Latin useage following the issuance of a uniform Code of Canons in 1917.

[This message has been edited by StuartK (edited 08-17-2001).]

[This message has been edited by StuartK (edited 08-17-2001).]

Kyr Joseph follows the Constantinopolitan interpretation of the Canon, and if you have a difficulty with that, I recommend you take it up with him.
In the meanwhile, please note that the people in question, having remarried after being abandoned, ARE TO BE ADMITTED BACK INTO THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH after completing their penitential regime. This is something the Roman Church does not allow today."

Where does the canon state that the people in question have remarried? It says nothing of the kind. The canon does refer to a penitential regime. But this is for those who have abandoned their own spouses and remarried. Here is the latter part of the canon which refers to the penitential discipline:

' But he who leaves the wife lawfully given him, and shall take another is guilty
of adultery by the sentence of the Lord. And it has been decreed by our Fathers that they who are such must be "weepers" for a year, "hearers" for two years, "prostrators" for three years, and in the seventh year to stand with the faithful and thus be counted worthy of the Oblation [if with tears they do penance.]" '

Are you claiming that this canon allows adulterers to remain in their adultery even after having submitted themselves to the penitential discipline of the church? Please clarify Stuart, as I am greatly mystified by your response.

Ed