Why Should Marriage Be a Sacrament?

The question “Why should marriage be a Sacrament?” is a serious one. It touches the way the Orthodox Church understands the human person, the body, love, freedom, the Fall, the Church, and the Kingdom of God. If marriage were simply a social contract, then a simple prayer or public recognition would be enough. If it were only a biological or emotional relationship, then the Church would limit itself to wishing the couple that “everything goes well.” Yet the Orthodox Church sees something deeper in marriage: a calling for two people to live love as a path of salvation.

Marriage is a Sacrament because, within it, the human relationship does not remain closed in on itself, but is offered to God and receives His grace. It is not simply a blessing upon a relationship that is already complete, but an ecclesial transformation of that relationship. The man and the woman are not called only to live together, but to become “one flesh” within the Body of the Church, with Christ at the center.

The difficulty, of course, becomes sharper when we hear the Gospel passage: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matt. 22:30). If, in the last things, marriage as…