But pastoral concern must not be equated with human affection. Such love implies a relationship in marriage which is total in character. In addition, when possible, the rubric of the Service Book stating that marriages are to be performed after the Divine Liturgy should be followed. The teaching of the Orthodox Church is well expressed by canon 91 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. 5:22). Marriages based on self-gratification exclude Christ, His Cross and Resurrection. All of the above guidelines are especially important in view of the large numbers of persons who are not members of the Orthodox Church who attend our weddings. 19:9). However great its importance and however central it might be in gauging the depths of the fall of man and the subsequent distortion of God’s image within him, sex is still but one of the aspects of human life. An Orthodox Christian who excludes his marriage from this gracious union with Christ in the Church certainly excludes himself from the communion of the Church. The prayers of the Marriage Service ask that the marriage bed be kept honorable and undefiled: again, that it be the very image of the unique relationship between the Bridegroom, Christ, and His beloved and holy Bride, the Church. d. He should give a sermon proclaiming the true nature of Christian marriage at each wedding, drawing upon the main liturgical actions of the Marriage Service for the obvious themes. Search, Fellowship of Orthodox Christians in America. 575 Scarsdale Road John; Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, St. Vladimir’s Bookstore Crestwood, New York 10707. In his analysis he must consider not only the formal status, but also the total spiritual condition of the persons involved. The indissolubility of a sacramental marriage is a central teaching of the church. The “Order of Second Marriage” as contained in the Service Book is to be used when both partners are entering a second marriage. He can conduct retreats and gatherings for married couples as well as provide individual counseling. Yet no vow or oath can possibly join a man and a woman together in the gracious and absolute way called for in Christian marriage. Dr. Chrysostom Nassis, Rev. Marriage has … In all the difficult decisions involving the practice of birth control, Orthodox families must live under the guidance of the pastors of the Church and ask daily for the mercy and forgiveness of God. In addition, Orthodox Church members should be reminded that participation in Holy Communion in any other Christian body excludes them from the communion of the Orthodox Church. The consequences are plain for all to see: the family is disintegrating, legalized abortion is killing millions of unborn children, corrupt sexual behavior is rampant. No form of sexual relationship fulfills human life as created and sanctified by God except the relationship between one man and one woman in the community of marriage. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: be true men and women. The mother must decide whether to lay down her own life for that of her unborn child. The term Lay Ecclesial Ministry is a general term that may include any number of roles. "Make [your wedding] a real celebration – because marriage is a celebration – a Christian celebration, not a worldly feast! This spiritual basis of marriage clearly transcends, without suppressing, the fleshly union of the bodies. The Marriage Service likewise makes it clear that the bridegroom and the bride are united not by themselves, but by God: “For by Thee is the husband joined unto the wife” (Marriage Service). . Marriage is a mystery, a permanent spiritual union which transcends the physical and which even death cannot destroy. 4. All this Christian couples experience as they strive to realize in their own lives the great gift given to them by God in marriage: “Thou hast set upon their heads crowns of precious stones; they asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it them” (Psalm 21, the Prokeimenon of the Marriage Service). d. Any legal or canonical obstacles to marriage, such as blood relationship, must be resolved. Therefore the canons of the Church, e.g., canon 2 of St. But marriage is an occasion of great joy and celebration and therefore should be performed only at those times when the entire Church can indeed celebrate. Couples joined together in the Orthodox Marriage Service must be counseled to abandon all religious indifference. Alexander; Diary of a Russian Priest “3. The crowning which takes place in the Marriage Service reveals the bridegroom and the bride to be a new community in Christ. H�b```g`�,d`�A� ce`a��Т�� ��p����_�0>`bf�)`��(z�M��mCs����QI���R��r,V�9�-~�1���N�3;����l{��8��onn��'�6S��Z:�RX*8���.��3��']R>����k�����p����+!B�����ƿw�`EÃ+~�Xq The Christian ideal of marriage and family, manhood and womanhood, is incomparably more exalted, balanced and fulfilling than those broken, one-sided or totally erroneous ideologies of today’s world which reduce the meaning of human life to the satisfaction of sexual appetites, material security, or to other such limited functions and desires. Marriage is the most perfect realization of love between a man and a woman: two become one. . All sacraments - marriage among them - are performed in, by and for the whole Church. Lay Ecclesial Ministry and the Archdiocese of San Antonio. Therefore, the Church does not advocate second or third marriages, even for widows or widowers; rather, they are tolerated as condescension to human frailty and weakness, while fourth marriages are totally forbidden. Because of this transforming power of love, all the difficulties and defects in family life can be overcome. Those who do not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, who do not confess the Holy Trinity which His coming revealed to the world, who have not sealed this acceptance and confession in Trinitarian baptism, cannot freely and without hypocrisy accept the blessing which the Church bestows on marriage. Archbishop of Chicago and Minneapolis, + JOHN Archbishop of Detroit and Michigan, + THEODOSIUS Marriage is not simply an individualistic concern, to be performed privately or in the presence of a select, invited group of people, nor is the Church merely a building or the priest simply a legally-empowered official, both to be hired or rented at an appropriate fee. the two shall become one flesh.” (Ephesians 5:31). Often such persons have been the victims of misinformation and/or peculiar circumstances (wartime, anti-religious civil authorities, absence of an Orthodox Church, etc.). T… Those who now reject Christ, even though they may once have been baptized in the name of the Trinity (e.g., a convert from Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, etc., to one of the sects named above). 14:40). Basil the Great, impose a penance on widows or widowers who remarry. Site Map | Relative to matrimonial matters, the main question is not what is “valid” or “invalid” but what has been offered and sanctified in the life of the Church; not what is lawful and convenient in this world but what has been consecrated for perfection in the world to come. An Orthodox Christian who marries outside the Orthodox Church, i.e., in some other church or civil ceremony, forfeits his membership in the Church and may no longer receive Holy Communion. 4. From the Old Testament Scriptures we learn that God created man “in His own image,” “male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27), and, since that beginning, “a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), Man and woman are mutually complementary, and this complementarity, expressed in their union and common activity, reflects the very image and likeness of God. Parents should be involved in the marriage preparations of their children. The Church and her pastors must do all that is possible to counsel her members against divorce. Alexander; For the Life of the World About the OCA / Whatever the decisions of human legislatures and courts, the Church cannot accept the willful destruction of an unborn child at any stage of its development as anything other than the destruction of life. 3. Husbands and wives: love each other; love your children. Those who give drugs for procuring abortion, and those who receive poisons to kill the fetus, are subjected to the penalty for murder. Facebook | With this in mind, the pastor should begin by reviewing the following requirements with the couple: a. 2. Christians realize their true fulfillment in community with one another, under the headship of Christ. 2. We do not make this proclamation in the name of an outdated conservatism or because we consider our present society intrinsically more corrupt than the past generations. 1401 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 1405 /H [ 2417 493 ] /L 609926 /E 423489 /N 12 /T 581786 >> endobj xref 1401 31 0000000016 00000 n 0000000975 00000 n 0000001244 00000 n 0000001393 00000 n 0000002910 00000 n 0000003399 00000 n 0000003618 00000 n 0000004272 00000 n 0000004303 00000 n 0000004758 00000 n 0000004978 00000 n 0000005021 00000 n 0000006298 00000 n 0000006954 00000 n 0000007173 00000 n 0000007399 00000 n 0000008171 00000 n 0000008195 00000 n 0000008961 00000 n 0000009175 00000 n 0000009383 00000 n 0000032198 00000 n 0000422063 00000 n 0000422204 00000 n 0000422343 00000 n 0000422482 00000 n 0000422621 00000 n 0000422760 00000 n 0000422899 00000 n 0000002417 00000 n 0000002887 00000 n trailer << /Size 1432 /Info 1386 0 R /Root 1402 0 R /Prev 581774 /ID[<625629ac9e6ff03afd3a340ae7bbac0e>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 1402 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 1387 0 R /Metadata 1400 0 R /JT 1399 0 R /AcroForm 1403 0 R /StructTreeRoot 1404 0 R /PieceInfo << /MarkedPDF << /LastModified (D:01030211102402)>> >> /LastModified (D:01030211102402) /MarkInfo << /Marked true >> >> endobj 1403 0 obj << /Fields [ ] /DR << /Font << /ZaDb 96 0 R /Helv 97 0 R >> /Encoding << /PDFDocEncoding 98 0 R >> >> /DA (/Helv 0 Tf 0 g ) >> endobj 1404 0 obj << /Type /StructTreeRoot /ClassMap 100 0 R /RoleMap 112 0 R /K [ 1146 0 R 1147 0 R 1148 0 R 1149 0 R 1150 0 R 1151 0 R 1152 0 R 1153 0 R 1154 0 R 1155 0 R 1156 0 R 1157 0 R 1158 0 R 1159 0 R 1160 0 R 1161 0 R 1162 0 R 1163 0 R 1164 0 R 1165 0 R 1166 0 R 1167 0 R 1168 0 R 1169 0 R 1170 0 R 1171 0 R 1172 0 R 1173 0 R 1174 0 R 1175 0 R 1176 0 R 1177 0 R 1178 0 R 1179 0 R 1180 0 R 1181 0 R 1182 0 R 1183 0 R 1184 0 R 1185 0 R 1186 0 R 1187 0 R 1188 0 R 1189 0 R 1190 0 R 1191 0 R 1192 0 R 1193 0 R 1194 0 R 1195 0 R 1196 0 R 1197 0 R 1198 0 R 1199 0 R 1200 0 R 1201 0 R 1202 0 R 1203 0 R 1204 0 R 1205 0 R 1206 0 R 1207 0 R 1208 0 R 1209 0 R 1210 0 R 1211 0 R 1212 0 R 1213 0 R 1214 0 R 1215 0 R 1216 0 R 1217 0 R 1218 0 R 1219 0 R 1220 0 R 1221 0 R 1222 0 R 1223 0 R 1224 0 R 1225 0 R 1226 0 R 1227 0 R 1228 0 R 1132 0 R 1133 0 R 1134 0 R 1135 0 R 1136 0 R 1137 0 R 1138 0 R 1139 0 R 1140 0 R 1141 0 R 1142 0 R 1143 0 R 1144 0 R 1145 0 R ] /ParentTree 1229 0 R /ParentTreeNextKey 58 >> endobj 1430 0 obj << /S 281 /V 378 /C 400 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 1431 0 R >> stream Arise in which parents are opposed to all religious indifference, is the accomplishment of God 2,000 years ago happens! 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