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Catholic World News, July 01, 2016
The recent Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church did not
achieve its original goal of unifying the discipline of the Sacrament of
Marriage among the 14 Orthodox churches, according to a L’Osservatore Romano report.
On June 23 and 24, participants discussed the council’s fifth
document, “The Sacrament of Marriage and its Impediments”-- a topic
first placed on the conciliar agenda in 1961.
After discussing the Sacrament of Marriage, the final document stated
that “a civil marriage between a man and a woman registered in
accordance with the law lacks sacramental character since it is a simple
legalized cohabitation recognized by the State, different from a
marriage blessed by God and the Church. The members of the Church who
contract a civil marriage ought to be regarded with pastoral
responsibility, which is necessary to help them understand the value of
the sacrament of marriage and the blessings connected with it.”
“The Church does not allow for her members to contract same-sex
unions or any other form of cohabitation apart from marriage,” the
council fathers continued, as they lamented “the frightening increase in
the number of divorces, abortions, and other problems of family life.”
Turning to impediments to marriage, the document confirmed the
Orthodox practice of tolerating a second or third marriage following
annulment or dissolution-- leading Chania Hyacinthe Destivelle, the
author of the L’Osservatore Romano article, to state that it
would have been “interesting” if the council fathers had explained how a
union earlier defined as “indissoluble” could be dissolved.
The document also stated that “marriage between Orthodox and
non-Orthodox Christians is forbidden.” Nonetheless, “with the salvation
of man as the goal, the possibility of the exercise of ecclesiastical oikonomia [economy]
in relation to impediments to marriage must be considered by the Holy
Synod of each autocephalous Orthodox Church according to the principles
of the holy canons and in a spirit of pastoral discernment.”
This final text represents a change from the draft text, which did
not leave matters to the discretion of each Orthodox church. The draft
also stated that marriages between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians
“can be blessed out of indulgence and love of man if the children from
this marriage are to be baptized and raised in the Orthodox Church”-- a
phrase omitted in the final document.
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