It was mandatory in the past, and then became a tradition.

Today, the Christian religion offers to derive spiritual benefits from a married union. For newlyweds, the marital union created in the temple should become support and a way to remain faithful to their spouse and spiritual ideals.

What is a church marriage?

Church marriage - in Christian tradition union of a man and a woman for the purpose of forming a family.

The priest blesses the couple to live together if there are no religious obstacles to this. The ceremony takes place in churches and is called a wedding.

The union blessed in the temple is not recognized as a sacrament by all Christian denominations. For Catholics and Orthodox Christians this is a sacrament, but for Protestants it is not.

In some states, the church union is recognized as legal. This principle applies in Portugal and applies to Catholics.

Goals of Spiritual Marriage

The Bible calls for living in love and respect. Spouses must provide each other with mutual assistance in adhering to the Christian faith.

They are obliged to provide mutual free assistance in everyday affairs. Husband and wife must be faithful and not have.

Family members must maintain the following qualities:

• patience;
• condescension;
• sacrifice;
• generosity;
• loyalty.

A husband and wife must have sexual relations that are acceptable from the point of view of the church.

It is a godly life together and serving God that are the main goals of marriage. Producing offspring in family relationships is one of the purposes of a Christian family, but not the main one.

One of the reasons for refusal may be guilt in divorce. This could have been an affair, after which the other spouse exercised the right to break off the relationship.

What is considered treason in the Orthodox world?

Church Union in modern form designed to help make right choice and be an exemplary husband or wife.

The doctrine of marriage remains perhaps the least theologically developed in Orthodoxy in comparison with other sacraments. In the West it has been studied in much more detail, but the approach of Western Christians to the problem of marriage differs so much from the Eastern approach that it is difficult to even talk about a unified Christian theology on this subject. In addition, the different teachings about the sacrament in general in the East and West, the lack of clear terminology and initial definitions, the mixing together of theological, ascetic, psychological, everyday and legal problems confuse the issue so much that the discussion of the topic of marriage is conducted rather on an existential level, and often before theology and doesn't rise. It is therefore necessary to start with some general explanations and definitions.

Realizing that the whole world of God, the creation of man, his life, death and resurrection remain a mystery and are a sacrament in the sense that they exist only thanks to the grace of God, we still usually mean that a sacrament in the usual theological sense is a special action of the grace of the Holy One. Spirit in the New Testament Church, which gives birth in new life, connects with God, fills with new grace-filled power, gives a new quality of life, directs it towards a saving goal. Marriage in itself largely satisfies the described understanding of the sacrament and already in paradise appeared as a gift of God to Adam. In this fallen world, marriage is empirically perceived by every unspoiled person as also a gracious gift of love and completeness. And in the Old Testament, marriage was often perceived this way. Moreover, marriage is not something new, but continues to be a normal form of human life, so at the beginning of the Christian era there was no special ceremony or sacramental act to celebrate marriage. If a pagan, in order to become a Christian and a member of the Church, had to be baptized and anointed, in order to become a clergyman - to be ordained, then, according to the words of the Hieromartyr Ignatius of Antioch, “those who wish to marry and be married must enter into marriage with the consent of the bishop, so that the marriage was about the Lord, and not according to the flesh." Otherwise, everything was as usual - they entered into a marriage contract, as was customary in the Roman Empire, and celebrated the wedding in accordance with local tradition. The author of the letter to Diognetus (about half of the second century) writes: “Christians do not differ from other people either in country, or in language, or in everyday customs... They marry, like everyone else, they obey the established laws, but with their lives they surpass the laws themselves.” At the beginning, there were no clear formulations of dogmas, canonized rites, and there was no clear teaching about how a Christian marriage differs from a non-Christian one. Obviously, a virtuous life, Christian love, but the ontological teaching of the Apostle Paul on Christian marriage could not be immediately realized in all its brilliant depth. In the third century, Tertullian testifies that in the Church marriages were celebrated during the Eucharist with great solemnity. Subsequently, in the East, the theological teaching on marriage was not sufficiently developed, and in the West, the theology of marriage never overcame its dependence on the Roman heritage and the discord of early authors.

The Orthodox teaching on marriage has as its first source the narrative of the Holy Scriptures related to the “Yahwist tradition” (Gen. 2: 7-25). Unlike all other days of creation, the Lord God, having created man, did not at first express satisfaction with what he had created, but said: “It is not good for man to be alone” and created him a wife. Only after this did the person become so perfect that he received God’s blessing. This is evidenced by the text belonging to the so-called “priestly tradition” (Gen. 1: 27-31), which dates back more than 400 years compared to (Gen. 2). Having one nature, spiritualized by God, man and woman in paradise “are no longer two, but one flesh” (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:6; Mark 10:8). But if marriage united husband and wife only in the flesh, then this would mean that their souls remained apart, separated, which is unthinkable for the immortal life in paradise of those who are “no longer two.” Thus, marriage was given by God to man in heaven as the only and perfect form of his existence.

In marriage, in the structure of the first human family, the god-like hypostatic properties of the persons composing it are revealed: the unborn, but giving birth father (Adam), the wife created from his rib, who is also the mother bearing the fetus (Eve), and the child being born (compare the doctrine of St. The Trinity is the unborn but begetting God the Father, the Holy Spirit emanating from God the Father, who warms the Father’s creation, and the begotten God the Son).

“God is love” (1 John 4:16), and in the mystery of God’s existence, love is known in the unity of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity; similarly, marriage is a unity in the love of that life that is given to man, created by God in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:27) from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7).

The three persons of the Holy Trinity have one divine essence, but do not absorb each other; three human personalities (including the child), becoming interpenetrated and united in marriage, do not disappear and do not absorb one another.

However, the god-like but created nature of man is characterized by sexual dualism, which is completely alien to the prototype - the Holy Trinity. The human race appears to be a multitude of different-sex individuals. While coloring this or that personality, the properties of gender are nevertheless not personal properties; they cannot divide the unified nature of a person into two natural “subgroups”. If this were so, then Christ, having become incarnate, could heal only the male nature, and not the united human nature. The fact that the nature of the male and female halves of the human race is the same is also evident from the fact that the sex of a child is determined by the male reproductive cell, and a woman bears both male and female children equally. Sexual dualism, being thus a splitting of a single human nature into two halves, predetermines a person’s desire for marriage as a means of achieving completeness, beauty, harmony and God-likeness in unity. As unity is achieved, sexual differentiation gradually exhausts itself, and in marriage, God-like hypostatic properties are actualized, the inherent desire of created human nature for development, improvement, and perfect likeness to God is realized.

God's plan for a heavenly marriage is obscured and even largely lost in the fall of Adam and Eve with their expulsion from paradise and the deprivation of their immortality. Now the death of one spouse breaks the unified organism of the family, because... Death breaks the unity of the soul and body of the human person. In addition, love becomes scarce in a fallen person, dark, sinful passions defile marriage with fornication, power lusts, and make it a means of achieving earthly goals. Along with sin, suffering comes into the life of spouses, along with carnal lust and all kinds of passions - infidelity, polygamy. Having lost immortality, having become enslaved to sin, a person cannot maintain a living faith in an afterlife, eternal life. The idea of ​​the uniqueness of marriage, of the eternal unity of spouses is replaced by a more understandable and relatable image of earthly happiness, a prosperous family, married life that satisfies the natural needs of human nature. At the same time, the lustful passion that accompanies fallen human nature becomes an instrument of torment, and the very thought of a carnal union with a representative of a different sex often becomes a hateful temptation for those who seek purity and dispassion. In the context of intense eschatological expectation, especially characteristic of the first Christians, marriage was often perceived as some kind of inevitable, forced concession to human frailty, justified only by the fact that the human race should still continue.

The Incarnation of Christ opens up for humanity the possibility of returning to God, the path to grace-filled sonship with God. In the Church of Christ, human life acquires a new quality, in particular, marriage is sanctified anew. The greatest dignity of marriage is evidenced by the Savior’s first miracle at a marriage in Canna of Galilee (John 2:1-11), which has the meaning of blessing. Christ proclaims the doctrine of the immortal soul of man, of the future resurrection, that with new strength poses a fundamental question for the dogmatic doctrine of marriage: does marriage continue after death? Since man in heaven was created immortal, marriage initially implies the eternal unity of husband and wife. In accordance with this idea, the penultimate prayer of the wedding rite contains the request: “receive their crowns in Thy Kingdom, undefiled, undefiled, and unblasphemed forever and ever.” Christ's gospel, renewing man's heavenly calling and raising him to a new, even greater height, nowhere teaches that marriage exists only in this earthly life and is annulled after death. Christ’s answer to the Sadducees: “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30), states only that marriage, in the understanding of the Sadducees with the goal of producing offspring, will no longer exist after the resurrection . However, the doctrine of the eternity of marriage, with all its limitations, is especially difficult for fallen humanity to accept. If a marriage is forever, then this means that it must be the only one. Evangelists Matthew (5:32; 19:3-12), Mark (10:5-12) and Luke (16:18) tell about the conversation of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Pharisees and disciples about the prohibition of divorce, except in the case when initiated by an innocent party due to adultery committed by the other party. In this case, divorce becomes a statement that the marriage no longer exists, but to marry a divorced woman means to commit adultery. Christ's word: “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6), combined with the establishment of eternal marriage in paradise and with the belief in the immortality of the souls of mortal people, suggests that marriage, according to God’s plan, does not end with death, although in the resurrection and transfiguration he will become different (Matt. 22:23-30). New dignity is imparted to marriage in its churching, which occurs with the entry of spouses into the Church, where a new righteous life begins, leading them after death to the Kingdom of Heaven, where their marriage regains the holiness and eternity lost in the Fall. This determines the essence of the Christian sacrament of marriage: being concluded in the Church, it receives the gift of grace-filled love and the grace-filled opportunity to be holy and eternal in the Kingdom of God.

The wedding feast, the marriage of the Lamb, the Bridegroom of the Church are images often used in the New Testament to depict the relationship of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who followed Him. Nowhere has the essence of marriage, marital love and family relationships been understood so highly and deeply as in the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, which formulates the foundations of Christian theology of marriage. Affirming the gracious nature of the love of Christian spouses, the Apostle Paul says: “for we are members of His body (Christ), of His flesh and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). The dignity of a Christian marriage—a small church—follows from its rootedness in the Church of Christ. Moreover, every Christian man and woman, being members of the Church, are graciously encouraged by Christ, because... The Church is the Bride of Christ, and thus marriage is an image of salvation in Christ for every person. Man's ability to unite with Christ to achieve completeness, harmony, perfection and salvation was foreseen and foreshadowed by God back in paradise, when Adam's life was arranged in the form of marriage. If human marriage after the Fall ceased to achieve the fullness of its purpose in earthly life and can be “healed” as they enter the Church, then if the spouses achieve the Kingdom of God, their marriage is transformed into a mysterious unity in love with Christ and with each other. In Christ and in the Church, in the Kingdom of God, what is divided is united, what is incomplete is filled, the unity of spouses becomes their complete interpenetration, which does not deprive them of their personal existence.

The words of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, likening marriage to the union of Christ and the Church: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her with the washing of water through the word; to present it to Himself as a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it might be holy and without blemish. This is how husbands should love their wives as their own bodies: he who loves his wife loves himself... this mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church” (Eph. 5:25-28,32) also give marriage a Eucharistic dimension, because conjugal love, like the love of Christ that creates the Church, must have a cross, sacrificial nature, a desire to redeem, sanctify and purify each other, creating a mysterious and deepest unity in holiness. This doctrine of marriage implies absolute monogamy, without which God-like perfection would be impossible, just as the likening of husband and wife to Christ and the Church is impossible. The statement about the eternity of Christian marriage also follows from its conformity to the mystery of Christ and the Church.

According to St. Ephraim the Syrian and St. John Chrysostom, the relationship between Christ and the Church is typified by the marriage of Adam and Eve. The words of the book of Genesis “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife; and the [two] will be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) prefigure Christ’s voluntary abandonment of His heavenly Father and His Mother on earth in order to come to His bride-Church, give Himself for her to suffer on the cross and death, and make her His body .

Even the Savior’s closest disciples could not immediately accept this lofty teaching, although later it becomes an apostolic rule for those who decided to serve the Lord in the priesthood. The uniqueness and purity of marriage is a necessary condition for ordination and priesthood (1 Tim. 3:2,12; Tit. 1:6). However, many Christians in the first century, as in subsequent times, could not embrace the ideal of Christian marriage, and the Apostle Paul allows widowed people to marry so as not to be inflamed by the passion of fornication (1 Cor. 7:8-9). The Christian norm is greatly reduced here. A second marriage has always been considered a concession to weakness requiring repentance, but in the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament it is still not equated with ordinary adultery, although it is a violation of fidelity to the deceased spouse. It is obvious that the second marriage destroys God’s plan for a heavenly marriage, restored by Christ: the first marriage after the death of one of the spouses is broken by the survivor, the second marriage requires repentance and churching - secondly married spouses, according to church rule, are subject to penance and are excommunicated from participating in the Eucharist for one year for purification in the feat of Christian life, which alone can restore hope in the Kingdom of God. The pastoral economy of the Apostle Paul on the issue of the possibility of a second marriage correlates with the law in force at that time and the pre-Christian understanding of marriage only in its earthly, carnal dimension, which emphasizes a compromise with the existing level of consciousness of recent pagans who had not yet had time to comprehend the height of the Gospel teaching. The apostle exhorts his flock: “A wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; if her husband dies, she is free to marry whomever she wants, only in the Lord. But she will be happier if she remains like this, according to my advice; But I think that I also have the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 7:39-40).

It would seem that, having been established by God in paradise and restored by the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament to a superior dignity, marriage does not require any justification or approval. However, as if in contrast to what was said, the Apostle Paul says: “... it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But to avoid fornication, each one have his own wife, and each one have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:1-2). The contradiction that appears at first glance is actually imaginary, because simply expresses a dual attitude towards marriage, which persists forever even in the works of the holy fathers, and this duality sometimes goes to the extreme. On the one hand, the biblical narrative describes God’s plan for man in paradise and the heavenly structure of his life in marriage before the fall of Adam and Eve. Christ comes to raise up the fallen Adam, resurrect him, restore him to immortality and give him a dignity higher than he had from the beginning. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul glimpses the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of Christ and the Church, typified by God’s plan for human marriage. On the other hand, in his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul, driven by pastoral concern for the moral life of newly converted Christians, turns to the present reality, which in married life still does not reach the Christian ideal. Also, always in history, the Church, while proclaiming the ideal gospel norm, at the same time remained grounded in reality and, carrying out the work of church house-building, spoke to people in a language they could understand, discussed problems that worried them, and used their concepts and images. And the apostles themselves, as well as subsequent teachers of the Church, although abundantly blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, were still people of their time, had their joys and sorrows, united their human aspirations, hopes, and their understanding of the circumstances they were experiencing with divine truth.

The Apostle Paul, and after him the holy fathers of the Church, developing the Christian theology of marriage, cannot escape the questions that the life of emerging church communities, and then of slowly churching nations, poses to them. Is it necessary to get married in view of the rapidly approaching (as it seemed to the first Christians) second coming of the Lord? What to do with the numerous widows who are incapable of maintaining a chaste life? Should you give your daughters in marriage if bloody persecutions arise every now and then, and there are very few worthy Christian marriages? How to treat marriage if Roman marriage legislation is very far from Christianity, if widespread custom considers a woman as a lower-class creature? And many other problems require urgent advice, understandable to those asking and feasible to implement in life. Thus, even in the Holy Scriptures, two points of view on marriage are defined: one is the theological understanding of God’s plan for man, relating to Christian anthropology, the other is church house-building, the pastoral care of the new children of the Church, which requires answers to pressing questions of contemporary life, taking into account spiritual and other opportunities for the flock.

If morality has its source in faith in God, and the Church is a school of morality, then Christian marriage and family become the institution in earthly human life where love and Christian moral standards are updated first. In a fallen world, where everything is distorted by sinful passions and crime, where human nature itself is deeply damaged, marriage and family still remain the citadel where love is kept and acts, where life is passed on from generation to generation, where conscience is nurtured, faith is nurtured. Everything unclean, nasty, passionate in a Christian marriage is caught and consumed by the fire of achievement and self-sacrifice. If the main content and goal of a divinely ordained marriage in general is to achieve unity, completeness, harmony in mutual love, then in a Christian marriage all of the above is carried out in a joint striving in love for Christ, in love in Christ for each other, in giving birth to God and raising new ones for Him. children of the Church, in common service to their neighbors. True marital love is the opposite of filth, uncleanness, and sin. Christian marriage affirms chastity; in the feat of family life, marriage becomes a school of love, abstinence, faith and humility. Falling in love goes away, but love in a Christian family grows endlessly, purifying itself from passion and soulfulness, acquiring grace-filled spirituality. “If you have not yet been united in the flesh, do not be afraid of doing so; You are pure even after marriage,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, pointing out the chastity and purity of Christian marriage. In fact, such a Christian marriage turns out to be a real center of joy, happiness, unbreakable love and high spirituality.

Having created Adam and Eve in paradise, the Lord told them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over... every living thing” (Gen. 1:27-28). Humanity is given the creative ability to collaborate with God, inextricably linked with the birth of offspring. It is by filling and populating the earth that the human race can realize God’s command to possess it. The birth of offspring is not the main and only purpose of marriage, but it is closely and naturally connected with it. Marriage will be chaste only when a person preserves God’s plan for him intact. According to this plan, the carnal unity of the spouses is naturally connected with the feat of giving birth to a child. By this feat, which is unthinkable without selfless love, without the self-sacrifice of parents, the marriage bonds of spouses are cleansed of passions and lusts. Therefore, the Church, through the mouth of St. Basil the Great, a number of local fathers and the fifth and sixth Ecumenical Council (canon 91), declares tricks to prevent the birth of children during the carnal union of spouses to be a mortal sin.

The Orthodox teaching on marriage separates the so-called natural marriage after the Fall and the sacrament of marriage, understood as returning to marriage its grace-filled nature, eternity, giving it an even higher dignity than it had in paradise, in likeness to the unity of Christ and the Church. This blessing of marriage is accomplished by the Church through Her blessing and, mainly, through the rooting of marriage, new family in church life. The rite of the sacrament of marriage develops gradually, and over time, the requirement that marriage be rooted in the Eucharistic life of the Church is replaced in the minds of many by the celebration of the rite of marriage, separated from the Eucharist and acquired during the reign of Emperor Leo the Wise the additional meaning of state legalization of marriage. The wedding ceremony, performed in isolation from the requirement of the Eucharistic church life of the newlyweds, acquires the character of a rite that reduces the Orthodox teaching on the sacrament.

In the West, marriage, defined since the times of ancient Rome as a contract between the spouses, itself began to be interpreted by Christians as a sacrament that attracts grace. In this case, the celebrants of the sacrament are those entering into marriage, and marriage acquires an ecclesiastical character due to the fact that the marriage contract is concluded before the face of God. This gives Catholic marriage the property of indissolubility - a promise made before God cannot be canceled. But the contract remains valid only as long as both parties who entered into it are alive. With the death of one of the parties, the contract becomes invalid. Hence, Catholics have a categorical ban on divorce, but have a completely friendly attitude towards second marriage. In the understanding of Catholics, marriage is an earthly state and has no continuation after the resurrection. True, at the Second Vatican Council the doctrine of marriage as a contract is declaratively replaced by the idea of ​​a marital union. However, "Codex luris Canonic!" states: “a valid marriage contract cannot take place between the baptized, which would not thereby be a sacrament.” This means that the understanding of the sacrament of marriage as a contract still remains with all the consequences that flow from it. Before the Council of Trent, “secret marriages” were widespread and recognized, which were concluded by the spouses themselves without a church community and without a priest. Trent, in the decree of Tametsi, put an end to this custom, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church insists: “In the Latin Church it is usually believed that the spouses themselves, as ministers of the grace of Christ, mutually grant each other the sacrament of Marriage, expressing their consent before the Church.”

Notes
1. Svshm. Ignatius of Antioch “Epistle to Polycarp of Smyrna,” 5 // Letters of the Apostolic Men. M., Ed. Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2003. p.310.
2. Ibid.
3. Rules of the Orthodox Church with interpretations by Nicodemus, Bishop of Dalmatia and History. St. Petersburg 1911. T.I, Rule 17. p.78.
4. Holy Gregory the Theologian. “Homily 40 for Holy Baptism” // Works like the saints of our father Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople. Publishing house P.P. Soikina. T. 1. p. 554.
5. Rules of the Orthodox Church with interpretations by Nicodemus, Bishop of Dalmatia and History. T.I, Rule 91 of the VI Ecumenical Council. St. Petersburg, 1911. p.583.
6. Codex luris Canonici. Vatican City, 1983.
7. Catechism of the Catholic Church. M.: Rudomino, 1996.

Sacrament of marriage

“Marriage is a sacrament in which, with the bride and groom freely promising mutual marital fidelity before the priest and the Church, their marital union is blessed, in the image of the spiritual union of Christ with the Church, and they ask for the grace of pure unanimity for the blessed birth and Christian upbringing of children.”

(Orthodox Catechism)

“Marriage is a union of a man and a woman, an agreement for life, communion in Divine and human right” (The Helmsman, Chapter 48).

The All-Good God created man from the dust of the earth and, endowing him with the eternal breath of life, made him ruler over the earthly creation. According to His all-good plan, the Lord created his wife, Eve, from Adam’s rib, accompanying this with the secret words: “It is not good for man to be alone; Let us make him a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18). And they remained in Eden until the Fall, when, having violated the commandment, seduced by the evil tempter, they were expelled from paradise. By the good judgment of the Creator, Eve became Adam’s companion on the difficult earthly path, and through her painful childbearing, the foremother of the human race. The first human couple, having received from God the promise of the Redeemer of mankind and the Destroyer of the head of the enemy (Gen. 3:15), was also the first keeper of the saving tradition, which then, in the descendants of Seth, passed on as a life-giving mysterious stream from generation to generation, indicating the expected coming Savior. It was the goal of God’s first covenant with people and, being foreshadowed in events and prophecies, was realized in the Incarnation of the Word Pre-Eternally Begotten by the Father from the Holy Spirit and the Most Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary, the New Eve, Who truly is “our generation’s proclamation” (Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos).

Relationships between spouses in Christian Marriage

Marriage is enlightenment and, at the same time, a mystery. In it, a transformation of a person occurs, an expansion of his personality. A person gains new vision, a new sense of life, and is born into the world in a new fullness. Only in Marriage is it possible to fully know a person, to see another person. In Marriage, a person is immersed in life, entering it through another person. This knowledge and life gives that feeling of completeness and satisfaction that makes us richer and wiser.

This completeness deepens even more with the emergence of a third, their child, from two merged together. A perfect married couple will give birth to a perfect child, it will continue to develop according to the laws of perfection; but if there is an unconquered discord and contradiction between the parents, then the child will be the product of this contradiction and will continue it.

Through the sacrament of Marriage, grace is also granted for raising children, which Christian spouses only contribute to, as the Apostle Paul says: “Not I, however, but the grace of God, which is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).

Guardian Angels, given to infants from Holy Baptism, secretly but tangibly assist parents in raising children, averting various dangers from them.

If in Marriage only an external union took place, and not a victory of each of the two over his own selfishness and pride, then this will affect the child and will entail his inevitable alienation from his parents - a split in the home Church.

But it is also impossible to forcibly restrain, instill, force to be the way the father and mother want it, the one who, having received a body from them, received from God the main thing - the one and only personality with his own path in life. Therefore, for raising children, the most important thing is that they see their parents living a true spiritual life and shining with love.

Human individualism and selfishness create special difficulties in Marriage. They can only be overcome through the efforts of both spouses. Both must build Marriage every day, fighting the vain daily passions that undermine its spiritual foundation - love. The festive joy of the first day should last a lifetime; every day should be a holiday, every day a husband and wife should be new to each other. The only way for this is to deepen everyone’s spiritual life, work on oneself, and walk with God. The worst thing in Marriage is the loss of love, and sometimes it disappears because of trifles, so all thoughts and efforts must be directed to preserving love and spirituality in the family - everything else will come by itself. This work must begin from the very first days life together. It would seem that the simplest, but also the most difficult thing is the determination to take everyone’s place in Marriage: for the wife to humbly take second place, for the husband to take on the burden and responsibility of being the head. If you have this determination and desire, God will always help you on this difficult, martyr, but also blissful path. It is not for nothing that while walking around the lectern they sing “Holy Martyrs...”.

It is said about a woman - “a weak vessel.” This “weakness” consists mainly in the woman’s subjection to the natural elements within herself and outside of her. As a result, weak self-control, irresponsibility, passion, short-sightedness in judgments, words, and actions. Almost no woman is free from this; she is often a slave to her passions, her likes and dislikes, her desires.

Only in Christ does a woman become equal to a man, subordinate her temperament to higher principles, and acquire prudence, patience, the ability to reason, and wisdom. Only then is her friendship with her husband possible.

However, neither a man, nor especially a woman, has absolute power over each other in Marriage. Violence against the will of another, even in the name of love, kills love itself. It follows from this that it is not always necessary to humbly submit to such violence, since it poses a danger to those most dear to us. Most unhappy marriages are precisely because each party considers itself the owner of the one it loves. Almost all family difficulties and discords come from here. The greatest wisdom of Christian Marriage is to give complete freedom to the one you love, for our earthly Marriage is a similarity to the heavenly marriage - of Christ and the Church - and there is complete freedom. The secret of happiness of Christian spouses lies in the joint fulfillment of the will of God, uniting their souls with each other and with Christ. The basis of this happiness is the desire for a higher, common object of love for them, which attracts everything to itself (John 12:32). Then all family life will be directed towards Him, and the union of those combined will be strengthened. And without love for the Savior, no connection is strong, for neither in mutual attraction, nor in common tastes, nor in common earthly interests, not only does a true and lasting connection lie, but, on the contrary, often all these values ​​suddenly begin to serve separation.

The Christian marriage union has the deepest spiritual foundation, which is not possessed either by physical communication, for the body is subject to illness and aging, or by the life of feelings, changeable by nature, or by community in the field of common worldly interests and activities, “for the image of this world passes away” (1 Cor. 7:31). Christian life path married couple can be likened to the rotation of the Earth with its constant satellite the Moon around the Sun. Christ is the Sun of righteousness, warming His children and shining for them in the darkness.

“Glorious is the yoke of two believers,” says Tertullian, “who have the same hope, who live according to the same rules, who serve the One Lord. They pray together, fast together, mutually teach and exhort each other. Together they are in the Church, together at the Lord's Supper, together in sorrows and persecutions, in repentance and joy. They are pleasing to Christ, and He sends down His peace to them. And where there are two in His name, there is no place for any evil.”

Establishment of the Sacrament of Marriage and the history of the ritual

The marriage union of a man and a woman was established by the Creator Himself in paradise after the creation of the first people, whom the Lord created male and female and blessed with the words: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it...” (Genesis 1:28). The Old Testament repeatedly expresses the view of Marriage as a matter blessed by God Himself.

Upon His coming to earth, the Lord Jesus Christ not only confirmed the inviolability of Marriage, noted in the Law (Lev. 20:10), but also elevated it to the level of a sacrament: “And the Pharisees came to Him, and, tempting Him, said to Him: in every way Is it permissible for a man to divorce his wife? He answered and said to them, Have you not read that He who created in the beginning made them male and female? And he said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one flesh.” Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:3-6).

Having gone out into the world to His open service to the human race, He appeared with His Mother and disciples at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee and performed the first miracle there, turning water into wine, and with His presence sanctified this and all marriage unions concluded by the faithful and those who love God and each other's spouses.

“God himself unites those sanctified by the sacrament and is present in their midst,” says Clement of Alexandria about the holiness of Marriage. “It is from You that a wife is matched to a husband,” says the prayer of the betrothal ceremony; “You, Lord, send down Your hand and unite.” The Lord sanctifies the combination of spouses in the sacrament of Marriage and preserves the incorruptible union of their souls and bodies in mutual love in the image of Christ and the Church.

Holy Christian virginity and the holy sacrament of Marriage are the two paths indicated to the faithful in the Word of God (Matthew 19:11-12; 1 Cor. 7:7,10). The Church has always blessed both of these paths and, as is known, condemned those who condemned both. Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer testified to these two paths of pious life already in the 1st century in his letter to Saint Polycarp of Smyrna:

“Inspire my sisters to love the Lord and be content with their spouses in the flesh and in the spirit; Likewise, advise my brothers, that in the name of Jesus Christ they should love their spouses, as the Lord loves the Church. And whoever can abide in purity in honor of the Lord’s flesh, let him abide, but without vanity.” The Apostle Paul calls not to listen to false teachers who “prohibit marriage” who will appear in the last times. Until the end of time, marriages of Orthodox Christians will be celebrated for the glory of God and for the benefit of humanity, and blessed family life will still flourish, for the blessing that is asked for the entire Church is given to the small Church - the Christian family. “God of strength! turn, look down from heaven, and behold, and visit these grapes; guard what Your right hand has planted, and the branches that You have strengthened for Yourself” (Ps. 79:15-16).”

The marriage ceremony has its own ancient history. Even in the patriarchal period, Marriage was considered a special institution, but little is known about the marriage rituals of that time. From the story of Isaac's marriage to Rebekah, we know that he offered gifts to his bride, that Eleazar consulted with Rebekah's father regarding her marriage, and then a wedding feast was held. IN later times In the history of Israel, marriage ceremonies have undergone significant development. Adhering to patriarchal custom, the groom, in the presence of strangers, had to first of all offer the bride a gift, usually consisting of silver coins. Then they began to conclude a marriage contract, which determined the mutual obligations of the future husband and wife. At the end of these preliminary acts, a solemn blessing of the newlyweds followed. For this purpose, a special tent was set up in the open air: the groom came here, accompanied by several men, whom the Evangelist Luke calls “the sons of the bride,” and the Evangelist John - “friends of the groom.” The bride appeared accompanied by women. Here they were greeted with the greeting: “Blessed be everyone who comes here!” Then the bride was led three times around the groom and placed on his right side. The women covered the bride with a thick veil. Then everyone present turned to the east; the groom took the bride by the hands and they received ritual good wishes from the guests. The rabbi approached, covered the bride with a sacred veil, took a cup of wine in his hand and pronounced the formula for the marriage blessing. The bride and groom drank from this cup. After this the groom took Golden ring and he himself put it on the bride’s index finger, saying at the same time: “Remember that you were married to me according to the law of Moses and the Israelites.” Next, the marriage contract was read in the presence of witnesses and a rabbi, who, holding another cup of wine in his hands, pronounced seven blessings. The newlyweds drank wine from this cup again. At the same time, the groom broke the first cup, which he had previously held in his hand, against the wall if the bride was a maiden, or against the ground if she was a widow. This ritual was supposed to remind of the destruction of Jerusalem. After this, the tent in which the marriage ceremony took place was removed and the wedding feast - the wedding - began. The feast lasted seven days in memory of the fact that Laban once forced Jacob to work in his house for seven years for Leah and seven years for Rachel. During this seven-day period, the groom had to hand over the dowry to the bride and thus fulfill the marriage contract.

When comparing the Jewish marriage rite with the Christian one, a number of similar points are striking, but the main thing is that in the Christian rite of Marriage there are constantly references to the Old Testament righteous men and prophets: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah. Apparently, the compiler of the Christian rite had before him the image of the Old Testament Marriage. Another influence to which the Christian marriage ceremony was subjected in the process of formation has its source in the Greco-Roman tradition.

In Christianity, Marriage has been blessed since apostolic times. Church writer of the 3rd century. Tertullian says: “How to depict the happiness of Marriage, approved by the Church, sanctified by her prayers, blessed by God!”

The marriage ceremony in ancient times was preceded by betrothal, which was a civil act and was performed in accordance with local customs and regulations, as far as, of course, this was possible for Christians. The betrothal took place solemnly in the presence of many witnesses who sealed the marriage contract. The latter was an official document that defined the property and legal relationships of the spouses. The betrothal was accompanied by the ritual of joining the hands of the bride and groom; in addition, the groom gave the bride a ring, which was made of iron, silver or gold - depending on the wealth of the groom. Clement, Bishop of Alexandria, in the second chapter of his “Pedagogue” says: “A man should give a woman a gold ring, not for her external adornment, but in order to put a seal on the household, which from then on becomes at her disposal and is entrusted to her care.” .

The expression “put a seal” is explained by the fact that in those days a ring (ring), or rather a stone set into it with a carved emblem, simultaneously served as a seal that sealed property of this person and business papers were sealed. Christians carved seals on their rings with images of fish, anchors, birds and other Christian symbols. The wedding ring was usually worn on the fourth (ring) finger of the left hand. This has a basis in the anatomy of the human body: one of the thinnest nerves of this finger is in direct contact with the heart, at least at the level of ideas of that time.

By the X-XI centuries. betrothal loses its civil significance, and this ritual is performed in the temple, accompanying it with appropriate prayers. But for a long time, betrothal was performed separately from the wedding and was combined with the succession of Matins. The rite of betrothal received final uniformity only in the 17th century.

The rite of marriage itself - the wedding in ancient times - was performed through prayer, blessing and laying on of hands by the bishop in the church during the liturgy. Evidence that marriage was introduced in ancient times into the rite of the liturgy is the presence of a number of coinciding components in both modern rites: the initial exclamation “Blessed is the Kingdom...”, the peaceful litany, the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel, the special litany, the exclamation “And grant Master of us...", the singing of "Our Father" and, finally, the communion of the cup. All these elements are obviously taken from the rite of the liturgy and are closest in structure to the rite of the liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

In the 4th century, wedding crowns came into use, placed on the heads of those getting married. In the West, they corresponded to marriage veils. At first these were wreaths of flowers, later they began to be made of metal, giving them the shape of a royal crown. They signify victory over the passions and remind us of the royal dignity of the first human couple - Adam and Eve - to whom the Lord gave possession of the entire earthly creation: “...and fill the earth, and rule it...” (Genesis 1:28) .

Despite the fact that already by the 13th century marriage was performed separately from the liturgy, these two sacraments were closely connected. Therefore, from ancient times to our time, the bride and groom who wish to be united in the sacrament of Marriage prepare themselves to receive grace by fasting and repentance, and on the wedding day they partake of the Holy Divine Mysteries together.

In some parishes of the southwestern dioceses, the betrothal is accompanied by an oath of fidelity, which the newlyweds give to each other. This rite is borrowed from the Western tradition and is not listed in the modern Orthodox Trebnik. However, given the deep rootedness of this custom in the minds of local parishioners, who consider it almost the most essential part of the marriage ceremony, caution should be exercised when excluding this oath from the ceremony. Moreover, it does not contain dogmatic contradictions with the Orthodox understanding of the sacrament of Marriage.

Place and time of the Sacrament of Marriage

In our time, a church marriage is deprived of civil legal force, so the wedding is performed, as a rule, on spouses who have previously registered their civil marriage in the registry office. The wedding takes place in the church in the presence of relatives and friends of the couple. There is no parental blessing for the wedding, provided that the newlyweds have reached marriageable age and are already in a civil marriage, this is not an obstacle to performing the sacrament. The ceremony can only be performed by a legally appointed priest who is not under canonical prohibition. It is not customary for the sacrament of Marriage to be performed by a clergyman who has taken monastic vows unless otherwise possible. , the priest can marry his son or daughter himself.

According to the canonical rules, it is not allowed to perform a wedding during all four fasts, during cheese week, Easter week, and during the period from the Nativity of Christ to Epiphany (Yuletide). According to pious custom, it is not customary to celebrate marriages on Saturday, as well as on the eve of the twelve, great and temple holidays, so that the pre-holiday evening does not pass in noisy fun and entertainment. In addition, in the Russian Orthodox Church, marriages are not celebrated on Tuesdays and Thursdays (on the eve of fast days - Wednesday and Friday), on the eve and on the days of the Beheading of John the Baptist (August 29) and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14). Exceptions to these rules can be made due to need only by the ruling bishop. The wedding is recommended to take place after the liturgy, during which the bride and groom receive Holy Communion.

Church-canonical obstacles to Marriage

The priest, before performing the wedding, should find out whether there is a church canonical obstacles to the conclusion of a church marriage between these persons. First of all, it should be noted that the Orthodox Church, although it considers civil marriage devoid of grace, actually recognizes it and does not at all consider it illegal fornication. However, the conditions for marriage established by civil law and church canons have significant differences, therefore not every civil marriage registered in the registry office can be consecrated in the sacrament of Marriage.

Thus, the fourth and fifth marriages allowed by civil law are not blessed by the Church. The Church does not allow marriage more than three times; it is prohibited for persons in close kinship to marry. The Church does not bless a marriage if one of the spouses (or both) declare themselves convinced atheists who came to church only at the insistence of one of the spouses or parents, if at least one of the spouses is not baptized and is not ready to be baptized before the wedding. All these circumstances are clarified when preparing documents for a wedding behind a church box, and, in the cases listed above, the church wedding is refused.

First of all, a marriage cannot be performed if one of the parties is actually married to another person. A civil marriage must be dissolved in the prescribed manner, and if the previous marriage was a church marriage, then the bishop’s permission to dissolve it and a blessing to enter into a new marriage is necessary.

An obstacle to marriage is also the blood relationship of the bride and groom, as well as spiritual kinship acquired through succession at baptism.

There are two types of kinship: consanguinity and “property”, i.e. kinship between relatives of two spouses. Consanguinity exists between persons who have a common ancestor: between parents and children, grandfather and granddaughter, between first and second cousins, uncles and nieces (first and second cousins), etc.

The property exists between persons who do not have a common sufficiently close ancestor, but become related through marriage. It is necessary to distinguish between the two-parent property, or two-blood, established through one marriage, and the three-parent, or three-blood property, which is established through the presence of two marriage unions. In a two-relative property there are relatives of the husband and relatives of the wife. In a tripartite property there are the relatives of the wife of one brother and the relatives of the wife of another brother, or the relatives of the first and second wives of one man.

In a two-parent property, when finding its degree, two cases must be taken into account: a) property between one of the spouses and blood relatives another, b) property between blood relatives of both spouses. In the first case, the relatives of one spouse are in relation to the other to the same extent as they would be if they were his own blood relatives, since the husband and wife constitute one flesh in marriage, namely: the father-in-law and mother-in-law are to son-in-law in the first degree, what's his name? own parents, only, of course, in the bigeneric property; brothers and sisters of the wife (Shaurya and sisters-in-law) - in the second degree, like siblings, and also, of course, in a two-parent property, etc. The methods for calculating the degrees of property in this case are the same as in homogeneous kinship. In the second case, when the degree of property between the blood relatives of both spouses is sought, it is necessary to determine: a) to what extent the husband’s relative is related to him and b) to what extent the wife’s relative, in respect of whom the degree is determined, is distant from her; then the number of degrees of both sides is added up, and the resulting sum will show to what degree the husband's relative and the wife's relative are separated from each other. For example, between a given person and his father-in-law there is one degree; between a given person and his sister-in-law - two degrees, between a husband's brother and his wife's sister - four degrees, etc.

In a three-gender property, which comes from the union of three clans or surnames through marriage, the degrees of the inherent relationships are calculated in the same way as in a two-gender property, that is, they again add up to the total sum of the number of degrees in which these persons are separated from the main ones persons through whom they are connected to each other in kinship, and this total sum determines the degree of their mutual kinship relationship.

In the case of consanguinity, church marriage is unconditionally prohibited up to the fourth degree of kinship inclusive; in the case of a two-parent relationship, up to the third degree; in a three-degree relationship, marriage is not permitted if the parties are in the first degree of such relationship.

Spiritual kinship exists between godfather and his godson and between the godmother and her goddaughter, as well as between the parents of the recipient from the font and the recipient of the same sex as the recipient (nepotism). Since, according to the canons, baptism requires one recipient of the same sex as the person being baptized, the second recipient is a tribute to tradition and, therefore, there are no canonical obstacles to concluding a Church Marriage between the recipients of the same baby. Strictly speaking, for the same reason, there is also no spiritual relationship between a godfather and his goddaughter and between a godmother and her godson. However, pious custom prohibits such marriages, therefore, in order to avoid temptation in this case, you should seek special instructions from the ruling bishop.

The bishop's permission is also required for the wedding of an Orthodox person with a person of another Christian faith (Catholic, Baptist). Of course, a marriage cannot be celebrated if at least one of the parties professes a non-Christian religion (Muslim, Judaism, Buddhism). However, a marriage concluded according to a heterodox rite, and even a non-Christian one, concluded before the spouses joined the Orthodox Church, can be considered valid at the request of the spouses, even if only one of the spouses has received Baptism. When both spouses, whose marriage was concluded according to a non-Christian rite, convert to Christianity, the sacrament of Marriage is not necessary, since the grace of Baptism sanctifies their marriage.

You cannot marry someone who has once bound himself to a monastic vow of virginity, as well as priests and deacons after their ordination.

As for the coming of age of the bride and groom, their mental and physical health, voluntary and free consent, then since a civil marriage cannot be pre-registered without fulfilling these conditions, the Church, if it has a Marriage Certificate, is exempt from clarifying these circumstances.

On the dissolution of a church marriage

The right to recognize a Church Marriage as non-existent and to allow entry into a new Church Marriage belongs only to the bishop. Based on the submitted Certificate of Divorce from the Civil Registry Office, the diocesan bishop withdraws the previous blessing and gives permission to enter into a new Church Marriage, unless, of course, there are canonical obstacles to this. The diocesan administration does not carry out any inquiry into the motives for the divorce.

Engagement follow-up

At the end of the liturgy, the bride and groom stand in the vestibule of the church facing the altar; groom on the right, bride on the left. The priest in full vestments leaves the altar through the royal doors, holding a cross and the Gospel in his hands. A candle is brought out in front of the priest. He places the cross and the Gospel on a lectern standing in the middle of the temple.

During the liturgy, the rings with which the newlyweds will be engaged are located on the right side of the holy throne close to each other: on the left - gold, on the right - silver. The deacon, following the priest, carries them out on a special tray. The priest, approaching the newlyweds with two lit candles, blesses them three times with a priestly blessing and hands them the candles.

Light is a sign of joy, fire gives warmth, therefore lit candles show the joy of meeting two loving people. At the same time, it is a symbol of their purity and chastity. They also remind us that a person’s life is not closed, not separated, it takes place in the society of people, and everything that happens to a person, light or dark, warm or cold, resonates in the souls of the people around him. If discord and division are overcome, if these two exude the light of love, then, leaving the temple, they will no longer be two, but one being.

“For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil. But the one who believes in righteousness comes to the light, so that his deeds may be revealed, because they were done in God” (John 3:20-21).

Candles are not given if both spouses enter into Marriage for the second (third) time, recalling the Gospel parable, which says that virgins (i.e., virgins) came out to meet the Groom with lighted lamps (Matt. 25:1). Candles must burn throughout the entire celebration of the Sacrament of Marriage, so they must be large enough.

The priest leads the bride and groom inside the temple where the betrothal will take place. The ritual begins with incense before the wedding couple and prayer in imitation of the pious Tobias), who set fire to the liver and heart of a fish in order to drive away with smoke and prayer a demon hostile to honest marriages (Tov. 8:2). After this, the Church’s prayers for the newlyweds begin.

Following the usual beginning: “Blessed is our God...” the Great Litany is pronounced, which contains petitions for the salvation of those getting married; about giving them children to continue the family line; about sending them perfect, peaceful love and help; about preserving them in unanimity and firm faith; about blessing them into an immaculate life: “For the Lord our God will grant them an honest marriage and an undefiled bed, let us pray to the Lord...”

Then two short prayers are read, in which praise is given to God, who unites the divided and established unions of love, and a blessing is asked for the newly brided. The blessed Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah is remembered as an example of virginity and purity and the fulfillment of God's promise in their offspring. The Bride is likened from time immemorial to the pure Virgin who was pre-betrothed - the Church of Christ.

The priest, first taking the golden ring, says three times:

“The servant of God (name) is engaged to the servant of God (name).” Each time he pronounces these words, he makes the sign of the cross over the groom’s head and puts a ring on the fourth (ring) finger of his right hand. Then he takes silver ring and says, marking the bride’s head with a cross, three times:

“The servant of God (name) becomes engaged to the servant of God (name),” and puts a ring on her also on the fourth finger of her right hand.

The golden ring symbolizes with its brilliance the sun, to the light of which the husband in marriage is likened; silver - a semblance of the moon, a lesser luminary, shining in reflected sunlight. The ring is a sign of the eternity and continuity of the marriage union, for the grace of the Holy Spirit is continuous and eternal.

Then, as a sign of giving themselves for life to each other, and to the Lord of both in an inseparable manner, as a sign of unanimity, consent and mutual assistance in the upcoming marriage, the bride and groom exchange rings three times with the participation of a friend of the groom or a priest. After the triple change of rings, the silver one remains with the groom, and the gold one with the bride, as a sign that a masculine spirit is transmitted to feminine weakness.

The priest says a prayer asking for blessing and affirmation for the betrothed. I am reminded of the miraculous sign of “water-bearing” given to the servant of the patriarch Abraham when he was sent to find a bride for Isaac; this honor was reserved only for that one and only virgin, Rebekah, who gave the messenger water to drink. The priest asks to bless the position of the rings with a heavenly blessing, in accordance with the power that Joseph received through the ring in Egypt, Daniel became famous in the country of Babylon, and the truth appeared to Tamar. I remember the parable of the Lord about the prodigal son, who repented and returned to his father’s house, “And the father said to his servants: bring best clothes and clothe him, and put a ring on his hand...” (Luke 15:22).

“And the right hand of Thy servant shall be blessed by Thy mighty word and by Thy mighty arm,” the prayer continues. Not by chance wedding ring placed on the finger of the right hand, for with this hand we take a vow of allegiance, make the sign of the cross, bless, greet, hold a tool and a sword in a righteous battle.

It is common for people to make mistakes, to stray from the true path, and without the help of God and His guidance these two cannot reach weak people to the goal - the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore the priest asks: “And let Your angel go before them all the days of their lives.”

The betrothal sequence ends with a short litany with the addition of a petition for the betrothed.

Note: 1) Rings can be made from one metal - gold, silver; and have decorations from precious stones. 2) The release specified in the Trebnik is not pronounced at the end of the betrothal ceremony, since the betrothal is followed by the wedding. 3) The priest should be especially careful when changing rings so as not to drop them on the floor, since the man’s finger is much thicker than the woman’s and therefore the bride’s ring is difficult to hold on the finger. Unfortunately, there is a superstition among people that a ring falling during an engagement means the breakup of a marriage or the death of one of the spouses. If such an incident occurs, and the priest notices concern among those present, he should parting words point out the absurdity of this sign, like all superstitions in general.

Wedding sequence

The bride and groom, holding lighted candles in their hands, depicting the spiritual light of the sacrament, solemnly enter the middle of the temple. They are preceded by a priest with a censer, indicating that on the path of life they must follow the commandments of the Lord, and their good deeds will ascend to God like incense. The choir greets them with the singing of Psalm 127, in which the prophet-psalmist David glorifies the marriage blessed by God; before each verse the choir sings: “Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee.”

The bride and groom stand on a cloth (white or pink) spread out on the floor in front of a lectern on which the Cross, Gospel and crowns lie. After this, according to the Trebnik, a sermon is supposed to be delivered. However, in order not to break the ritual sequence, it can be said before the betrothal or at the end of the wedding, in addition, the meaning of the main points of the sacrament being performed can be briefly explained.

Next, the bride and groom are invited, in front of the entire Church, to once again confirm their free and relaxed desire to get married and the absence in the past of each of them of a promise to a third party to marry him. It is best to say these questions in Russian or the native language of those getting married, for example, in this form:

Answer: “I have, honest father.”

“Are you bound by a promise to another bride?”

Answer: “No, not connected.”

Then, turning to the bride, the priest asks:

“Do you have a sincere and spontaneous desire and firm intention to be the wife of this (name of the groom) whom you see in front of you?”

Answer: “I have, honest father.”

“Aren’t you bound by a promise to another groom?”

Answer: “No, not connected.”

These questions relate not only to the formal promise to marry some third party, but mainly imply: whether each of the parties to be married has entered into an illegal relationship or dependence that in one way or another obliges him in relation to this person.

So, the bride and groom confirmed before God and the Church the voluntariness and inviolability of their intention to enter into marriage. This expression of will in a non-Christian marriage is a decisive principle. In a Christian marriage, it is the main condition for a natural (according to the flesh) Marriage, a condition after which it must be considered concluded. For this reason, when non-Christians convert to Orthodoxy, their marriages are recognized as valid (provided that such a marriage does not contradict Christian law, in other words, polygamy, polyandry and marriages between close relatives are rejected).

Now only after the conclusion of this natural marriage, the mysterious consecration of the marriage by Divine grace begins - the rite of wedding. The wedding begins with the liturgical exclamation: “Blessed is the Kingdom...”, which proclaims the participation of the couple in the Kingdom of God.

After a brief litany about the mental and physical well-being of the bride and groom, the priest says three lengthy prayers: “Most Pure God, and Creator of all creation...”, “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God...” and “Holy God, created from the dust person..."

One remembers the mysterious creation of a woman from Adam’s rib and the first marriage blessing in paradise, which later extended to Abraham and other patriarchs and forefathers of Christ according to the flesh. The priest prays for the Savior Himself incarnate of the Virgin, who blessed the Marriage in Cana of Galilee, to bless His combined servants, like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel and all the patriarchs, and Moses, as the parents of the Blessed Virgin, Joachim and Anna, and the parents of the Forerunner , Zechariah and Elizabeth. He prays to the Lord to preserve them like Noah in the ark, and Jonah in the belly of the whale, the three youths in the Babylonian furnace, and to give them the joy that Queen Helen had when she found the Honorable Cross. He prays for the remembrance of the parents who raised them, “because of the prayers of the parents, they establish the foundation of houses,” and, together with childbearing, to grant to those who are married unanimity of souls and bodies, longevity, chastity, mutual love and the union of peace, grace in children, an abundance of earthly blessings and an unfading crown for life. heaven.

Now comes the main moment of the sacrament. The priest, taking the crown, marks the groom with a cross and gives him to kiss the image of the Savior attached to the front of the crown. The Trebnik does not indicate that this action should be performed once or three times, so in some places it is performed three times, in others - once each on the bride and groom.

Crowning the groom, the priest says:

“The servant of God (name) is married to the servant of God (name) in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Having blessed the bride in the same way and allowing her to venerate the image of the Most Holy Theotokos that adorns her crown, the priest crowns her, saying:

“The servant of God (name) is married to the servant of God (name) in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Then the priest pronounces the mystical words three times, and with each utterance blesses both with a priestly blessing:

“Lord our God, crown (them) with glory and honor.” First of all, with these words and the crowning of their heads, the honor and glory of man as the king of creation is proclaimed. Every Christian family is, of course, a small church. Now the path to the Kingdom of God is open to her. This opportunity may be lost, but now, here it is. For the rest of their lives, long and arduous, full of temptations, they become for each other in a very real sense - king and queen - this is the highest meaning of the crowns on their heads.

This crown also expresses the honor and glory of the martyr's crowns. For the path to the Kingdom of God is the testimony of Christ, which means crucifixion and suffering. A marriage that does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, that does not “die to itself” in order to point to the One who is above all earthly things, cannot be called Christian. In marriage, God's presence gives joyful hope that the marriage vow will not last until “death do us part,” but until death unites us completely, after the general Resurrection - in the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is where the third and final meaning of crowns comes from: they are the crowns of the Kingdom of God. “Take their crowns in Thy Kingdom,” says the priest, removing them from the heads of the bride and groom, and this means: increase this marriage in that perfect love, the only completion and completeness of which is God.

After pronouncing the secret-fulfilling formula, the prokeimenon is pronounced: “Thou didst put crowns on their heads, from honest stones, asking for life from Thee, and thou didst give them.” And the verse: “As you have given them blessings forever and ever, make me glad with joy in Your face.”

Then the 230th conception is read from the letter of the holy Apostle Paul to the Ephesians (5, 20-33), where the marriage union is likened to the union of Christ and the Church, for which the Savior who loved her gave Himself. The love of a husband for his wife is a similarity to the love of Christ for the Church, and the lovingly humble submission of a wife to her husband is a similarity to the relationship of the Church to Christ. This - mutual love to the point of selflessness, the readiness to sacrifice oneself in the image of Christ, who gave Himself to be crucified for sinful people, and in the image of His true followers, who through suffering and martyrdom confirmed their loyalty and love for the Lord.

The last saying of the Apostle: “But let the wife fear her husband” - calls not for the fear of the weak before the strong, not for the fear of a slave in relation to the master, but for the fear of making him sad loving person, disrupt the unity of souls and bodies. The same fear of losing love, and therefore the presence of God, in family life should be experienced by the husband, whose head is Christ. In another letter, the Apostle Paul says: “The wife has no authority over her own body, but the husband does; Likewise, the husband has no power over his body, but the wife does.

Do not deviate from each other, except by agreement, for a while, to practice fasting and prayer, and then be together again, so that Satan does not tempt you with your intemperance” (1 Cor. 7:4-5). Husband and wife are members of the Church and, being parts of the fullness of the Church, are equal to each other, obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.

After the Apostle, the Gospel of John is read (2:1-11). It proclaims God's blessing of the marital union and its sanctification. The miracle of the Savior turning water into wine prefigured the action of the grace of the sacrament, by which earthly marital love is elevated to heavenly love, uniting souls in the Lord. St. speaks about the moral change necessary for this. Andrew of Crete: “Marriage is honorable and the bed is undefiled, for Christ blessed them in Cana at the Marriage, eating food in the flesh and turning water into wine, showing this first miracle so that you, the soul, would change” (Great Canon in Russian translation, troparion 4 according to song 9).

The Savior, present at the Marriage in Cana, exalted the marital union in accordance with His View of the human race. When the first wine became scarce, another wine was given, miraculously created from water. So in a natural marriage union, the relationship of the spouses, not being sinful by nature, but nevertheless devoid of grace, is transformed into grace-filled, sanctified by the sacrament, approaching the great Prototype - the union of Christ and the Church.

“They have no wine,” said the Most Pure Mother, turning to Her Son. In the response that followed, Christ expressed that the hour He and She desired had not yet arrived: the time of victory of the spirit over the flesh. But this longed-for mysterious moment in the life of Christian spouses comes by the mercy of the God-Man who was called to Marriage and sanctified it, according to the fulfillment of His commands. “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5), the Mother of God called on those present. Only then will the insufficiency and defectiveness of natural marriage be filled, and earthly feelings will miraculously be transformed into spiritual, grace-filled ones, uniting husband and wife and the entire Church in the One Lord. According to Bishop Theophan the Recluse, in a truly Christian Marriage, “love is purified, elevated, strengthened, spiritualized. To help human weakness, the grace of God gives strength to the gradual achievement of such an ideal union.”

After reading the Gospel, on behalf of the Church, a short petition is pronounced for the newlyweds and the prayer of the priest, “Lord our God, in salvation...”, in which he asks the Lord for peace and unanimity, purity and integrity throughout his long life and the achievement of a venerable old age. doing Your commandments with a pure heart.” Then follows the Litany of Petition.

The priest proclaims: “And grant us, O Master, with boldness and without condemnation to call upon You, Heavenly God the Father, and say...”, and the newlyweds, together with all those present, sing the prayer “Our Father,” the foundation and crown of all prayers, commanded to us by Himself Savior. In the mouths of those getting married, she expresses her determination to serve the Lord with her small church so that through them on earth His will is fulfilled and reigns in their family life. As a sign of submission and devotion to the Lord, they bow their heads under the crowns.

A common cup of wine is brought, over which the priest reads a prayer: “God, who created everything with Your strength, and established the Universe, and the beautiful crown of all those created by You, and give this common cup to those who are united in the communion of Marriage, bless with spiritual blessing.” Having overshadowed the cup sign of the cross, gives it to the bride and groom. The newlyweds alternately (first the groom, and then the bride) drink wine in three doses, already united into one person before the Lord. A common cup is a common destiny with common joys, sorrows and consolations and a common joy in the Lord.

In the past it was the common Eucharistic cup, participation in the Eucharist, which sealed the fulfillment of Marriage in Christ. Christ must be the very essence of life together. He is the wine of the new life of the children of God, and partaking of the common cup foreshadows that, as we grow old in this world, we all grow younger for a life that knows no evening.

Having presented the common cup, the priest connects the husband's right hand with right hand wife and, covering the joined hands with the stole, and on top of it with his own hand, circles the newlyweds three times around the lectern. At the first circumambulation, the troparion “Isan, rejoice...” is sung, in which the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God Emmanuel from the Unartificed Mary is glorified.

During the second circumambulation, the troparion “To the Holy Martyr” is sung. Crowned with crowns, as conquerors of earthly passions, they show the image of the spiritual Marriage of a believing soul with the Lord.

Finally, in the third troparion, which is sung during the last circumambulation of the lectern, Christ is glorified as the joy and glory of the newlyweds, their hope in all circumstances of life: “Glory to Thee, Christ God, praise to the apostles, joy to the martyrs, their preaching, Trinity of the Consubstantial.”

As in the rite of Baptism, this circular walk signifies the eternal procession that began on this day for this couple. Their marriage will be an eternal procession hand in hand, a continuation and manifestation of the sacrament performed today. Remembering the common cross laid upon them today, “bearing each other’s burdens,” they will always be filled with the gracious joy of this day.

At the end of the solemn procession, the priest removes the crowns from the spouses, greeting them with words filled with patriarchal simplicity and therefore especially solemn:

“Be magnified, O woman, like Abraham, and be blessed like Isaac, and be multiplied like Jacob, walk in peace, and do in righteousness the commandments of God.”

“And you, bride, have been magnified like Sarah, and you have rejoiced like Rebecca, and you have multiplied like Rachel, rejoicing over your husband, keeping the limits of the law, for God is so pleased.”

Then, in the two subsequent prayers “God, our God” and “Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit,” the priest asks the Lord, who blessed the Marriage in Cana of Galilee, to accept the crowns of the newlyweds undefiled and immaculate in His Kingdom. In the second prayer, read by the priest, standing facing them, with the newlyweds bowing their heads, these petitions are sealed with the name of the Most Holy Trinity and the priestly blessing. At the end of it, the newlyweds testify to their holy and pure love for each other with a chaste kiss.

Leave is given according to the Trebnik. It commemorates Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helen - the first earthly kings, spreaders of Orthodoxy, and the holy martyr Procopius, who taught twelve wives to go to martyrdom as to a wedding feast.

Further, according to custom, the newlyweds are brought to the royal doors: where the groom kisses the icon of the Savior, and the bride - the image of the Mother of God, then they change places and kiss respectively - the groom to the icon of the Mother of God, and the bride - the Savior. Here the priest gives them a Cross to kiss and hands them two icons: the groom - the image of the Savior, the bride - the Most Holy Theotokos. These icons are usually brought from home by loved ones of the young people or purchased in the temple as parental blessing. Then the newlyweds are usually proclaimed many years of age, they leave the solea, and everyone present congratulates them.

In the Trebnik, after the dismissal, there follows “Prayer for the permission of the crowns, on the final day.” In ancient times, just as newly baptized people wore white robes for seven days and on the eighth day they folded them with the appropriate prayer, so newlyweds wore crowns for seven days after the wedding and on the eighth day they folded them with the prayer of the priest. In ancient times, crowns were not metal and not of the same type as they are now. These were simple wreaths of myrtle or olive leaves, which are still used in the Greek Church. In Russia, they were replaced in ancient times, first by wood, and later by metal. In this regard, the prayer for the permission of crowns is now read after the prayer “Father, Son and Holy Spirit...”. This brief sequence should not be omitted.

The release in it deserves special attention, where it says:

“Thy servants, who have reached their consent, O Lord, and who have followed the Galilean Marriage in Cana, and who have hidden the signs in it, send glory to You, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages, Amen.” The newlyweds are reminded here on behalf of the Church that the sign of the miracle of Christ in Cana of Galilee is the most life-giving and precious thing in the marriage union, and therefore it should be kept hidden in the depths of the soul, so that this treasure is not stolen or desecrated by the vanity and passions of this world.

How does the Church treat late marriages?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
The Church does not prohibit people from marrying in adulthood. It only partly regulates late marriages: according to the resolution of the Holy Synods of the Russian Orthodox Church, marriage is allowed up to 80 years of age. This is already a lot.
At all times, the Church treated second or third marriage with leniency and allowed it, because it is better for a person not to be alone. Alone, he can become mentally untied and unchaste. The Church is lenient in order to protect a person from the sin of fornication, or more precisely, adultery in relation to the first marriage. After all, if we judge strictly, then the Lord Jesus Christ said: whoever marries a divorced woman (or a divorced person) commits adultery (Matthew 5:32). This, perhaps, will be the answer to the question: what is the “status” of divorced people?
Late marriage is very different from early marriage, because both spouses, as a rule, have a lot of life experience behind them and, unfortunately, not always positive. Divorce is almost always the inevitable precursor to late marriage. Let us clarify in what cases the Church allows it. The first is different religions; second – mental insanity of one of the spouses; the third is physiological inability to bear children. But even allowing divorce for these reasons, the Church does not approve of it. Because the highest spiritual bar for a Christian is carrying the cross that he took upon himself upon marriage until the end of his days, regardless of life circumstances. But, understanding the weakness of human nature, the Church allows divorce for these reasons, and even allows the so-called “injured” party to enter into a second and third marriage. Let me recall some of the statements of the Holy Fathers, which very clearly show the Church’s attitude towards second and third marriages. This is what St. Gregory the Theologian says: “The first marriage is called law, the second – indulgence, the third – lawlessness.” Saint Metropolitan Photius expresses himself in a similar way: “The first marriage is the law, the second marriage is forgiveness, the third marriage is a crime.” You see how strictly the Church treated third marriages.

Hieromonk Macarius (Markish):
A true image of late marriage is given by the Gospel parable of the workers in the vineyard (see Matt. 20:1-16). Yes, there are great advantages to early marriage, and those who see their calling in family life should not delay marriage. But even those who enter the field of saving their soul and come to the third, sixth, ninth and even eleventh hour, the Lord does not deprive them of their reward, and this reward can be no less than that of the first - if, of course, they work conscientiously!

Are there any differences in the rite of the second wedding?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
The rite of the second wedding is filled with prayers of repentance. There is no third ceremony; the second and third weddings are identical. The first rite is given to people who have led a chaste premarital life and are getting married for the first time. This wedding ceremony is filled with the blessing of God, it is bright. I don’t want to say that the rite of the second wedding is not bright, because God is always Light! But that solemnity, that virginity is not present in the Sacrament of the Marriage of second-weds. For some time the Church even doubted whether to put crowns on newlyweds, but nevertheless came to the conviction that this should be done. Because crowns are a symbol of power and future childbearing, a sign of power over children, a sign of power in one’s small micro-kingdom called family.

Hieromonk Macarius (Markish):
The Trebnik contains a special “Sequence on second marriages”: along with all the basic elements of betrothal and marriage - the exchange of rings, the wedding, the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel, the common cup of wine - it contains special repentant prayers and petitions. The priest, depending on the age of the spouses, may slightly shorten the petitions of the litanies and the words of prayers, removing references to childbirth.
You need to know that you can get married no more than three times. The Church does not bless the fourth marriage (and subsequent ones). Therefore, those spouses who have married for the fourth (or more) time must repent of the sins and errors of the past and build a married life, pure from sins and free from errors, humbly limiting themselves to civil marriage.
I would also like to draw attention to this point: there is no such thing as “debunking” in the Church and there cannot be. The Church does not destroy a marriage, it is the spouses (or one of them) who destroy it, and civil divorce testifies to this unfortunate fact. For permission for a second marriage, they apply to the diocesan administration at their place of residence (which is sometimes very unsuccessfully called a “request for debunking”). However, in different dioceses this happens somewhat differently: such a request can be submitted either before the conclusion of a civil marriage, or after it, before a church marriage. This order is determined by the ruling bishop.

How does the Church treat so-called “unequal marriages”?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
From history we know many married couples who lived in an honest and pious marriage for many years, although it was considered “unequal.” For example, the wonderful writer Sergei Nilus. He married a woman who remained celibate until she was 52 years old. She never married and was a maid of honor in three imperial houses. Nilus, for some reason, divorced his first wife and at the age of 42 married for the second time, respectively, his wife was 10 years older than him. And they lived happily married for the rest of their lives.
But in 1918, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, which elected St. Tikhon (Belavin) as patriarch, established the age limit for marriage - the age difference between husband and wife should be no more than 5 years. Since then, unequal marriages have become the exception to the rule. And when couples with a large age difference (a girl and old man), we pause. We watch them, the development of their relationship, and think about the reasons for this love. But most often we do not recommend getting married to these people, because it may turn out to be unhappy. Imagine, a young girl marries a man who is 20-30 years older than her. Naturally, according to the law of nature (although, of course, this is in God’s Providence), the older spouse’s physiology changes earlier; this can be painful for the younger side. She, in turn, will have to take care of an elderly sick person - this is a very difficult cross. I remember how Father John (Krestyankin) blessed me and my mother for marriage. “You must understand,” he said, “that suppose today you are getting married, and tomorrow one of you falls ill with a serious illness and becomes bedridden for an unknown period, perhaps until his death. And a healthy spouse does not have the right to leave a sick spouse. In this case, there will be no fullness of marital communication; there will be a relentless stay at the sick bed. This is a heavy cross! Then I was shocked by such a depth of understanding of Christian marriage. The lamps of the Church say: “They don’t come down from the cross, they take them down from the cross.” That is, a person whose marriage ends in drama must carry this cross with honor to the end!

Does the fact that spouses, due to age, cannot have children, diminish the importance of marriage?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
Of course it doesn't detract. Of course, marriage in youth presupposes the birth of children, since love for each other results in the sacrament of conception. But, although Adam and Eve were given the commandment: be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28), childbearing is not the main thing in marriage. And the main thing is that husband and wife become one organism, one flesh. The main thing is love for each other. After all, when people fall in love with each other, they don’t think about children, or wealth, or poverty, they don’t think about anything. Lovers see their wealth in being with each other and desire only this. Unlike the Catholic Church, where a pragmatic approach to the issue of marriage has been formed, and procreation is its main goal, in the Orthodox Church a family is created not only for the sake of children, but for the sake of being with a loved one forever, forever. And this co-existence must be connected by the bonds of the Sacrament of Wedding and registration with state authorities.

Hieromonk Macarius (Markish):
Of course, spouses who, due to age or health, cannot have children lose a lot... But the Lord is merciful and loving, and always gives every good desire and intention the opportunity to come true. What prevents such spouses, who have a reserve of love and energy, from adopting two or three children? Remember the wise proverb: “It’s not the mother who gave birth, but the one who raised.”
There is no need to explain to you where children come from: from love. The same power of love can lead to the appearance in your home of those who, for some reason, lacked love in another family...

Is it necessary for those who have lived to get married? long life in a registered marriage?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
Yes, definitely! It's great that you asked this question. The widespread belief that older couples do not have to get married is criminally erroneous, and was born out of unbelief. Believers always rush to sanctify their marriage in the Church.
Some call a marriage that is registered with state authorities, but not sanctified by the Church, fornication. This is not entirely true, because this is not an illegal cohabitation in which neither party is responsible either to each other or to the state. But civil marriage can be called fornication in relation to God. We must definitely ask God for a blessing for marriage through the Sacrament of Wedding. This is necessary in order to live a spiritual life together, so that the Lord helps us through the serious and difficult field of family life.
It's never too late to get married if people consciously come to faith. There was such a priest, a man of righteous life, a great man of prayer - Father Nikolai Golubtsov. One day he came to a family where an elderly husband was dying. And Father Nikolai hastened to marry the spouses before his death so that the husband would not answer at the Last Judgment for the sin of not marrying his wife. Therefore, the Russian proverb is right: “Better late than never”!
By the way, there is also the opposite extreme: some people ask to get married, but do not want to sign at the registry office. To this I give the following answer: “Previously, the Church combined two institutions: the institution of the registry office, which entered the names and surnames of those getting married in the registers, and the institution of the Church, which sanctified marriage with the Sacrament of Wedding. Now these institutions are separated, so future spouses need to register their marriage in the registry office and then consecrate it in the Church.”

Hieromonk Macarius (Markish):
According to its “Fundamentals of the Social Concept,” the Russian Orthodox Church respects civil marriage, and at the same time insists on the need for church marriage. But often an obstacle to a church marriage is the lack of Christian education and faith of the spouses (or one of them). There are priests who refuse the Sacrament of Wedding to those who want to get married at the behest of fashion, because of superstitions or at the insistence of relatives... A wedding is, after all, a conscious, responsible oath before God of fidelity for life.
However, if a husband and wife sincerely and consciously profess the Orthodox faith, they must get married, no matter how many years they live together.

How should children feel about their parents' late marriage?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
A child always experiences separation from his father or mother very hard. Therefore, children often resist one of their parents entering into a second marriage. And this is natural, because divorce is always a drama. But children must honor their parents, the fifth commandment teaches us this, and they have no right to dictate to their parents. But parents must also take into account the opinions of their children. After all, the Apostle Paul said: Honor your father and mother; then follows an appeal to the parents: and you, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the teaching and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:2,4). If parents love their children, they will always listen to their opinion, to the state of their soul. After all, very often the truth speaks through the mouth of a child.

Hieromonk Macarius (Markish):
Like everyone else: with joy, care and hope for the restoration of previously lost marital happiness...

What difficulties, in your opinion, await those who start families after 40 years of age?
Archpriest Vladimir Volgin:
There is a saying “rot the tree while it is young”... People after forty are already established individuals, with clear ideas about life, their characters and views have already been formed. For 70 years, the atheistic state has distorted people's understanding of marriage, professing equality between husband and wife. But there can be no equality! The husband is the head of the wife, and “let the wife listen to her husband,” says the Sacrament of Marriage. All Holy Scripture speaks about this. Today, people who create families, and especially in adulthood, as a rule, do not share these views. Now is the age of emancipation and, accordingly, the feminization of men. Nowadays, it is very difficult for a man to find “control levers” for his wife. You can limit your wife’s funds, but she will begin to earn her own bread. You can scream and swear, but it is destructive to the soul. If a man, trying to regain authority in the family, raises his hand against a woman, then he will completely lose his dignity. It is known that if a priest hits his wife, he will be deposed. If a husband boycotts his wife, he will punish himself, because he will deprive himself of communication with his loved one. The only way to create right relationship Only the Church helps build a family. I recommend that married couples have one confessor and treat him with deep trust. Only in the Church, with the help of an experienced confessor, can one correctly build or straighten shaky family relationships.

Hieromonk Macarius (Markish):
The Old Testament prophets call a person clay in the hands of a potter: until the clay is fired, it is easy to give it the required shape. This is one of the most important advantages of early marriage: young spouses get used to each other more easily, learn family life, which should be built on the basic law - to please not oneself, but one’s neighbor (cf. Rom. 15: 1-2). In the opposite direction, accordingly, the disadvantage of late marriage...
In addition, late marriage is also characterized by a deep personal problem - the burden of past sins. They, like scars from painful wounds, healed, and sometimes unhealed, disfigure a person’s soul, prevent it from opening up in love, from realizing itself in a marriage, both in the intimate sphere and in other aspects of marriage.
However, as noted above, the Lord does not deny equal reward even to eleventh-hour workers. Why does this happen? – Due to undeniable advantages mature age: reason, knowledge of life, practical and spiritual experience. Based on these qualities, we are able to receive complete healing of the soul through effective repentance before the Lord and fill the temple of our family to the brim with genuine happiness and joy. Whatever number of the year of birth is in our passport: after all, the soul is intended for eternity.
“For one beaten, they give two unbeaten,” - this Suvorov proverb was often recalled by the Monk Ambrose of Optina. But does it apply to every “broken” one? Isn’t it just for those who benefited from the lesson of past battles?

Interviewed by Elena Volkova

Inserts:

Marriage for a woman is a service to the Holy Trinity - this is how great a woman’s destiny is to be a wife and mother.

“Happiness in married life is given only to those who fulfill the commandments of God and treat marriage as a Sacrament of the Christian Church.”
Venerable Nectarius of Optina

“We must endure family hardships as our voluntarily chosen lot. Secondary thoughts here are more harmful than useful. The only saving thing is to pray to God for ourselves and for our family, that He may do good for us according to His holy will.”
Venerable Ambrose of Optina

Question : Several years ago, the Sretensky Monastery held a series of lectures on the Christian family at the Polytechnic Museum. One day was entirely devoted to questions and answers, and I asked my burning question. Why does this happen: a bright, pure girl; smart, well-mannered boy; the priest knows both of them, blesses them, crowns them, but family life doesn’t work out? And vice versa: stormy youth, both have several marriages behind them, children of their own and others; the priest does not bless, does not take responsibility, because he does not see the basis for the future happiness of the family, but they still get married, and everything is fine with them - why is this so? Several priests were sitting at the table on the stage, answered Archpriest Maxim Kozlov. I remembered it for the rest of my life, probably because I answered very honestly. I can’t reproduce it verbatim, but the meaning is this: family is always a risk. Yes, sometimes there is every reason for happiness, people do everything right to be worthy of God's mercy and family happiness. But there is no happiness. And vice versa: they play pranks because they are young, there is no basis for happiness, but God, in His mercy, finds a basis for happiness precisely for these people. This is a secret from God. This is a risk for humans. Always. And that's fair.

Answer: Although this is more of a remark rather than a direct question, I will try to express my point of view on this problem, especially since similar questions concern many people, and I have already had to answer them before.

I agree with dear Father Maxim: starting a family is always a risk. Like any difficult and important matter. Such as, for example, the opening of a new enterprise, the construction of a large facility, or the birth of a child. Isn’t a woman, especially a believer, for whom abortion is a grave sin, at risk when she conceives and then gives birth to a baby? After all, they are possible ectopic pregnancy, various complications, the threat of miscarriage and, finally, the risk of dying during childbirth or giving birth to a disabled child. No one is immune from these and other dangers. But, nevertheless, almost every family, knowing about these dangers, takes risks. Or another example: driving a car. Every year 30 thousand people die on Russian roads. This is twice as many as our soldiers died in Afghanistan during the nine years of war. And how many more people remain crippled and lose their health in road accidents every year! But, knowing all this, everyone continues to use vehicles, and some work as drivers. But every sane person, starting an unsafe business, tries to reduce the risk as much as possible. This is also said in the Gospel: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, whether he has what it takes to complete it, so that when he lays the foundation and is not able to complete it, all who see it begin to laugh? over him, saying: This man began to build and could not finish? Or what king, going to war against another king, does not sit down and consult first whether he is able with ten thousand to resist the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Otherwise, while he is still far away, he will send an embassy to him to ask for peace” (Luke 14: 28–32). An example with the same driving a car: who will get into accidents more often - a driver who has completed a training course, drives carefully and follows the rules, or a person who bought a license without really learning to drive, who often breaks the rules and is also prone to recklessness ? I think the answer is obvious. If a woman wants to reduce the risk during pregnancy, she must also follow the rules: take care of herself, eat well, do not lift heavy objects, and see a doctor. If she carries heavy bags, smokes, drinks alcohol and does not care about doctors’ recommendations, then it is very likely that her pregnancy will end in failure. Of course, there are very small chances that, despite all this, the Lord will still save her and the unborn baby and she will safely give birth to a healthy baby - there are such cases. But it is clear to anyone that the risk for such a woman in labor increases many times over.

Now about marriage. If a Christian wants to live according to the will of God and save his soul, he must be guided not by his own “truth”, but by the Truth of God, which is set out in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Holy Fathers, that is, in the Holy Tradition, as well as the instructions of his conscience and advice spiritual father. If he lives according to the principle: “my will be done,” I will live as I want, and the Lord will somehow manage there (after all, life is a risk anyway), he commits a great sin, deliberately goes against God and exposes himself to great danger .

The Holy Scriptures teach us about marriage. I will not present it in detail now with numerous quotes - everyone can find them themselves if they wish. I'll be brief. The Lord gives us rules for family life. These are: 1) mutual marital love and hierarchy, in the image of the love and hierarchy of Christ and the Church, 2) preservation of purity before marriage and fidelity in marriage, 3) indissolubility of the marital union (except for the guilt of adultery): “what God has joined together, let man not separates" (Matthew 19:6). If we build family life according to these spiritual laws, we can protect our family from many troubles and find marital happiness. Of course, there are cases, like the one described in the above comment, when church virgin young people do not find marital happiness and their marriage falls apart. But, if you look at the situation as a whole, divorces, infidelity and family scandals are much less common in church families. There, these phenomena are exceptions, but in other, non-believing families, they are common and even natural. Christian families are falling apart not because the rules of Christian family life are bad, and not because the Holy Scriptures are outdated, but because we are such Christians - Orthodox Christians of the 21st century, who have forgotten what true love, family, and patience are. After all, in order to create a strong and happy Christian family, only external correct conditions are not enough. Our personal work and the feat of family life are necessary. The Monk Seraphim of Sarov said that for salvation it is not enough just to pray, fast and go to church, you need to “acquire the Holy Spirit.” So it is in family life. Certainly, the right conditions they help us and reduce risks, but the main thing is to acquire and preserve the spirit of love. True, sacrificial marital love is the content of marriage, and the right conditions are the form.

As Father Maxim Kozlov again correctly noted, there is a special care of God, His Providence for each specific person and for each married couple. Because every person has his own path to God. Someone didn't receive it as a child Orthodox education, grew up in a single-parent family and “played tricks in his youth” - there is only one demand from him, only one look from God about him. And it may very well be that this person, after his sincere repentance and awareness of his mistakes, the Lord will give another chance for happiness. Or vice versa: a person grew up in a priestly, friendly family, but deliberately followed the path of sin, fell into fornication before marriage, cheated on his wife during marriage, got divorced and entered into a second marriage - it is clear that the demand from him will be completely different: “who much has been given, much will be required; and to whom much has been entrusted, they will require more from him” (Luke 12:48). Yes, the Lord has a special view of everyone, but that’s why it’s special, which is not for everyone. And for all of us there is a common plan of God: to be saved and build a life (including a family life) according to the commandments, according to the Gospel.

You gave a very specific example: the couple went through a turbulent youth, each had several marriages and several children from these marriages, went against the blessing of the priest, got married, and everything is fine with them. Sorry, but as a clergyman who regularly receives confession, I cannot agree with this. Constantly confessing to people who are not in their first marriage, I know how they, their spouses and children suffer from all these mistakes, and most importantly, how they themselves suffer from pangs of conscience. No normal person will argue that marriage should be created once for a lifetime and that this is much better than going through trial, error and sins. No person can simply erase negative experiences from life, forget everything like a bad dream. Even after repentance and confession, the consequences of his sins will be with him. Will remain his ex-spouses, children from previous marriages with whom it is necessary to communicate, as well as memories of past relationships and the habit of sin. This means that “everything is fine” can no longer be. But this is a topic for another discussion.

Question : I divorced my husband: we were unbelievers, young. She got married a second time. Is true love possible in our marriage, because I committed a great sin, or is it fornication, passion? Now I am a church person, I even work in a church; my current husband rarely goes to church, but he believes in God.

Answer: Yes, the great tragedy of our people is their isolation from their spiritual roots. The 70-year-old atheistic captivity has done its dark work, and the consequences of this godlessness will affect us and our descendants for a long time. Most people came to the Church after going through a lot, making many mistakes and sins. But the Lord came to earth for this purpose, to give hope to every person. And Christianity is a religion of resurrection; The main task of our faith is the resurrection of the human soul. How is it done? Through baptism and repentance. Rus', of course, has already been baptized, and more than 80% of us have been baptized, but the Holy Fathers call repentance and confession a second baptism, only not with water, but with tears. Many, repenting of great sins, ask: “Will God forgive me or not forgive me?” This question arises from a misunderstanding of repentance. As if there is some kind of offended Divine dignity that awaits satisfaction and punishment for the criminal. God is all-perfect Love, He has long forgiven us all, taking upon Himself our sins and sacrificing Himself for us. But He is waiting for our personal repentance, and we need: firstly, to admit that we are sick, and, secondly, to take the path of correction - for our own good. If we don’t repent, we won’t correct ourselves, but God wants our salvation. After repentance there is a lot to do big job over yourself, your mistakes, and, of course, it won’t be easy. The greater the sin, the greater its destructive consequences for us and the people around us. Sin is a spiritual disease. Diseases have different degrees of severity and forms. There is a runny nose, it is treated quickly, but there is tuberculosis, it takes a long time to be treated, it is not easy and the consequences remain. Fornication, adultery, family destruction - diseases that affect many modern people. Sins are serious, and they are not easy to heal. The Church, healing illnesses of the soul, after confession, prescribes penitential penance, depending on the severity of the sin. Of course, the terms of penances that are given in church canons are not applicable in modern Russian reality, therefore penances are given by confessors as best they can, based on the specific situation, the capabilities of the penitent and the degree of his church involvement. Let me give you an example. Most women in our country have had abortions. For abortion, according to the 2nd canonical rule of St. Basil the Great, one must be excommunicated from communion for 10 years. Can you imagine what will happen if we excommunicate all these women for such a period? But many of them had more than one abortion. After such a rebuke, some will never come to church again, so penance is now being given as much as possible - because of the weakness and de-churchedness of our people.

Of course, Holy Scripture tells us about monogamy. And the Lord indicates only one reason for divorce - adultery of one of the spouses (see: Matt. 19: 9). According to church rules, if a marriage broke up due to adultery, the injured party was allowed to enter into another marriage. Remarriage was also allowed due to widowhood. Nowadays the Church condescends to the weakness of people, due to the above reasons. This is what is said in the “Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” a document adopted at the Council of Bishops in 2000: “The Church does not at all encourage second marriage. However, after a legal ecclesiastical divorce, according to canon law, a second marriage is permitted to the innocent spouse. Persons whose first marriage broke up, was dissolved due to their fault, entering into a second marriage is allowed only on condition of repentance and fulfillment of penance imposed in accordance with the canonical rules.”

You are asking whether your second marriage is fornication, passion, or is it still a marriage and love is possible in it. Of course, your union is not fornication; it is a legal marriage, although not the first. In the rite of weddings for second-weds, even if widowers are getting married, penitential motives are very clearly visible, and the wedding takes place without crowns, as a sign that the spouses are no longer virgins and are remarrying. The Church has always treated a second marriage as an acceptable weakness.

Now about love. Of course, love is possible in your marriage. The commandment to love is central to the New Testament. And if it so happens that people entered into a second marriage, they also have the opportunity to love and be loved.

I would like to talk a little about the difficulties and even dangers of remarriages. Yes, repentance cleanses our sins, and the Lord, in His mercy, forgives them, but we have already said that very painful consequences inevitably remain.

You can often hear stories from movie and pop stars and all kinds of public people about how happy they are in their fourth or fifth marriage, how well they get along with their ex-wives and husbands. And many people have the impression that everything is very easy and simple: if you weren’t lucky in your first marriage, it doesn’t matter, you can try again, and finally “my attempt No. 5” will bring happiness. Of course, the real life of stars is a sealed secret for us, but we still know something about them. It is known, for example, that there are simply no more unhappy people in family life than artists, singers and poets. In this community Friendly family and love for life is a rare exception. Can their revelations be trusted? I remember the story of the actor Stanislav Sadalsky. He once said something like this: “Sometimes it’s funny for me to hear the stories of my fellow artists about what a wonderful family they have and how much they love each other. After all, I know that there are such horns on each side that they can no longer fit through the door.” But it happens the other way around: in interviews, stars share details of “terrible” family scandals specifically to “promote themselves,” create additional advertising for themselves, and draw attention to their person. It can be difficult to understand where is real life and where is another feature film. Creative people In general, people are difficult. I have had occasion to confess to professional artists and poets: these are special people. Their working tool is the nervous system. They themselves admitted that often in ordinary, real life They cannot disconnect from their performance on stage, they live in their roles and images, and continue to play them in life. This is their big problem.

A family psychologist with 20 years of experience, Irina Anatolyevna Rakhimova, once told me that, unfortunately, with artists, as a rule, everything is shallow. They usually take mutual infidelity lightly. But they also don’t have deep feelings or strong love. For some time they sincerely believe that they are in love, that they are happy, and then, when emotions cool down, they easily part. In addition, it is possible to judge whether a marriage was a success or not only after a long period of time.

But let's go down from the starry Olympus to earth. What about us, ordinary people? Let me give you a few examples showing that past sins and mistakes of youth can greatly interfere with family life. Middle-aged spouses from the Moscow region came to my church. Nice, friendly family; it is clear that they love each other. But this is my husband’s second marriage; he has a son from his first marriage. And this man repeatedly told me that when he has to meet with ex-wife, he has the strongest lustful thoughts and temptations, he begins to be very tormented by memories of their past life and he can barely cope with himself so as not to cheat on his current wife. He cannot avoid communicating with his first wife, since he must see his son and also help her with money.

Another friend of mine, let's call him Gennady, was married twice. Both marriages broke up, there are children from both wives. The children are still small, he is forced to communicate with them on the territory of their mothers. When he comes to them, he periodically has an intimate relationship with one or the other, despite the fact that Gena is a believer, a church person.

Alexander and Nadezhda cohabited for about a year, then got married and got married. Alexander had another woman before Nadya. Now the spouses go to church, regularly confess and receive communion. But Nadezhda began to be tormented by attacks of jealousy; she often reproaches Sasha for having a mistress before her. And Alexander now often compares his wife with his “ex” - unfortunately, not in favor of his wife.

Here's another example. A very young couple from the Vladimir region. They came to the Church already married; before marriage they had physical relations with each other, but did not live together. Before we met, we also led a not very chaste life. They have been leading church life for several years now, often going to confession and communion. But the past life does not want to let go. At the wife's meeting with former friends several times it came almost to fornication; thank God, she found the strength to stop in time. The husband, suspecting something was wrong, began to be jealous, and conflicts and quarrels became more frequent in the family.

In addition to problems of a spiritual nature, second marriages may also face other problems. underwater rocks.

For those who have not encountered the problem of remarriage, it may seem that a divorced person with “experience” will have a much easier time in family life than someone getting married for the first time. Still would! A lot of baggage has been acquired, bumps have been filled, and now there is every chance of not making a mistake in choosing and building the right relationship in marriage. Unfortunately, there are very few cases where people actually learned from past mistakes and would not step on the same rake again. Why? People tend to see not their own mistakes, but to blame others for everything: “It’s not my fault that our marriage broke up; I was just unlucky; I got a very unsuitable spouse, but in the second or third marriage everything will be different.” And in a new marriage everything turns out exactly the same. For some time, the spouses live in perfect harmony, and then the option with the first marriage is repeated. Without admitting your guilt in what happened, without a deep analysis of your mistakes and your behavior in general, there will be no normal relationships in a new marriage.

One of my female psychologist friends highly recommended that those who have experienced a breakup (by the way, not only in marriage) should not make new acquaintances for some time - a year or more - but start working on themselves, their spiritual growth, in order to understand: what is preventing me from being happy in marriage , what are the disadvantages? why did our union break up? Only then there is a chance of happiness in marriage. I must say that with such a correct approach, sometimes it is possible to restore a broken marriage, and I am a witness to this. The advice “not to rush into creating a new union” is also valuable because the temptation to start looking for a new relationship immediately after a divorce is very great. And most often, nothing good comes of this: hasty creation of a family is often done to spite the first spouse, or a person seeks quick consolation in a new marriage, that is, he is guided not by love, but by some of his own selfish interests. Sometimes offended people want to increase their self-esteem by entering into a new marriage. The consequence of all this haste is poor choices and further family problems.

In any case, a new marriage does not always start from scratch; people with “experience”, voluntarily or unwittingly, bring into the new family those wrong attitudes, errors in communication, false patterns of behavior that interfered with them in their first marriage and contributed to its collapse. This is something we need to seriously think about.

In conclusion, I would like to say about the most important thing: what should people do who did not preserve their first union and created a new family? You need to start, of course, with confession, even if you are the victim. The fault in divorce is almost always mutual. Moreover, without seeing your guilt, your mistakes, you will repeat them in a new marriage. The second thing to do is to produce “fruit worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8), that is, try to live so that in a new marriage you not only do not repeat old sins, but also constantly cultivate and strengthen your love and relationships . You must create a Christian family focused on true love, patience, humility and mutual concessions. Of course, constant prayer to God asking for help in family life and mutual prayer of spouses for each other are necessary.

The previously mentioned I.A. Rakhimova strongly advises people who have entered into a new marriage to especially pay attention to the basic law of family life: to make another person happy. Do not look for consolation in a new marriage only for yourself and solutions to your own problems, but fulfill the commandment to love your neighbor.

And, of course, use the negative experience of your past life in order not to repeat previous mistakes in a new union. You can also advise reading more good books about family and marriage and constantly thinking about how to improve your family life. Marriage is not an easy thing, and even more so for second marriages.

Question : My husband left his first wife and married me, we are separated. His previous marriage was consummated, leaving behind a child. Recently, he and I also had a son. It turns out that I broke up my family. What do we do now? My husband and I have just begun to take our first steps in the temple.

Answer: Of course, your husband committed a sin, and you are - at least indirectly - to blame for this. If your union was not a legal marriage, but simply cohabitation, I would definitely say that your husband needs to return to his previous family, but you and he are in a legal marriage. And even if he leaves you now, returns to his first wife and tries to restore his previous marriage, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to revive his past family, and your new marriage with him will be destroyed. I think we should leave everything as it is. What happened, happened, you can’t return the past, you need to live in the present. What about the present? You have a family, you have a son, he needs a dad and mom who love him and love each other.

You are just beginning your journey in the Church. It needs to start with repentance: both you and your spouse need to confess and suffer penance from the priest for your sin. Sin is serious, and only spiritual life according to the commandments, regular confession and communion can help you heal spiritual wounds.

Question : How to deal with lustful thoughts and immodest views of people of the other sex, when in spring and summer most girls and women wear immodest, revealing clothes? It is very difficult to fight sinful thoughts and desires. And how to maintain your eyesight at work if you are surrounded by beautiful young women?

Answer: Any sin - fornication, drunkenness and anger - begins with the acceptance of a thought, the thought of it. For example, a man went into a store to buy something, and his gaze fell on the display case with alcoholic beverages. And suddenly the thought: “Should I grab a bottle of fortified red to drink this evening? Or better yet, two.” If he coped with this thought, overcame it, or was distracted, he committed no sin, but if he agreed with the thought and brought it to life, he committed the sin of drunkenness. The same thing happens with the thought of fornication. At first it appears (most often, through some kind of visual image), then a person accepts it and commits mental fornication, and then real fornication or masturbation. In the ascetic patristic literature all this is described very well and in detail. Sinful thoughts are a common thing; most often they are instilled in us by the devil himself. The Holy Fathers teach us not to consider them our blood property, not to be afraid of them, but also not to talk with them. The most important task is to learn to cut off thoughts in time, when they first appear on the border of our consciousness.

Yes, indeed, it is difficult for a modern man, a modern Christian, to keep his vision and mind clean. It's difficult, but it's possible. Sin begins when we look at a person with lust, as it is said in the Gospel: “...everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5: 28) - when we abandon immodest, prodigal views. In general, you need to be very careful with your views. If we have a weakness in our souls for the fair sex, we know this weakness, we need to try while on the street, in the subway and in other in public places, less “staring” around. It is generally impolite to stare at people, and there is certainly no benefit from it. One girl I knew said that her favorite pastime in public transport is to look at the passengers: how they are dressed, what their faces are like, what they might be thinking about this moment. This activity is very unhelpful. Why? You can commit several sins at once: condemning a person for appearance or facial expression, envy or be seduced by that same lustful thought. So it’s better to say a prayer, read or listen to something on headphones than to stare around.

If we know what tempts us very much female body, the first thing to do is not to fix your gaze on immodestly dressed women. So, a photographer is looking for something to photograph, but he doesn’t photograph everything; if he doesn’t need an object, he simply moves the camera. But if he aimed and already “clicked”, then this image has already remained with him, in his camera, and the photographer will then examine it. And we, ordinary people, therefore need to record, “photograph” only what we need. If we fix our attention on women, it is very easy to then accept a lewd thought, an image and begin to commit mental sin with her. We need to notice less about beautiful women around us, not be glued to them with our eyes, perceive this diversity of dresses and bodies as a kind of background, look at the main thing, at what we really need.

Second point. The sin is not in the look, but in the attitude. How do we perceive a woman: as a target for lust or as something neutral, not ours? Let me give you an analogy. Imagine that we are in Moscow, somewhere on Tverskaya Street. There are luxury cars all around: Audi, Mercedes, Land Cruisers; sometimes even a Bentley flashes by... But we have modest Zhiguli cars, or we generally walk. And now we have a choice: either fall into sin (envy, lust, condemnation), or simply not pay attention to all this auto splendor, and maybe even be happy for the owners of foreign cars. Yes, it’s beautiful, prestigious, comfortable, but it’s not mine and, most likely, it will never be mine.

It’s the same with views on women. This especially applies to married men. As popular wisdom says: “The devil puts a spoonful of honey into someone else’s wife.” For a married man there should be only one woman - his wife; he should evaluate only her as a woman.

Now about the team. Here, too, we can protect ourselves, even if we communicate with beautiful women every day. After all, a person myself gives himself permission: I’ll look at this one, but I won’t look at this one - it’s not mine. Only myself. Let's imagine that some young man has a beautiful sister, who also does not dress very modestly. Or his mother is still young and beautiful. But even if this young man does not adhere to strong moral principles, he still will not get inflamed by them, commit mental fornication with them. He, of course, will fight these thoughts and desires in every possible way. After all, this is unthinkable, forbidden, this is my mother and sister! So you can fight? So we need to imagine that all the women who seduce us are our sisters and treat them like family, with respect, but without lust. See them not as a seductive woman, but as a person with whom you can communicate (with caution, of course), who can be helped if necessary, for example, for work, but nothing more. As St. Theophan the Recluse writes, when communicating with women, you need to learn to keep your heart on a leash and look at them “through the eyes of children who look at women purely, without bad thoughts.” I remember one famous musician told how his attitude towards young female fans who attended his concerts gradually changed. In his youth, they seduced him, he looked at them with lust, but over time, somewhere after 40 years, when his children had already grown up, he began to look at the fans as his adult daughters, no longer with unclean thoughts.