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§ 167. The concept of marriage as a sacrament The Lord, pouring out the gifts of saving grace necessary for each person individually for salvation and eternal life, deigned to establish a special sacrament for those of the children of the church who enter into a marriage union, so that through the blessing and sanctification of their union they could realize the law of marriage in its true essence and achieve the goals of marriage determined by the will of the Creator, and protect the marriage union from the influences of sin, distortion and abuse. Marriage, as a sacrament in the Church of Christ, is such a sacred act in which, according to the free promise of the bride and groom of mutual marital fidelity before the priest and the church, through the minister of the mysteries of God, grace is taught to them from above, sanctifying their marriage union, elevating it into the image of the spiritual union of Christ with the church and assisting them in achieving all the goals of marriage - mutual assistance in salvation, blessed birth and Christian raising children (Katikh.). § 168. The teaching of revelation and the church that marriage is a divinely established sacrament The difference between marital union and marriage as a sacrament. – Divine establishment of both marriage and marriage. – The meaning of the priest’s blessing of the newlyweds and the grace of God sanctifying the marriage. – The teaching of the Holy Fathers on marriage. Under the name of marriage, as a sacrament, they often mean the marital union itself, and not its church blessing. Of course, the marital union itself, when the father and mother are left to marry and, by creative destiny, the two form one flesh, one being and person, is a mystery (Eph 5:32; cf. 1 Cor. 6:15-16). But the Orthodox Church distinguishes the mystery of marriage from marriage, as a sacrament, and by the sacrament of marriage it means not a marriage union, but a sacred act established by the Lord, performed by the minister of the mysteries of God and sanctifying the marriage union. I. In revelation there is no such clearly expressed evidence about the establishment of the sacrament of marriage by Jesus Christ as there is about the divine establishment of the marriage union, or some other sacraments (for example, baptism, Eucharist, repentance), however, grounds are given for conviction in the divine establishment of marriage as a sacrament. Thus, I. Christ, in a conversation with the Pharisees about the indissolubility of the marriage union, said: for God has united, let not man separate (Matthew 19:6). By placing the marriage combination in direct dependence on God, who imparts to it the nature of indissolubility, I. Christ showed that marriage affairs, from the conclusion of the marriage union to dissolution in exceptional cases, were not subject to Caesar or civil authority, but to what was God's (Matthew 22:21) and was subject to the jurisdiction of the church. This, especially in connection with the fact that the Lord honored and, of course, blessed the marriage in Cana of Galilee with His personal presence (John 2:1-11), leads to the assumption that He was pleased to establish a special sacred rite in His church to teach the newlyweds the necessary blessing of God and grace. Ap. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says: a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery (μνστήριον, sacramentum) is great: I speak into Christ and into the church (Eph. 5:31–32). In these words the apostle does not call the great mystery the union of Christ with the church, although it is essentially a mysterious union, but a marital union (the union of husband and wife into one flesh). At the same time, the apostle means a union specifically between husband and wife - Christians, for he calls them members of the body of Christ (30 v.) and sets out the duties of Christian spouses (22-25 v.). It follows from this that when he calls marriage a great mystery in relation to Christ in the church, he calls it that in the precise sense that in Christianity the marital union is a reflection of the union of Christ with the church. But if the marriage union of two persons in Christianity is a mysterious image of the union of Christ with the church; and the union of Christ with the church is, without a doubt, filled with grace and holiness (John 1:14; Eph. 5:25), then it is necessary to assume that the marriage union in Christianity is sanctified and sealed by the grace of Christ, and that, therefore, from the very beginning of the Christian church there was a special sacrament established for the purpose of sanctifying the marriage union by the grace of Christ. Some sayings of the ap. Paul give reason to assume the existence of such a sacred rite. Thus, he inspires that entering into a marriage should be done only in the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39), that is, the marriage should be concluded in accordance with what was commanded by the Lord and His apostles. But since the church is called to preserve and affirm in the world everything commanded by the Lord and His apostles, the apostle’s expression leads to the idea that marriage between Christians should be accomplished with the participation of the church, with its approval and approval, and this approval and approval can be expressed in the church’s blessing of them. Confirmation of this conclusion can be seen in the words of St. Ignatius the God-Bearer: “those who wish to marry and those who are getting married must solemnize their marriage with the knowledge of the bishop, so that the marriage may be about the Lord” (Polic. 5). Consequently, a marriage in the Lord, according to this testimony, is a marriage concluded with the direct participation of the church. II. In the Church, marriage was undoubtedly recognized as a sacrament from the very beginning. The most ancient teachers testify that marriage took place with the direct participation of the church - through the blessing of those getting married by the clergy, and that with this blessing, according to the belief of the church, is combined the action of the special sanctifying grace of God. The participation of the church in the blessing and sanctification of Christian marriages is indicated by the already cited words of St. Ignatius the God-Bearer .. Clement Al. denounces the detractors of marriage by pointing to the words of St. Paul that marriage is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim 4:3-5). He, condemning the wearing of false hair by women, says: “Whom does the elder lay his hand on with this hair, and who blesses him? Not a wife entering into marriage, but someone else’s hair and, therefore, someone else’s head” (Strom. III, 12; Pedagogy III). Methodius, bishop Patarsky, gives a fairly definite idea of ​​the very rituals that were connected in his time with the church blessing of marriage. This included the use of chants, placing crowns on the heads of those getting married, mysteriously walking around a certain place and holding candles in their hands (Feast of the Ten Virgins). St. Gregory B., defending the purity and holiness of marriage, says: “if you have not yet been united in the flesh, do not be afraid of committing it; You are pure even after marriage. I take responsibility; I am a combiner, I am a leader of brides... I combine young hands with the hand of God” (Sk. 40; Scripture 57). St. I. Chrysostom, condemning the custom of accompanying the celebration of marriage with obscene songs, says: “Why dishonor the publicly honest secrets of marriage? All this must be rejected and the daughter must be taught modesty from the very beginning, and the priests must be called and through prayers and blessings they must enter into a union of marriage, so that the love of the groom will increase and the chastity of the bride will be preserved” (1 Cor. VII, 2). Ancient teachers also testify to the church’s belief in imparting gifts of grace to those getting married through church ceremonies. Thus, Tertullian directly calls Christian marriage a sacrament (divinum sacramentum, sacramentum Christi) and puts it along with baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist (To supr. II, 1-2; On consortium 5, etc.). St. I. Chrysostom, instructing that marriages should be performed only with the blessing and prayers of the priests, indicates that through this the spouses are “united by the grace of God” (On Gen. Dem. XLVIII, 6). Blazh. Augustine, comparing the nature of the sacrament of marriage with the nature of the sacrament of the priesthood, says: “for all other peoples, the good and happiness of marriage consists in the birth of children and in marital fidelity; as for the people of God (Christians), for them the good of marriage lies in the holiness of the sacrament itself” (De bono conjug. p. XXIV). The doctrine of marriage as a sacrament, from the very beginning until the time of the Reformation of the 16th century. the content was in all countries of the Christian world. Therefore, marriage is recognized as a sacrament by Christians who have fallen away from the Orthodox Church since ancient times (Armenians, Maronites, Copts, Jacobites, Nestorians). But, as the blessed one says. Augustine, “what the whole church accepts, even if it was not approved at the councils, but was always preserved, was undoubtedly handed over to it by the apostles” (De bapt. IV, 24). § 169. The visible side of the sacrament of marriage and its invisible actions Betrothal and subsequent wedding. - Sanctifying grace. I. The rite of the sacrament of marriage, quite extensive, consists of betrothal and wedding. The betrothal is performed by a threefold blessing of the couple with rings with the words of the celebrant: “the servant of God (or the servant of God) is betrothed to the servant of God (or the servant of God) N in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” It is combined with a prayerful request for God's blessing on their proposed union. But betrothal is only a preparatory ceremony for wedding. In the betrothal, the word spoken by the spouses is confirmed in the presence of the church before the face of God, and rings are given to them as a pledge. The sacrament itself—the bringing down of God’s grace upon those entering into a marital union—is performed at the “following of the wedding.” Those entering into marriage solemnly, in the church of God, in the presence of the church and the celebrant of the sacraments, express their voluntary mutual consent to enter into a marriage union and make a mutual promise to invariably keep the marriage union between themselves in purity and holiness until the end of their lives. The celebrant of the sacrament, after praying to God: “to unite them, the wife of God is united to the husband, to marry them into one flesh and to give them the fruit of the womb,” places crowns on the bride and groom, pronouncing the words: the servant of God (or the servant of God) is married to the servant of God (or the servant of God) N in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” and after this “I bless three times,” that is, the bride and groom together, three times saying a short prayer to God: “Lord our God, crown me with glory and honor.” The wedding and prayerful blessing of the union of those getting married by the priest constitute that visible cover or image under which the invisible grace of the Holy Spirit is communicated to those who are married. Spirit, sanctifying their marriage. II. The grace of God, brought down through the sacred act of marriage to those entering into marriage, makes the natural union of husband and wife, as the apostle puts it, a great mystery - an image of the mysterious union of Christ with the church. More specifically, the effects of the grace of this sacrament are as follows. Grace sanctifies, elevates and, so to speak, spiritualizes the marriage union of two persons, gives primacy to the spiritual side of this union, so that the Christian marriage union is a reflection of the spiritual and holy union of Christ with the church. Therefore, the apostle speaks of Christian marriage: marriage is honorable and the bed is not filthy (Heb. 13:4; cf. 1 Sol 4:3). Grace binds the marriage union of two persons with indissoluble bonds, for the union of Christ with the church is indissoluble and eternal. About Christian marriage we must understand primarily: God unites, let not man separate, - a combination not only natural by the law of marriage, given at the establishment of the marriage union, but mainly by His grace. Finally, grace helps Christian spouses throughout their lives to sacredly fulfill their mutual duties to each other, according to the high example of the most holy union of Christ with the church. By assisting Christian spouses in the fulfillment of mutual duties, this grace thereby contributes to the achievement of all the goals of the marriage union, that is, to the blessed birth of children, their upbringing and arrangement, mutual assistance in all good things, alleviation of the hardships of life and to protecting oneself from illegal connections. The sacrament of marriage directly consecrates the union of love between only two persons. But this union has an impact not only on the spouses, but also on the entire family, and through the family and on society. Therefore, the sanctity of the marriage union, communicated to it in the sacrament of marriage, sanctifies the family, and then society, although not directly. § 170. Teaching of heterodox confessions on marriage The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the church blessing of the marriage union and about the celebrant of the sacrament - the couple themselves. Difference from Orthodox teaching. – The doctrine of the unconditional indissolubility of marriage. – Protestant teaching that rejects marriage as a sacrament: the Church is only a witness to the marriage union. I. The Roman Church differs from the Orthodox Church in its doctrine of marriage, as a sacrament and as a marital union. By the sacrament of marriage she does not mean the church rite that sanctifies the marriage union, but the marital union itself. According to the generally accepted and prevailing opinion (since the 13th century), the sacrament of marriage is performed by the spouses themselves through the expression of mutual consent to enter into a marital union before their parish rector and at least two witnesses and a corresponding marital oath (Conc. Trid. Sess. XXIV). The priest, with his blessing, only solemnly confirms the marriage, which has already been completed through the mutual consent of those entering into marriage, but his blessing, or more precisely, the blessing of the church through him, does not determine the validity of the marriage. The priest is necessary as a witness of the sacrament on the part of the church. Those getting married can express mutual consent in the same way before a civil official as before a priest, and therefore a civil marriage is compatible with the Catholic teaching on the sacrament of marriage, while such a marriage is not compatible with the teaching of the Orthodox Church, it is simple carnal cohabitation. It is obvious that the Russian Catholic understanding of the sacrament of marriage is wrong. If marriage is truly a sacrament of the church, then by it, as a sacrament, we must mean what is customarily recognized as sacraments, that is, a sacred act performed by the church over those marrying, and not a marriage union, just as when we say that the priesthood is a sacrament, then by priesthood we mean not the clergy, but the laying on of a hierarch. They will say: ap. Paul calls the marriage union a great mystery. This, of course, is so, but the apostle calls the Christian marriage union a mystery in the image of the union of Christ with the church, and this union becomes such only as a result of the sanctifying action of divine grace, and not just because a man and woman agree to enter into a marriage union. It is also not true that the sacrament of marriage is performed by the spouses themselves. “I am the matchmaker, I am the bridegroom; I unite my young hands with the hand of God,” says St. Gregory B. It cannot be otherwise, for clergy alone can impart grace to those entering into a marriage through the sacrament of marriage, sanctifying and consolidating this union. In the doctrine of marriage, as a marital union, the peculiarity of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is that it recognizes the unconditional indissolubility of the marriage union, even in the event of adultery of one of the spouses. It tries to eliminate the intolerant relations that arise between spouses by allowing the separation of spouses from the bed or table and cohabitation for a time or forever, and sometimes by recognizing marriages as invalid, but does not allow divorce, with the right, according to ancient custom, for an innocent person to enter into a new marriage. Regarding this feature, it should be noted that marriage, according to its original establishment, in theory, is indeed indissoluble. Divorce is a deviation from the idea of ​​marriage; it is an evil that cannot be commanded. But this evil is allowed out of necessity, in order to avoid a greater evil, which is all the more necessary to prevent because the injured, innocent half may be subjected to it, while she is already suffering evil through the fault of the other spouse. Divorce is done solely in respect of the violated rights of the victim, for the sake of restoring violated justice. The allowance of divorce for good reasons, such as, for example, adultery, which destroys the strength of the marriage union and destroys the spiritual unity of the marriage, is also indicated in the teaching of Christ the Savior (Matthew 5:32; 19, 9). The ancient church also allowed divorce for reasons such as adultery. II. Protestant societies (Lutheranism, Reformedness and Anglicanism), recognizing the marriage union as an institution of God, reject marriage in the sense of the sacrament of the church. The basis for such a denial since the time of Luther has been the view that the union of marriage, deeply rooted in human nature itself and always existing, is a purely bodily, carnal matter, and not spiritual and religiously moral, which needs sanctification through a special sacrament. Having rejected marriage in the sense of a sacrament, Protestant societies, however, retained church blessing and marriage ceremony as a simple rite, with the reading of the corresponding prayers and passages of St. Scriptures that talk about marriage. But this blessing is nothing more than a simple testimony of a concluded marriage union. It is clear from this why in many Protestant states the obligation of a church blessing for marriages has been completely abolished - a purely civil or notary-legal marriage has been introduced, leaving only the conscience of the spouses to seek the church blessing of their union. The extremes of the Protestant teaching on marriage obviously stem from the general one-sided views of Protestantism, in particular from a too narrow and low concept of the meaning and purpose of marriage. The failure of this latter is visible from all sides. Firstly, even if we assume that marriage is a purely carnal matter, then even in this case in Christianity the need to sanctify the marital state is not eliminated in the least, for does not bodily life need the gifts of grace, or is it unworthy of them? Since sin brought damage to both the spiritual and physical nature, the grace of redemption had to regenerate a person completely - both in spirit and in body, and the regenerated person enters into union with Christ and in the body: don’t you know that your bodies are Christ’s (1 Cor. 6:15)? Secondly, it is false that marriage is only a carnal matter. On the contrary, marriage is a high moral relationship, intended for the implementation of high moral tasks. In Christianity, marriage is a reflection of the highest union of Christ with the church. Finally, Protestantism, denying marriage as a sacrament, judges the marital state from the wrong angle as it should be according to the Gospel. but with the way it is carried out in reality. It cannot be denied that in reality marriage life is also for those. who bear the name of Christ are often all carnal; but on the basis of the fact that this happens, to assert that this should be so means willfully perverting the whole meaning of the Gospel teaching, which calls man in every condition to achieve the highest moral perfection, to serve God in the renewal of the spirit (Rom. 7:6). You might be interested in: