1 Background and context
1.1 Marriage in ancient Greece and Rome
Throughout human history, cultures have understood marriage as having an important role for society, and for the raising of children who will perpetuate the society – even though different cultures have had different understandings of how marriages should be arranged, and what the roles of the husband and wife should be. In order to appreciate just how much, and in what ways, Christian influence changed the understanding of marriage in classical history, it is necessary to know something about how marriage was understood within the ancient Judaism from which Christianity emerged, as well as in the Graeco-Roman world in the midst of which that Christianity arose.
Marriage in ancient Greece and Rome was predominantly understood as necessary for the procreation and raising of children, as well as for the maintaining, or gaining, of property and social status. Prospective husbands (or their fathers) usually arranged for marrying a much younger girl through negotiation with the girl’s father. Generally, there was ambivalence among men regarding women: many viewed their wives as necessary primarily for producing children and keeping the household; yet because of typical large differences in age, education level, and common interests, there was often not an expectation of real companionship, or deep friendship. Husbands often had concubines and/or sex partners among slaves, either male or female, which was socially acceptable, even if not formally endorsed or promoted. From this, it seems there was a general expectation that sexual fulfilment would come more from liaisons outside of the marriage bed than with one’s wife.
Perhaps Semonides of Amorgos’ satirical poem about women (late seventh century BCE) is somewhat representative, as he gives various examples of different kinds of women, all negative, comparing them to pigs, apes, dogs, and other such animals, before finally describing only one kind of woman in a positive way – the one likened to the industrious honey bee (Fragments, 7). However, a more elevated view was conveyed by Ovid, a leading Roman poet of the later first century BCE, who advised, when choosing a wife: ‘If you want to be married happily, marry your equal’ (Heroides, 9).
There was a rigid double standard concerning sexual relations outside of marriage. Wives were not permitted to have other sexual partners; if they did, they would face severe consequences. In contrast, husbands had sexual freedom, except with other men’s wives.
1.2 Marriage in ancient Israel (in the Old Testament)
In ancient Israel, marriage was conceived as being the direct creation of the one true God for a specifically ordained purpose – helping to lead humankind to personal communion with Himself. One contemporary Orthodox theologian, Demetrios Koutroubis, explains the creation of humanity in two sexes (as conveyed in Gen 1–2) in these words:
The great ‘innovation’ of the biblical narrative is that […] the existence of the two sexes and the relations between them were presented as the living and tangible image of the close and personal relationship that the living and true God wishes to have with man (anthropos, or mankind). Human love and its natural outcome, human marriage, were presented as the means devised by Divine Wisdom to allow man to sense the love of God for him and to inspire in his heart the desire to reciprocate that love. All this is so that there might well up in man’s soul the desire for a total union of body and soul with the King of heaven and earth. (Plested 2024: 147)
The creation account in Genesis 2 records the Lord God fashioning the first woman out of Adam’s side for the sole purpose of companionship; as the Lord Himself said, ‘it is not good for man to be alone’ (Gen 2:18; this is the first thing described as ‘not good’ in the whole creation account). Very interestingly, no mention is made here of Eve being created primarily in order to bear children, although in Genesis 1, Adam and Eve, both made equally ‘in the image and likeness of God’, are immediately commanded to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (vv. 27–28) – the very first commandment given to humankind. This image is taken up in Ps 128, which presents a joyful picture of one’s wife being a ‘fruitful vine’, with children all around one’s table. There was a great stigma attached to childless couples in ancient Judaism, especially for the wife, partly because it was understood that the only way to have some kind of ongoing, ‘eternal’ life was through one’s children carrying on one’s name.
Marriage, it would seem, was mostly simply taken for granted as the standard way of life for the Hebrew people; there was no need to especially encourage it. The Old Testament only rarely gives glimpses of an exalted view of marriage. Perhaps the most positive presentation is given in the Wisdom of Sirach, chapter 26:
Happy is the husband of a good wife; the number of his days will be doubled. A courageous wife makes her husband glad, and his years will be full of peace. A good wife is a good portion, and she will be given in the portion of those who fear the Lord. (Sir 26:1–3; Orthodox Study Bible [OSB])
A wife’s grace will delight her husband, and her skill will put fat on his bones. A silent wife is a gift from the Lord, and there is nothing worth as much as a disciplined soul. A modest wife is blessing upon blessing, and there is no scale adequate to weigh a self-controlled soul. Like the sun rising in the Lord’s heaven is the beauty of a good wife in the ordering of her house. (Sir 26:13–16)
The Wisdom of Sirach also tells us, ‘Give a daughter in marriage, and you will have completed a great work; but give her to a man of understanding’ (Sir 7:25); and, ‘Do you have a wife after your own heart? Do not reject her’ (Sir 7:26).
The description of a godly wife in Prov 31:10–31 also conveys a high appreciation for wives and marriage, as does Prov 5:18–19: ‘May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts satisfy you always; may you ever be intoxicated with her love’ (NIV). Clearly, in ancient Israel faithfulness in marriage for both spouses was expected (even if not always practiced), and sexual fulfilment was intended to be found solely within marriage.
Very importantly, God’s relationship with His people is most often described in the Old Testament in terms of marriage, with complete faithfulness expected of both spouses to the covenant of marriage. For example, Isa 54:5 says: ‘For thy Maker is thy Husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name’ (KJV). Correspondingly, His people’s frequent wandering from Him, their unfaithfulness, their betrayal of the covenant relationship which He established with them, is often expressed in terms of adultery – ‘whoring after other gods’ (e.g. Deut 31:16; Judg 2:17; 1 Chr 5:25; Ps 73:27; Ezek 6:9; Hos 4:12).
The Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church America (OCA) state in their Synodal Affirmation on the Mystery of Marriage:
The ‘great mystery’ of marriage (Eph 5:32) is the most used image and symbol in the Bible for God’s relationship with His People in the Old and New Testaments, where the Lord is the husband and His people are His wife – so often unfaithful and adulterous […]. And the ultimate union between the Lord and those saved by Christ for eternal life in God’s Kingdom by the indwelling Holy Spirit is likened to the communion of marriage (Rev 21–22). (OCA Synod of Bishops 2013)
It is also true that in earlier Israelite history, as recorded in the Old Testament, it was common for a man to have multiple wives for various practical reasons. This ensured numerous children; and also, since there was no socially acceptable work women could do outside of the household to support themselves economically, the only way that women in the culture could be provided for and cared for was by a male relative. Since Saints Isaac and Rebekah were exceptional among the matriarchs and patriarchs of Genesis for their monogamy, and for their mutual love and devotion, they are named more often than Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and Rachel, in the Orthodox wedding service.
Also remarkable is the prayer of Tobias and Sarah on their wedding night:
‘Arise, sister, and let us pray that the Lord will have mercy upon us.’ So Tobit began to pray, saying:
‘Blessed are You, O God of our fathers, and blessed is Your holy and glorious name unto the ages. The heavens and all Your creatures bless You. You made Adam and gave him Eve as a helper, his wife as a support. From them, the seed of mankind came to be. You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. Let Us make a helper for him like himself.’ O Lord, I now take this my sister as my wife, not on account of fornication, but in truth. Command that she and I may have mercy, and in this to grow old together’.
And with him she said, ‘Amen’. (Tob 8:4b–8; OSB)
The Song of Songs was most often interpreted allegorically in Judaism as imaging the love of God for His chosen people; yet it still reflects a celebration of married love, with all its attendant sexual expression, in that cultural context. Later, this book was interpreted by Christians as representing Christ’s ardent love for His Bride, the Church; St Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on the Song of Songs is probably the most famous work along this line in the Eastern Church.
3 Marriage in the writings of the Church Fathers
3.1 Comparing Tertullian with Clement of Alexandria
Church history reveals that most of the Eastern Church Fathers held a significantly more positive view of marriage and marital relations than did most of the Western Church Fathers. For example, Tertullian, known as ‘the father of Latin theology’, writing in the early third century in western North Africa, exclaimed about marriage and marital relations:
What is the thing which takes place in all men and women to produce marriage and fornication? Commixture of the flesh, of course – the concupiscence which the Lord made equal to fornication. ‘Then,’ someone says, ‘are you now destroying first, that is, single marriage, too?’ Not without reason, for it too consists of that which is the essence of fornication. (Tertullian, Exhortation to Chastity, ch. 12)
And in an essay addressed to his wife, he says that in the next life: ‘There will be, at that day, no more resumption of voluptuous disgrace between us. No such frivolities, no such impurities, does God promise His servants’ (Tertullian, To His Wife 1.1).
This negative view may be compared to the thought of Clement of Alexandria, writing at about the same time:
We also marvel at monogamy and the great majesty of a single marriage, for we think that we should suffer with each other and ‘bear one another’s burdens’ (Gal 6:2), lest anyone who believes he is standing firm all by himself should fall (1 Cor 10:12). (Miscellanies, Book 3.1.4)
Concerning marital relations, Clement says: ‘It is always lawful for the pure to touch the pure’ (The Instructor, Book 2.10); and,
Marriage, as a sacred image, must be kept pure from those things which defile it. We are to rise from our slumbers with the Lord, and retire to sleep with thanksgiving and prayer […] confessing the Lord in our whole life, possessing purity in the soul, and extending self-control to the body. (Miscellanies, Book 2)
Very similarly, St Ephrem the Syrian of the later fourth century says simply: ‘Preserve purity in your marriage, so your marriage may be holy’ (On Admonition and Repentance).
In general, ‘[a]s Sergey Minov puts it, the declaration of marriage’s “fundamental goodness became one of the touchstones of nascent [O]rthodoxy”’ (Radle 2024: 50). The important Council of Gangra, held in about 342, condemned as heretical any views disparaging marriage.
3.2 Comparing St Augustine with St John Chrysostom
The differences East and West can also be readily seen in comparing the thought of
St Augustine with that of St John Chrysostom, especially regarding sexual desire and reasons for marriage. Augustine, hugely influential in the West, states:
For conjugal intercourse for the sake of procreation does not have guilt; but the satisfying of lust, even though with one’s spouse, because of the faith of the bed [only] has venial guilt […]. To pay the debt of marriage is no crime, but to demand it beyond the necessity of procreation is a venial fault. (On the Good of Marriage, 6)
In striking contrast, St John Chrysostom says of sexual desire:
This love (eros) is deeply planted within our nature. Unnoticed by us, it attracts the bodies of men and women to each other, because in the beginning woman came forth from man, and now from man and woman both men and women proceed. (Homily 20 on Ephesians)
Elsewhere, Chrysostom states: ‘God also linked them together by their natural needs – linked them as if by an unbroken bond when He encircled them with the chain of desire’ (Sermon 4 on Genesis). He even says that even in fornication, the act of intercourse itself is not sinful; rather, this is an evil use of a good thing:
For both are unclean, not due to the intercourse – for according to that reasoning a man cohabitating with his own wife would be unclean – but due to the injustice and rapacity of the act, and the injury done to his neighbor. (Homily 3 on Titus)
St Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzen), also writing in the late fourth century, is another important representative of the thought of the Eastern Fathers concerning the profound goodness of marriage and marital relations. He writes:
Are you not yet wedded to flesh? […] You are pure even after marriage. I will take the risk of that. I will join you in wedlock. I will dress the bride. We do not dishonor marriage because we give a higher honor to virginity. I will imitate Christ, the pure Groomsman and Bridegroom, as He both wrought a miracle at a wedding, and honors wedlock with His presence. (Oration on Holy Baptism, 18 [Oration 40])
Furthermore, St Augustine says he can think of no purpose for having a wife except for childbearing: ‘I do not see in what sense the woman was made as a helper for the man if not for the sake of bearing children’ (Literal Commentary on Genesis IX.5). In contrast, St John Chrysostom avers:
Let us seek just one thing in a wife – virtue of soul and nobility of character, so that we may enjoy tranquillity, so that we may luxuriate in harmony and lasting love […]. Marriage exists in order that we may enjoy another’s help, that we may have a harbor, a refuge, and a consolation in the troubles which hang over us, and that we may converse happily with our wife […]. Since we know all this, let us not investigate our bride’s money, but the gentleness of her character, and her piety and chastity. A wife who is chaste, gentle, and moderate, even if she is poor, can make poverty better than wealth. (How to Choose a Wife)
There were some more positive voices in the West in the early centuries concerning marriage and the full goodness of marital relations – in particular, Lactantius, St Hilary of Poitiers, and St Paulinus of Nola. However, these voices were eventually mostly overridden by the writings of the towering Augustine (see Ford 2017: ch. 1).
3.3 Mandatory clerical celibacy
From the Orthodox perspective, a clear sign of the general hesitancy in Western Christianity to affirm the full goodness of marriage and marital relations is the long-standing practice of clerical celibacy in the Roman Church. Apparently this practice officially began in Spain, at the Council of Elvira in 306 (Canon 33). At the Council of Nicaea nineteen years later, the issue was brought up by some of the bishops there, whereupon an elderly monk, St Paphnutius, spoke so strongly and eloquently against that practice that it was never again considered in the Eastern Church. According to the records of the Nicene Council, Paphnutius loudly declared,
that too heavy a yoke ought not to be laid upon the clergy; that marriage and married intercourse are of themselves honourable and undefiled; that the Church ought not to be injured by an extreme severity, for all could not live in absolute continency […]. The intercourse of a man with his lawful wife may also be a chaste intercourse. It would therefore be sufficient, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, if those who had taken holy orders without being married were prohibited from marrying afterwards; but those clergymen who had been married only once as laymen, were not to be separated from their wives. (The Seven Ecumenical Councils, 51)
However, the Western Church continued on the path of mandatory clerical celibacy, even though there was so much natural resistance to it that it only became fully established in the West by around the early thirteenth century. The renowned Western Church Father of the later fourth century, St Ambrose of Milan, was one who especially promoted the idea:
But you know that the ministerial office must be kept pure and unspotted, and must not be defiled by conjugal intercourse; you know this, I say, who have received the gifts of the sacred ministry with pure bodies, and unspoiled modesty, and without ever having enjoyed conjugal intercourse. I am mentioning this, because in some out-of-the-way places, when they enter on the ministry, or even when they become priests, they have begotten children. They defend this on the ground of old custom, when, as it happened, the sacrifice was offered up at long intervals. However, even the people had to be purified two or three days beforehand, so as to come clean to the sacrifice, as we read in the Old Testament (Ex. 19:10) […]. You must have a pure body wherewith to offer up the sacraments. If the people were forbidden to approach their victim unless they washed their clothes, do you, while foul in heart and body, dare to make supplication for others? Do you dare to make an offering for them? (On the Duties of the Clergy, Book 1.258)
St Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome (late sixth century), in his highly influential Pastoral Rule, stated that ‘the mind of married Christians […] is now debased in fleshly delights’, and that ‘they should efface by frequent prayer what they befoul in the fair form of intercourse by the admixture of pleasure’.
In his magisterial Summa Theologica, St Thomas Aquinas (twelfth century), the leading Western theologian of the Middle Ages, followed St Augustine in saying:
I answer that it was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a ‘helper’ to man; not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation.
Even more erroneously, following Aristotle, Aquinas states:
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from defect in the active force, or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence […]. On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is not misbegotten, but is included in nature’s intention as directed to the work of generation. (Summa Theologica, Question 92 ‘The Production of the Woman’, Article 1)
In line with this sentiment, the Gratian Decretum of 1140, the preeminent collection of canon law in the Western Church until into the twentieth century, states, ‘Ambrosius (=Ambrosiaster) says: “Women must cover their heads because they are not the image of God”’ (Decretum Gratiani, Causa 33, question 5, chapter 19).
In striking contrast, there are no Eastern Church Fathers or canons, at any time in history, saying that the only reason for the creation of woman is for childbearing, or that woman is not fully made in the image and likeness of God. And apparently St Epiphanius of Cyprus (later fourth century) was the only Eastern Father who impugned clerical marriage, stating that married clergy had to refrain from marital relations with their wives. The Quinisext Council, held in Constantinople in 692, did mandate that any married priest elected to be a bishop had to separate from his wife, but only with her consent, and he had to make provision for her to live some distance away. It is still the Orthodox tradition for bishops to be unmarried, for practical reasons — especially in order for them to more effectively minister to their usually far-flung flocks.
3.4 Later Eastern writers on marriage
It is true that for many centuries after St Gregory the Theologian and St John Chrysostom (late fourth century), there is a scarcity of high praise for marriage conveyed by writers in the Eastern Church. This is probably mostly due to the fact that nearly all theological, spiritual, and hagiographical works were written by monastics, who always had the intention to highlight the spiritual value of their own ‘angelic’ way of life, partly in order to bolster the calling of their fellow monastics to remain true to monasticism. Male monastics would refrain even from thinking very much about women, let alone writing in praise of them, in order to avoid temptations to lustful thoughts.
Additionally, after the society became virtually entirely Christian (by roughly the end of the fifth century), marriage, under the influence of Christianity, became strictly monogamous. Given that this became the accepted way of life for virtually everyone except the small number of monastics, there was less need for theological writers to emphasize the particular virtues of married life.
However, in the early twentieth century, when marriage came under attack in various ways through shifts in the surrounding society, we find Eastern writers extolling the special glories of marriage, including the marital embrace. As one example, Fr Alexander Elchaninov, a Russian emigré married priest in southern France in the 1920s and 1930s, writes glowingly of the potential for married Christians to find deep personal spiritual growth especially due to the intimacy, both spiritual and physical, shared by the married couple. For example, he writes:
Marriage, fleshly love, is a very great sacrament and mystery. Through it is accomplished the most real and at the same time the most mysterious of all possible forms of human relationship. And, qualitatively, marriage enables us to pass beyond all the normal rules of human relationship, and to enter a region of the miraculous. (Elchaninov 1997: 46)
In the parish preaching of an illustrious monk of Mount Athos, Archimandrite Aimilianos, in the early 1970s, the potential for marriage to be a vehicle of great spiritual advancement is taken to an even higher level – as an image or manifestation of the divine. This is especially the case in one sermon, entitled ‘Marriage: The Great Sacrament’, in which he says:
Whenever two people are married in the name of Christ, they become the sign which contains and expresses Christ Himself. When you see a couple who are conscious of this, it is as if you are seeing Christ. Together they are a theophany. (Aimilianos 2005: 123)
4 The wedding service
4.1 History
In the early centuries of the Christian era, there was no special liturgical service creating and blessing a new marriage. It was sufficient for the bridal pair – who always have been, and still must be, in the Orthodox Tradition, a man and a woman – to gain the approval and blessing of the local bishop. As St Ignatius of Antioch writes in c. 107 to the future St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna:
It becomes both men and women who marry to form their union with the approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust. Let all things be done to the honor of God. (Epistle to Polycarp; cf. 1 Cor 10:31)
Though there is not much evidence on exactly how marriages were conducted, it seems the couple would follow some of the existing Roman wedding practices done in the father of the bride’s home, such as wearing special clothing and a wreath. It seems a bridal couple would then seal their legal (civil) union through receiving the Holy Eucharist together during a Divine Liturgy, in the midst of the congregation. By the fourth century, we know that Christian prayers were added to the classical wedding practices. Somewhat later, it apparently became the general practice to have a blessing of the couple independent of a church service, but sealed through their sharing a Eucharistic cup with pre-sanctified gifts (Radle 2024: 76, 155–156).
Contemporary Orthodox theologian Fr Philip LeMasters, in his book Sex and Salvation, notes the relationship between marriage and the Eucharist: ‘The first point of commonality between Eucharist and marriage is that both are acts of covenantal communion, of a unity so deeply profound that they change the identity of the persons who participate in them’ (LeMasters 2025: 25). He points out elsewhere that ‘at the heart of each activity is self-sacrificial love’ (LeMasters 2004: 60).
A major turning point in the Church’s practice came in 893 when Byzantine Emperor Leo VI mandated that every marriage had to take place in a church; a civil service outside the church would no longer be recognized as legitimate. Although there were certain marriage rites conducted in the Church at least by the sixth century, during the ninth century the full wedding service was being developed in the Eastern Churches, separate from the Divine Liturgy, with the couple’s union still being sealed through their sharing from the Eucharistic cup of pre-sanctified gifts. This practice was later modified to be simply the sharing of a ‘common cup’ of wine. This is the basic shape of the wedding service that is still used today throughout the Orthodox world.
4.2 The wedding service itself
The first part of the two-part Orthodox wedding service is the prelude to the sacrament of marriage itself. Called the Betrothal, it usually takes place in the narthex (vestibule) of the church; Fr Alexander Schmemann describes it as ‘the Christian form of the natural marriage’ (1973: 88). During this ceremony, prayers for the couple are sealed by an exchange of rings, done in a threefold way to symbolize in part the give-and-take of a happy marriage. (In the Slavic tradition, the bridal pair are asked to publicly declare that they each are coming into the marriage with no compulsion, and that they each have not been promised to anyone else. These declarations are made either during the Betrothal, or at the beginning of the Crowning.)
For the second part of the wedding service, called the Crowning, the priest leads the couple in solemn procession into the nave. This entrance expresses taking the natural marriage into the great mystery of Christ and His Church, ‘which is the entrance of the world into “the world to come,” […] into the Kingdom’ (Schmemann 1973: 89). The couple comes to Christ, to be united by Him for a life together intended always to be centred in Him. With the celebrant, they stand before a small table upon which are placed the Gospel book, a cross, and two wedding crowns, either woven as garlands or made of metal.
Immediately before the crowns are placed on the heads of the couple, the Lord Himself unites the groom and bride as husband and wife through this prayer said by the celebrant:
O holy God, Who didst form man from the dust, and didst fashion woman from his rib, and didst join her unto him as a helper, for it seemed good to Thy Majesty that man should not be alone upon the earth: Do Thou, the same Lord, stretch out now also Thy hand from Thy holy dwelling place, and unite this Thy servant (Name) and Thy handmaiden (Name), for by Thee is the husband joined unto the wife. Unite them in oneness of mind; wed them into one flesh, granting to them the fruit of the body, the procreation of fair children; for Thine is the majesty, and Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to ages of ages, Amen. (Meyendorff 1975: 136–137)
The crowns signify the couple’s kingship and queenship over their own small domestic domain. The crowns, as a symbol associated with martyrdom, also indicate their calling to be martyr-witnesses to Christ by the way they live their married life, in mutual self-sacrificial love, within the family and in society. Gabriel Radle writes that
the use of garland or metallic crowns by the bride and groom is a very ancient custom. However, there are no earlier descriptions in Greek, Roman, or Jewish literature of an actual rite of crowning. It is difficult to know exactly when or where a formal crowning ritual first appeared. But it certainly was a common practice by the fourth century when Gregory Nazianzen refers to the custom. (Radle 2024: 71)
After the crowning, the passage from the Epistles for the service (Eph 5:20–33) is read, followed by the Gospel reading (John 2:1–11). Then, after several prayers, the pair share three sips of wine from a common cup. This practice hearkens back to earlier centuries, before there was a distinct wedding service (as noted above).
Next, the priest leads the couple by the hand in procession three times around the small table with the Gospel book and the cross, while three short hymns are sung, all indicating that their married life is to be centred in the gospel way of life. As the celebrant then removes the crowns from the heads of the new husband and wife, he prays: ‘Receive their crowns into Thy Kingdom, preserving them spotless, blameless, and without reproach, unto ages of ages’. The service concludes with a final prayer of blessing.
From the above, we see that the primary emphasis in the Orthodox marriage service is the Lord Himself uniting the couple together in Him in His holy Church. In contrast, in the predominant Western Christian view, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, the wedding service is primarily a contract between the groom and bride, who make their vows to each other, establishing and forming their marriage themselves, with the clergy and congregation serving essentially as witnesses who give the marriage their blessing in the sight of God. In the Orthodox wedding service, however, vows are not exchanged, because the union is forged by God Himself, not by the couple.
5 The Orthodox theology of marriage
5.1 God as the architect of marriage
Within Orthodox theology, the Lord Himself is the architect of marriage as an institution, and He is the one bringing a man and a woman together in marriage. As St John Chrysostom says: ‘From the beginning God has been revealed as the Fashioner, by His Providence, of this union of man and woman, and He has spoken of the two as one’ (Homily 20 on Ephesians). And as St Paul taught (Eph 5:25–32), each marriage is to be an icon of Christ the Bridegroom’s love for the Church, His Bride, in a fruitful union of mutual love. Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople (the first among equals of the Orthodox patriarchs), declared in 2014:
Our Lord, through His first miracle in Cana, Galilee, blessed the holy sacrament of marriage, in which two persons of different sexes come together to unite into one body: and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31–33). Through this union of the two persons male and female in Christ, the family becomes a dwelling of Christ, from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named (Eph. 3:15–16).
5.2 The realm of salvation
According to the Orthodox Tradition, for most people marriage is meant to be their realm of salvation, with each spouse helping the other on the journey of spiritual growth towards the heavenly Kingdom. As Fr John Breck writes, ‘the ultimate purpose of the conjugal relationship is neither procreation nor personal fulfilment, but the working out of the spouses’ mutual salvation’ (Breck 1998: 68; original emphasis). Patriarch Bartholomew (2014) has also remarked:
Human life is certainly a serious matter, a spiritual battle and a course toward a goal that is heaven. Marriage is the most critical and most important vehicle of this course; marriage in Christ […], undefiled marriage (Heb. 13:4), the profound sacrament (Eph. 5:32).
5.3 Husband and wife dynamics in marriage
The traditional Orthodox understanding of the relationship between husbands and wives, like many aspects of the faith, should be understood as an antinomy: it is both hierarchical, with the husband having the primary leadership role in the family, and at the same time ‘conciliar’, with mutual submission being called for, as St Paul says in the Epistle reading for the Orthodox wedding service (Eph 5:20–33). Because of this antinomic character, Orthodox Christians may speak about this relationship with significantly different emphases. Those who are especially concerned about the erosion of the leadership role of men in modern society will focus on the importance of male headship (emphasizing, for example, Col 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Cor 11:3; 1 Pet 3:1; Eph 5:22–24). Others, who are more concerned about real and/or perceived abuses by husbands in the position of greater authority, will emphasize the importance of mutual submission (e.g. Eph 5:21; Matt 20:25–28).
In its entirety, Eph 5:20–33 presents a balanced understanding of male headship in the family as both leading with authority and serving those under that authority. This passage begins with Paul’s exhortation to be ‘[g]iving thanks to the Lord always for all things’ (5:20). The next part is about ‘being subject to one another one in the fear of God’ (5:21). In St Paul’s time, the husband was usually in complete control of everything – including his wife and children – as the paterfamilias. Early Christians did not work to overthrow existing social structures but to modify them from within by the attitudes of the believers, and how they themselves behaved. Nevertheless, to tell husbands that along with having the expected position of authority over their wives they must also practice mutual submission, that they should in a very real sense also submit to their wives, was startlingly radical at the time, whether in the context of Judaism or Graeco-Roman paganism.
As an example of a misuse of these passages in our own day, some Christians, including some Orthodox, seem to forget these first two exhortations, and isolate, in an absolute way, the next words, ‘wives submit to your husbands’ – as though that exhortation can be properly understood by itself in this-worldly terms of wielding and exerting power, rather than in the Christian understanding of authority involving self-sacrificial servanthood. And in this Christian understanding, the wife is called to submit to her husband – voluntarily, as a spiritual discipline, as a way to overcome harmful self-will – in a way analogous to how the Church is called to submit (or be obedient) to Christ as her head.
As he says at the end of this passage, while the wife is to ‘respect her husband’ (Eph 5:33), Paul is also quite clear that the husband is called to ‘love his wife’ as Jesus Christ did, who ‘gave Himself’ even unto death out of love for His Bride, the Church (5:25). Hence, the husband is to put his leadership role into practice by caring for his wife in various ways, often putting her needs ahead of his own. Indeed, this is the same Christ who also told His followers that asserting dominance, or lording it over others, is what pagans/gentiles do; and that His followers are not to behave like that, but to serve others (Matt 20:25–28). Surely this principle applies to all relationships, as far as is appropriate, including that of husband and wife. In this vein, one contemporary Orthodox scholar comments: ‘The solution to bad, or oppressive hierarchy isn’t to try to eliminate hierarchy, as our culture is claiming – that’s a utopian fantasy. Rather, the solution is having good, healthy, loving hierarchy, as revealed by Christ’ (Ford 2020b: 70).
As an example of a traditional understanding of marriage by an early Church Father (late fourth century) who spoke much about that topic, St John Chrysostom exhorts the husbands of his flock, at a time when the concept of mutual submission in marriage was still radical:
Do you want to have your wife be obedient to you, as the Church is to Christ? Then take yourself the same provident care for her as Christ takes for the Church. Yes, even if it becomes necessary for you to give your life for her, yes, and to be cut into ten thousand pieces […] do not refuse it. (Homily 20 on Ephesians)
He continues by saying that husbands should imitate God, who ‘brought to Himself’ Israel in the Old Testament, not through asserting dominance or force, but ‘by His unwearied affection’ (Homily 20 on Ephesians).
Chrysostom also speaks of Sarah and Abraham as exemplars of mutual submission: ‘Both he obeyed her in all things, and she him’ (Homily 26 on 1 Corinthians); and, furthermore, ‘[b]eing one flesh, they cared for each other’s welfare and gave evidence of such harmony as to be one body and one soul’ (Homily 45 on Genesis 8). It is clear that Chrysostom does not interpret the passage about the wife submitting to her husband (Eph 5:22) in an absolute way, isolated from the preceding phrase about mutual submission – the phrase that comes first and frames the whole. However, in accord with the antinomic character of this relationship, Chrysostom says that for the husband to fail to exercise his proper authority is just as much a sin as for the wife to rebel against it: ‘both err when they disturb the proper order […] the man falling into the woman’s inferiority [in position, not in value or importance, as he makes clear elsewhere], and the woman rising up against the man’ (Homily 26 on 1 Corinthians).
Archimandrite Aimilianos, a late twentieth-century spiritual elder on Mount Athos in Greece, gives a practical example of how contemporary married couples can live out this basic pattern for reality:
How will I please my husband today? How will I please my wife today? This is the question which a married person must ask every day. She is concerned about his worries, his interests, his job, his friends, so that they can have everything in common. He gladly gives way to her. Because he loves her, he goes to bed last and gets up first in the morning.
Only after saying all this does he mention the wife expressing her love ‘through obedience’, and the husband needing to protect and take care of his wife, being ‘full of love and tenderness […] [to] make himself her greatest treasure’ (Aimilianos 2005: 121–122).
Finally, all Orthodox Christians are called to obedience, to submit to various authorities in the Church. This does not imply that the ones being obedient are less important or less valuable than those in authority over them. This is certainly true of Christian wives, who are not discouraged from expressing their needs and preferences, sharing their wisdom, or disagreeing with their husbands if they think they are in error. Rather, they are to respectfully, and discerningly, follow their husbands’ leadership, while they contribute all their skill and wisdom to the oversight of the various aspects of family life that they excel in, as Chrysostom vividly describes (Ford 2017: 121–127). And in the most important area of all – the spiritual health of the family – the wife is to lead her husband onto the right path if he fails to provide the proper leadership, as Chrysostom also strongly asserts (see Homily 7 on St Matthew); and as St Gregory of Nazianzus, another major fourth-century Church Father, praises his mother, St Nonna, for doing for his father, St Gregory the Elder (Funeral Oration for his Sister Gorgonia).
5.4 The only safe harbour for sexual expression
As we have glimpsed through the discussion so far, in the Orthodox understanding marriage provides the ‘safe harbour’ for the full and proper expression of sexual desire. Since all of creation has been brought into being by our All-Good God – and it has all been pronounced to be ‘good’ by Him in the Genesis account – sexual expression within marriage is regarded by the Orthodox Tradition as a fully good aspect of that good creation (although, of course, like anything good, it can be misused and even abused).
St Gregory of Nazianzus celebrates the goodness of sexual life within marriage with these words:
Marriage is the key of moderation and the harmony of the desires, the seal of a deep friendship, […] the unique drink from a fountain enclosed, inaccessible to those outside. United in the flesh, one in spirit, they urge each other on by the goad of their mutual love. For marriage does not take us away from God, but brings us all the closer to Him; for it is God Himself Who draws us to it. (Poem in Praise of Virginity)
The major Church Father of the seventh century, St Maximus the Confessor, states about eros (ardent desire): ‘We should regard the erotic force – whether divine, angelic, noetic, psychic, or physical – as a unifying and commingling power’ (Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice, V.90). He also says about eros:
The divine erotic force also produces ecstasy, compelling those who love to belong not to themselves, but to those whom they love. This is shown by superior beings through their care of inferiors, by those of equal dignity through their mutual union, and by lower beings through their divine conversion towards those who are highest in rank. (V.85)
Until very recently, the entire Christian tradition (as well the Jewish and Muslim traditions) has been unanimous that the one clear requirement for sexual purity – which is the proper use of the erotic force – is that sexual relations are only ever to occur between a husband and wife (see Mathewes-Green 2019 for more on sexual purity). Even though many other aspects of Christian faith and practices relating to sexuality have been questioned at times – and there were, and are, various views about them (such as regards second marriages, divorce, etc.) – until very recently it was never questioned that all sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman is sinful, and hence, spiritually harmful (and, of course, all same-sex sexual activity has always been condemned by the Orthodox Church). Such illicit sexual activity can be physically, emotionally, and psychologically harmful as well.
Fr John Breck explains well why sexual desire should only ever be expressed within the covenant of marriage:
Just as one cannot authentically participate in Holy Communion without being baptized, and the priest cannot celebrate a true Liturgy without being ordained, so a couple can not enjoy the grace God offers through sexual union unless their relationship is blessed by him in the way prescribed and traditionally practiced by the Church. Their love may be deep, and their commitment to one another genuine. But without the grace conferred through the sacrament of marriage, there can be no true communion between the two. Their sexual relations simply feed ‘the desires and pleasures of the flesh,’ and they are unable to attain to the eternal communion and ineffable joy of divinely bestowed, self-transcending eros that unites them with God and with one another. (Breck 1998: 93; original emphasis)
In Western countries where homosexual sexual relationships have become more socially accepted, some Orthodox have been persuaded that the traditional Christian understanding of homosexual activity as sinful is an outdated, culturally conditioned, false understanding. However, the Orthodox Church holds that the Bible is divinely inspired; and, in the Orthodox view, it is very clear in the Bible (as well as throughout the 2,000 year old Tradition of the Church) that homosexual acts are considered sinful. Hence, most Orthodox Christians worldwide, including in Western countries, continue to hold the traditional biblical and patristic teachings on this matter, as on sexual purity generally (see Ford 2020a for a much fuller discussion).
5.5 The realm for child-raising
Marriage is also the God-ordained realm for the conception, bearing, nourishing, and raising of children. Fr John Breck expresses this character of marriage: ‘Only when we come to appreciate that the bond between husband and wife is properly one of mutual commitment based on a covenant relationship, can we understand the place within that relationship of procreation and sexual pleasure’ (Breck 1998: 61; original emphasis).
During the Orthodox wedding service, many prayers are offered for children to be born to the marriage, and that the newly married couple may ‘see their children’s children,’ in addition to their receiving ‘gratitude from their children’. Children are prayed for in the wedding service in the context of praying for ‘a peaceful life, length of days, purity, mutual love in the bond of peace, long-lived offspring, […] a crown of glory that does not fade away’.
Much could be said about the awesome role the Lord has granted to married people to be co-creators with Him in the conceiving, bearing, and raising of children – new human beings each endowed with an immortal soul, created by the Lord to be in eternal communion with Him, in this life and forever. As Fr Alexander Elchaninov, in the 1920s and 1930s in France, wrote about this astonishingly grand privilege: ‘In fleshly love, besides its intrinsic value as such, God has granted the world a share of His omnipotence: man creates man, a new soul is brought into being’ (Elchaninov 1997: 46).
On the joy of having children, St John Chrysostom exclaims:
You have a wife, you have children; what is equal to this pleasure (hedones)? You have a house, you have friends – these are the true delights. Besides chastity, great are the advantages which marriage bestows. For what, I ask you, is sweeter than children? What is sweeter than a wife, to him who desires to be chaste in mind? (Homily 38 on St Matthew)
The Church welcomes all those who are newly baptized and chrismated to the Eucharistic chalice, even if they are still infants, because the Eucharist is grace-bearing, and everyone is in need of (and may receive) God’s grace, no matter how young or old. The Eucharist is considered to be a mysterion (mystery) which is beyond our rational understanding, but which we can nevertheless know experientially. Thus, in contrast to Roman Catholic practice, the Orthodox priest has the blessing and authority from his bishop to celebrate the Sacrament of Chrismation immediately after baptizing an infant. Then there is no delay, no need to wait for an ‘age of accountability’ for the child to receive either ‘first communion’ or the rite of ‘confirmation’, as in Western Christian practice.
Furthermore, for the Orthodox, every home is to be ‘a little church’, wherein the married couple help each other work out their salvation, as well as helping their children to grow spiritually, to be guided towards the Kingdom of Heaven for eternal fellowship and communion with their Creator and Redeemer. As a contemporary spiritual child of St Sophrony, the nun Sister Magdalen (in Essex, England), writes:
To be a fellow-worker with God in the task of marriage and bringing up children is a grand and holy role […]. A married person can say – and this is the only theologically correct way to live – ‘My wife (or husband) and children are my life. They are the content of my life; it is in living with them that I must learn Christ-like love.’ The criterion of my spiritual health is this: what is the state of relations between me and those with whom I live? No other criterion is higher. Family life is the measuring stick of Christian progress for those who live in the world. (Magdalen 1991: 13–14)
5.6 Childlessness
As seen from the many prayers for children in the Orthodox wedding service, having children is a completely assumed expectation for married couples. Even though having children is certainly not the only reason for marriage in the Orthodox understanding, it would not be considered appropriate for a couple to enter marriage without having a desire for children – or at least, a clear openness to this happening.
If a couple are not able to conceive children (or if they do not wish to add to their family through having more biological children), the Church encourages them to consider adopting one or more children. There is a fairly recent prayer service in the Orthodox Church for the adoption of children, in which the celebrant prays for the Lord ‘to unite their natures’ – the natures of the child and the adoptive parents.
There is another fairly recent prayer for those who have had miscarriages – something people are much more aware of than in the past – and now, at least in some Orthodox countries, a special burial service can be conducted for the deceased child.
Given the theological significance of childbearing in the Orthodox Tradition, one might wonder: are a couple who are physically unable to conceive children therefore considered not to have a ‘one flesh union’? St John Chrysostom gives a clear response to this question:
The child is a bridge connecting mother to father, so the three become one flesh […]. But suppose there is no child; do they then remain two and not one? No, since their intercourse effects the joining of their bodies (hē mixis gar touto ergazetai, anacheasa kaianamixasa amphoterōn ta sōmata); and they are made one (hen), just as when perfume is mixed with ointment. (Homily 12 on Colossians)
5.7 Contraception
The natural expectation, as described above, is for every Orthodox married couple to desire to have children, in order to obey the Lord’s original summons to humankind to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. However, nonabortive contraception is generally allowed in certain circumstances for limited periods of time – usually, if possible, with the guidance of the couple’s priest (or father-confessor). Any form of contraception that destroys a fertilized egg is regarded as entirely unacceptable.
In general, the contemporary Orthodox Church allows for exceptions to standard regulations when the unique circumstances of a particular situation seem to call for such an exception to be made. Ideally, the couple’s priest or spiritual father will be called upon to give guidance, though no doubt many couples make this kind of decision on their own. (When a priestly blessing is given for an exception to a general rule or pattern, it is considered to be an act of ekonomia, while absolutely strict adherence to a standard is considered to be following akribeia.)
As Fr Philip LeMasters explains, referring to the writing of contemporary Orthodox theologian Fr Chrysostom Zaphiris:
Rather than affirming a [Roman Catholic] rationalistic view of natural law, [Zaphiris] argues that ‘sexual life must be guided by the meaning of the relationship, and personhood.’ Orthodoxy allows a variety of opinions on the morality of contraception, but insists on a synergistic view of salvation, which requires that human beings freely respond to and cooperate with God’s grace.
Hence, this question is better addressed within the calling of particular people to grow in holiness as they find the healing of their souls, rather than within the inflexible biological categories of natural law as interpreted by Humanae Vitae [a papal encyclical]. (LeMasters 2025: 203; Zaphiris 1974: 688–689)
However, there are some contemporary Orthodox scholars, such as Fr Josiah Trenham and Dr Tikhon Pino, who hold a distinctly stricter view regarding the various forms of artificial contraception (see Pino 2025).
5.8 The fundamental building block of society
On the societal level, marriage is considered to be the fundamental building block. Again we turn to St John Chrysostom, who took up this theme:
Nothing welds together society so much as the love (eros) of husband and wife […] when harmony prevails, the children are raised well, the household is kept in order, and neighbors, friends and relatives enjoy the fragrance. Great benefits, both for families and states, are thus produced. (Homily 20 on Ephesians)
While this reality is questioned by many in today’s society, contemporary Orthodox author Mark Cherry gives strong confirmation of it in his well-researched book, Sex, Family, and the Culture Wars (2016): ‘the liberal narrative of the family as a social construction […] [has] increasingly come to ignore the significant social, biological, and demographic data demonstrating the importance of the traditional biological family’ (2016: 5). Thus, Cherry points to a range of scientific evidence to argue that those accepting the liberal, or postmodern, narrative about the family cling to the unsupported belief that traditional social norms, such as those always espoused by the Orthodox Church, are the result of linguistic and social practices, having no basis in biology/nature/reality.
Cherry goes on to explain that
all attempts to reduce the family to just such a social construction are one-sided and incomplete. […] For example, […] sociobiological data provide significant evidence that the traditional biological family and its nurturing of children tend to augment positive characteristics (cognitive, emotional, and adaptive) associated with becoming a capable adult more effectively than other types of social structures. (Cherry 2016: 19)
5.9 The realm of most profound unity and love
Most profoundly, marriage, in the Orthodox understanding, provides the realm for the greatest possible spiritual unity, and for the deepest love, with another person, enabling tremendous potential for the spiritual flowering of each one. Chrysostom declares: ‘There is never such intimacy between a man and a man as there is between husband and wife, if they are united as they ought to be’ (Homily 20 on Ephesians). Elsewhere, he says:
Let husbands heed this, let wives heed it – wives, so as to give evidence of such great affection for their husbands, and to put nothing ahead of their welfare; and husbands, that they might show their wives great regard, and do everything as though having one soul and one body. This, after all, is true wedlock, when such harmony operates between them, when there is such close relationship, when they are bound together in such love. (Homily 12 on Colossians)
Likewise, Fr Elchaninov writes:
Marriage is a revelation and a mystery. We see in it the complete transformation of a human being, the expansion of his personality, fresh vision, a new perception of life, and through it a rebirth into the world in a new plenitude. (Elchaninov 1997: 45)
5.10 The eternality of marriage
While some Orthodox Christians say that marriage will no longer exist in the next life, others believe in the eternality of marriages made in this life. In support of the former view, the principal text cited is Matt 22:23–33 (also Mark 12:18–27 and Luke 20:27–40, wherein Jesus states: ‘For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven’). However, a literal reading of this same text is consistent with the second belief, whereby it is evident that Jesus is simply saying that there will be no new marriages formed in heaven, and is not saying anything about marriages already formed in this life.
The eternality of marriage seems to be clearly expressed in the Orthodox wedding service itself, since Jesus is the One who unites the two together into one. The service concludes, as quoted above, with the priest asking God to receive the couples’ wedding crowns into His heavenly Kingdom eternally (‘unto ages of ages’).
St John Chrysostom speaks of the eternality of marriage when he imagines a new groom saying to his bride on their wedding night:
And I pray, and beseech, and do all I can, so that we may be counted worthy to so live in this present life that we may be able also there in the world to come to be united to each other with great security. For our time here is brief and fleeting. But if we shall be counted worthy by having pleased God to exchange this life for that one, then shall we ever be both with Christ and with each other, with more abundant pleasure. (Homily 20 on Ephesians)
We see this understanding also in a saint’s Life in the late seventeenth century. When his wife was sent to urge him to deny Christ in order to save his life, St Angelis told her,
O my wife, let Christ take the place of everything else for you and for me. Today I surrender to Him both you and the children. For Christ I endure with joy this martyr’s death. Therefore, you also, my wife, endure my absence, so that in the next life we may meet again, and rejoice together eternally. (Ford and Ford 2020: 38)
Most often the discussion regarding eternality revolves around the meaning of the word ‘marriage’. If this word is taken to refer principally to sexual intercourse in marriage, and to a kind of exclusive relationship, then it is understood by all sides that those things will not have a place in the heavenly life. But if ‘marriage’ principally refers to the love and unity of the spouses, then, since people will be recognizable and have their true personalities intact, surely their relationship of love will continue in some form also in the next life.
The contemporary Orthodox author, Fr Josiah Trenham, gives an example of both positions in one work. He states that
there is an eternal aspect of earthly marriage in Christ which endures into the Kingdom. Married Christians are known as such at the Judgment and in the Kingdom. Those heavenly things such as love, friendship, and holiness, which were crafted in the marriage bond, remain and are deepened. The redeemed who had been married will recognize and delight in their spouses, and parents in their children. (Trenham 2013: 250; original emphasis)
Yet a few pages earlier he writes that in the eschaton ‘the very existence of marriage will be done away with’ (Trenham 2013: 243). So, properly understood, there is not really disagreement on this topic.
It is noteworthy that the words ‘until death do us part’ are not found in the Orthodox wedding service; apparently these words entered into the Western marriage service around the year 1400. Significantly, the OCA Synod of Bishops, in their encyclical entitled ‘On Marriage’ (c. 1975), state that: ‘Even death cannot break the bond of perfect love’. Archimandrite Aimilianos elaborates:
See how great the love and wisdom of God is. All the daily events of our life can enter into the kingdom of God, and what is more, they can serve as bridges transporting us to it. Everything can express our love for God. The love for your wife [or husband], the sacrifices you make for your children, your daily toil, your pain, your worries, your tears, your secret bitterness – all of these you must cast into the kingdom of God. In turn, God will sanctify them, render them holy for you, and give you strength to carry on for the whole week.
All of these things have their place, and indeed have value, in the eyes of Christ, as long as we don’t forget that our aim, our goal, and that for which our soul thirsts, is the kingdom of God. Our aim should be God himself. Our homeland should be heaven. (Aimilianos 2005: 73)
6 The relationship between marriage and monasticism, the two primary traditional Christian life-paths
6.1 Monasticism as the preeminent path for spiritual growth
There is a general understanding within Orthodoxy that the monastic path is the highest path in this life for spiritual growth, for living entirely and directly for Christ, since it involves a greater sacrifice of the good things of this life. It is considered the way ‘of the angels’, who live unencumbered by worldly things. Furthermore, as Fr Breck writes: ‘Virginity possesses an emotional and spiritual value that has always been recognized and treasured among Christians’ (Breck 1998: 95; for more on this topic, see Virginity in the Christian Tradition).
Monasticism, in addition, is a reminder to us all to make spiritual growth our highest priority, remembering the heavenly perspective – that this world is passing away, that this present life is, most centrally, the training ground for life in the heavenly Kingdom. Monasticism is a signpost towards all these things, pointing directly towards the next life.
6.2 Spiritual growth in marriage
Nevertheless, the Church has always held that great spiritual attainment is possible also for those who are married, if they choose to devote themselves seriously to the Christian life. St Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (fourth century), says:
Let this doctrine of consecrated virginity be heeded by all the solitaries and virgins, who are establishing in the world an angelic way of life, and after them, by the rest of the people of the Church. A great crown is laid up for you.
He goes on to urge the monastics not to be prideful because they have chosen that ‘higher’ way of life:
Again, because you practice celibacy, do not be puffed up with conceit against those who live in the humbler state of matrimony. ‘For let marriage be held in honor, and let the marriage bed be undefiled’ [Heb 13:4], as the Apostle says. For have not you who keep your virginity been born of married persons? Do not, therefore, because you possess gold, condemn the silver. But let those be of good cheer also, who, being married, use marriage rightfully; who order their marriage according to law, not making it wanton by uncontrolled license; who recognize times of abstinence, that they may give themselves to prayer. (Catechetical Lectures IV.25)
There is also an understandable hesitation for monastics to speak often, or very positively, about marriage, since in most of their writings they are addressing fellow monastics, encouraging them to remain true to their monastic calling. The Monk Moses, writing in the late twentieth century, agrees, saying the writers of saints’ Lives ‘were mostly good monks, whose virginity-loving dispositions did not allow them to easily praise marriage’ (Monk Moses 1991: vi).
While the monastic path can be considered to be higher theoretically, at the practical level the ‘highest’ path for anyone is the path that our Lord calls that person to. St John Chrysostom even encourages believers to choose the path that is the ‘most easy, most befitting for you’:
There are innumerable models laid before you in the Scriptures of virtuous lives […]. One has shown forth virtue through poverty, another through riches; for example, Elijah through poverty, and Abraham through riches. Follow that example which you esteem most easy, most befitting for you to practice. And also, one by marriage, the other by virginity; Abraham by marriage, Elijah by virginity. Follow whichever way you wish, for both lead to heaven. (Homily 12 on Philippians)
Clement of Alexandria, in the late second century, goes further, saying that:
The prize in the contest of men is won by him who has trained himself by the discharge of the duties of husband and father, and by the supervision of a household, regardless of pleasure and pain. It is won by him, I say, who in the midst of his solicitude for his family, shows himself to be inseparable from the love of God. (Miscellanies, Book 3)
Chrysostom could also say: ‘Therefore, it is possible for us to surpass all others by becoming good husbands and wives’ (Homily 20 on Ephesians).
St Symeon the New Theologian, around the year 1000 in Constantinople, wrote:
So it is possible for all people, not only for monks but for laypeople as well, to be penitent at all times, and to weep and entreat God, and by such practices to acquire all other virtues as well. That this is true, John Chrysostom, the great pillar and doctor of the Church, bears witness with me. In his discourses on the Psalms of David, as he expounds the fiftieth psalm, he asserts that this is possible for one who has wife and children, men and women servants, a large household, and great possessions, and who is prominent in worldly affairs.
Not only is he able daily to weep and pray and repent; he can also attain to perfection of grace, if he so wishes. He can receive the Holy Spirit and become a friend of God and enjoy the vision of Him. Such men before Christ’s coming were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Lot at Sodom, and (to pass over the rest who are too many to enumerate), Moses and David. Under the new grace and dispensation of our God and Savior, Peter the unlettered fisherman, who had a mother-in-law and other relatives, preached the God Who had been revealed. (Discourses V.3)
Similarly, St Gregory Palamas wrote in the fourteenth century: ‘Practice the single life as dear to God, or the married life as God’s gift. Drink water from your own wells, or rather, chastely from your one well’ (Homilies 5.23). And in the later twentieth century, Archimandrite Aimilianos of Mount Athos taught:
What is marriage? We said that marriage is like a monastery. It is a mystery, because through marriage we become ‘one flesh’ with another person (Eph. 5:31–32). What does this mean? It means that, just as God gives me a gift to become a monk, so He gives a similar gift to the married person. The two become a single person before God. Christ Himself assumes them into Himself, and makes them one flesh with His own flesh. (Aimilianos 2005: 107)
6.3 Non-monastic single life
Today, for a variety of reasons, many Orthodox people who would like to be married are having difficulty finding a suitable spouse. Hence, there are many more people today who do not feel called to monastic life, who are able to support themselves and are living a life of singleness in the world. Such people are expected to remain celibate, difficult as that may be for some. There is an increasing effort on the part of parishes and larger Orthodox Church groups to find ways to support and encourage the growing number of people in this historically unprecedented situation.
7 Pastoral care for married people
The worldwide Orthodox Church has taken root in a large variety of different cultures, and it is impossible to describe all the variations in practices surrounding pastoral care for married individuals. Those described herein will primarily be characteristic of the USA, unless otherwise noted. It should also be remembered that like any very large Christian group, the level of engagement with such practices can vary significantly – from merely nominal to very extensive.
Lastly, it is also important to note that the Orthodox generally take a personal approach to issues like divorce or contraception, characterized by a willingness to make exceptions to standard patterns for pastoral reasons.
7.1 Premarital preparation
Today, pastoral care for married people in the Orthodox Church usually begins with some form of premarital counselling, most often conducted by the priest who will be celebrating the wedding service. Various resources are available to Orthodox priests for this purpose; one preeminent example is by Dr Philip Mamalakis and Fr Charles Joanides, entitled The Journey of Marriage in the Orthodox Church (2012). Sometimes regular meetings are held after the wedding as well, to give the couple extra support as they begin married life. Sometimes the couple chooses an older, experienced married couple to be their ‘Koumbaroi’, or ‘crown-bearers’, the equivalent of a best man and maid of honour, giving them a special relationship with an older couple who can help them in their married life.
Of course, the ideal, clearly expressed in the Church’s canons, is always that both the man and the woman contemplating marriage be Orthodox Christians, to assure that they can be sharing full spiritual unity, the fullness of the Christian life together, sharing especially the Holy Eucharist. In our own time, it is felt that having spiritual unity in the Holy Church is more important than ever to help the couple flourish in their marriage, owing to the many pressures on married couples, especially in cultural contexts where married life is no longer regarded as the only, or ideal, path for romantic and sexual relationships.
Nevertheless, a sacramental wedding is allowed if only one spouse is Orthodox, as long as the non-Orthodox spouse is a baptized Christian of some sort. This restriction is quite reasonable, because a couple cannot choose to be joined by, and in, Christ, if one of them does not accept Christ. The non-Orthodox Christian spouse would normally be encouraged, in the premarital counselling, to be open to learning about Orthodoxy and to considering becoming an Orthodox Christian. This must always be a free choice, however. In the meantime, he or she is usually asked to agree ahead of time that the children will be baptized as Orthodox Christians and raised in the Orthodox Faith, even if he or she does not join the Church.
For more on the question of so-called ‘mixed marriage’, there is an excellent resource published by the Greek Archdiocese of North America, written by Charles Joanides and entitled When You Intermarry: A Resource for Inter-Christian, Intercultural Couples, Parents and Families (2002).
7.2 Ongoing pastoral care
Generally the priest who conducted their wedding service will be the married couple’s confessor, or their spiritual father, though this is not necessarily the case. Regularly participating in the Sacrament of Confession is expected to be central to the spiritual life of every couple, regardless of which priest they go to.
When problems arise in a marriage, the priest will do what he can to give counselling. If the problems worsen beyond his ability to help, the priest will usually advise the couple to seek professional counselling, preferably by an Orthodox certified marriage counsellor.
7.3 Divorce
In the Orthodox Church, divorce is seen as the absolute last resort for a very troubled marriage. Originally, the only reason for which divorce was allowed was in the case of one of the partners committing adultery, according to the words of the Lord (Matt 5:32; 19:9). Over the centuries, other reasons became justifiable causes for divorce in various times and places, including desertion and mental illness (see Meyendorff 1975: ch. 12).
According to The Social Concept of the Russian Church, published by the Patriarchate of Moscow in the year 2000,
the Church sees it as her pastoral task to use all the means appropriate for her (such as exhortation, prayer, participation in the Sacraments), to safeguard the integrity of a marriage and to prevent divorce.
Unfortunately, sometimes spouses prove unable to preserve the gift of grace they received in the Sacrament of Matrimony and to keep the unity of the family because of their sinful imperfection. In her desire to save the sinners, the Church gives them an opportunity to reform and is ready to re-admit them to the Sacraments after they make repentance. (Russian Orthodox Church 2000)
So we see that divorced Orthodox Christians are not permanently barred from Holy Communion. This is in contrast to the Roman Catholic Church, in which the couple must get an annulment of the marriage. There is no such thing an annulment of a consummated marriage in the Orthodox Church, which upholds that it was always an authentic marriage even if it has ended in divorce. Rather, in Orthodoxy, human weaknesses, societal pressures, and the work of the Devil are taken into account, so that in particular cases divorce is allowed, but only as a last resort, after all reasonable attempts at saving the marriage have failed.
7.4 Remarriage
Remarriage is also possible in the Orthodox Church. There is a specific wedding service for remarriage following divorce, which has a distinctly penitential tone. Usually if only one of the two to be married is divorced, the full wedding service is used. According to the canons, a third marriage is possible, but this is very much discouraged; a fourth marriage is allowed rarely, as a great exception.