[Introductory Note: The short paper below was my presentation at a recent symposium on contemporary pastoral issues in sexuality held in the Netherlands.]
The celebration of the Eucharist
provides a necessary context for understanding the pastoral response of the
Orthodox Church to contemporary challenges in marriage, family, and
sexuality. As St. Nicholas Cabasilas
commented on the Eucharist, “its aim is the sanctification of the faithful.”[1] Likewise, the aim of the union of husband and
wife is their sanctification, their participation in the Wedding Feast of the
Lamb. Even as the Church enters mystically into the eschatological reign in the
celebration of the Divine Liturgy, the married couple become participants in
the heavenly banquet through their common life in Christ. Through both Eucharist and marriage, human
beings participate in the fulfillment of their ancient vocation to become like
God in holiness.
Themes of
offering, sacrifice, blessing, and communion are intrinsic dimensions of both sacraments. These holy mysteries also manifest the
fulfillment of basic human desires and needs for life and love. Bread and wine become nourishment for eternal
life, while conjugal union becomes an entrance into the heavenly bridal chamber. Due to the physical dimensions of each
practice, communicants and spouses share as whole persons in the restoration of
their humanity as they direct their hearts for fulfillment in God. Since the “one
flesh” relationship between husband and wife serves as a sign of the
relationship between Christ and the Church, their union is to become nothing
less than an icon of the salvation of the world. (Eph. 5: 31-32)
After
describing how the “one flesh” union of marriage includes husband, wife, and
child, St. John Chrysostom notes that “Our relationship to Christ is the same;
we become one flesh with Him through communion…”[2] St. Nicholas Cabasilas
also affirmed that, through the Eucharist and the other holy mysteries, “Christ
comes into us and dwells in us, He is united to us and grows into one with us”
such that we “become one flesh with Him.”[3] These
points of commonality reflect how the conjugal union of the couple is taken up
into their communion with Christ in the Eucharist.
This is how their “one flesh” union with one another becomes an entrance
into the messianic banquet, for they are also “one flesh” with the Bridegroom. Hence,
their embodied common life is to become a radiant sign of the fulfillment of
the relationship between man and woman, for they wear together the crowns of
the heavenly kingdom as they orient themselves together toward Paradise. The
Church does not view this marital path as an extraordinary calling for a few
exceptionally pious people, but as God’s intention for married couples in
fulfillment of the ancient vocation to become like God in holiness.
The Eucharist has
played a prominent role in how the Church has blessed marriages across the
centuries. At first, a marriage was
blessed by the bishop when the couple communed together in the assembly. By the fourth century, there is evidence of
couples being crowned in the eucharistic liturgy. A marriage rite separate from the celebration
of the Eucharist developed in the ninth and tenth centuries in response to an
imperial demand that only marriages solemnized in the Church would have legal
standing. In this context, a
non-eucharistic rite of marriage developed for those canonically prohibited
from receiving Communion. The connection
of marriage and Eucharist remained, however.
A marriage rite in which “worthy” couples received the reserved
Sacrament continued in some places until the fifteenth century, while the
“unworthy” received simply a common cup of wine. These practices are clearly reminiscent of
the Eucharistic liturgy, as are many other dimensions of the contemporary
wedding service.[4]
Due to the
intersection of Eucharist and marriage, pastoral challenges abound. Even as prayers of preparation to receive Communion
stress the communicant’s unworthiness, spouses inevitably stumble in fulfilling
their sublime calling. When adultery gravely
wounds a marriage or when divorce ends it, the Church responds pastorally by helping
the spouses heal through repentance. Exclusion
from the Eucharist for a time is part of that process as a way of acknowledging
that a break in marital communion is also a breach in communion with
Christ. This practice gives spouses time
to gain the spiritual strength necessary to approach the chalice with a clear
conscience and a renewed commitment to live a life in communion with the Lord. The
Church’s blessing of a second or a third marriage is a merciful act of economia that enables those who have
endured the brokenness of previous marriages, whether through divorce or
widowhood, to bring another marital relationship into eucharistic union with
Christ. Even with the penitential prayers
of the rite for second marriages, the bridal couple wears the crowns of the
Kingdom.[5] Through the wedding service, whether for
first or subsequent marriages, the couple offers their physical union for
blessing, most obviously in the prayers for fertility.
A common pastoral
challenge today concerns parishioners who engage in sexual intimacy without
being married. Sex for the unmarried typically occurs without the intention of
permanence and lacks the sanctifying context of marriage. Consequently, such relationships are not
compatible with the “one flesh” union of the Eucharist. Those who repent of these
actions require spiritual therapy to help them gain the strength to reorient
their desires for intimate union toward God as they struggle to reserve sexual
expression for the blessed state of marriage.
That may include exclusion from the Eucharist for a time as a sign of the
need for healing from the damage done to one’s communion with Christ through
sexual activity in a context of gratifying passions as opposed to pursuing sanctification
with a spouse with whom one is united in the Lord.
In such
situations, some parishioners will end their relationships, while others will
begin the process of entering into marriage. Some clergy instruct cohabitating
couples to cease living together for a time before blessing their marriages,
while others advise only a period of sexual abstinence. Such circumstances present opportunities for
pastors to guide couples in confession, prayer, fasting, and other spiritual
disciplines for the healing of their passions as they reorient their love and
desire toward fulfillment in God.
Through such therapeutic processes, they may gain the spiritual health to
offer themselves to the Lord and one another in a marriage oriented to the Kingdom.
More difficult
pastoral situations arise in circumstances in which parishioners intend a permanent
relationship that will not be blessed by the Church, including situations in
which they have contracted a civil marriage.
In addition to familiar impediments such as the number of previous
marriages or differences in religious affiliation between the spouses, today we
face the challenges posed by members of the same sex who are civilly married or
who cohabitate with the intention of permanence. What such cases have in common is the reality
of parishioners in marriages or other relationships not blessed by the Church
and which exclude them from full participation in its life. For example, His
Eminence Metropolitan Joseph of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese
of North America issued a directive on October 29, 2015, that Orthodox who
marry outside the Church “voluntarily separate” themselves and may not receive
Communion, serve as sponsors at baptisms, or hold any parish office. His Eminence notes that “this applies in all
cases,” whether marriage to persons of the same or the opposite sex.[6]
Parishioners in some civil marriages may have
their marriages blessed in the Church and return to the Eucharist. Without that blessing, however, their
marriages are not oriented to the Kingdom through crowning, the common cup, or
other dimensions of the service that make marriage an entrance to the messianic
banquet. The spouses’ exclusion from the
chalice reflects that their unions remain as water not turned into wine, for
their “one flesh” union has not been brought into communion with Christ.[7]
We must be honest
about the difficulty today of providing pastoral care to persons in marriages
and relationships that will not be blessed in the Church. Whether heterosexual or homosexual, parishioners
in these circumstances may well have children and comprise a family together
with their spouse or partner. In light
of changes in sexual mores in the recent past, alternative marital and familial
relationships are now quite public, often having the legal recognition of civil
marriage and being championed by activists and affirmed by popular culture. It
is one thing to guide a parishioner who struggles, in ways not known
publicly, with desires, actions, and relationships that fall short of the canonical
standards of the Church in sexuality or other areas. It is quite different, however, to respond
pastorally to a parishioner who is in a legally sanctioned same-sex marriage or
other civil marriage that cannot be blessed in the Church for whatever reason, especially
in light of hierarchal directives that set very definite boundaries, for
example, concerning reception of the Eucharist.
Pastors
should be proactive in helping parishioners understand and accept the
importance of entering only into those marriages that may be oriented toward
the Kingdom through the blessing of the Church.
They should guide them to bring every dimension of their interpersonal
relationships into communion with Christ, which will require turning away from
those that would exclude them from the Eucharist. They should patiently
encourage those who remain in relationships that separate them from the chalice
to pursue the healing of their souls as fully as they presently have the
strength to do. In
“The Sacrament of Marriage and Its Impediments,” the
Council of Crete taught that “The Church exerts all possible
pastoral efforts to help her members who enter into… [same-sex unions or any
other form of cohabitation] understand the true meaning of repentance and love
as blessed by the Church.”[8]
The goal of pastoral ministry is to equip the members of the
Body to commune as “one flesh” with Christ in the Wedding Feast of the
Lamb. The communion of husband and wife with Christ in
the Divine Liturgy should manifest His blessing upon their conjugal union as a
sign of their vocation to enter the heavenly Bridal Chamber. Priests should
guide their parishioners to pursue the healing of their souls in a way that
accords with the profound intersections of marriage and Eucharist in the Orthodox
Church. Otherwise, they risk
underwriting an unhealthy separation between the spouses’ union with one
another and with Jesus Christ.
[1] St. Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, J.
M. Hussey and P. A. McNulty, trans., (Crestwood, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
2002), 25.
[2] St. John Chrysostom, “Homily 20,” On Marriage and Family Life, Catherine P
Roth and David Anderson, trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 51.
[3] St. Nicholas Cabasilas, 60-61.
[4] See Fr. John Meyendorff, Marriage:
An Orthodox Perspective (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 20-29;
and Fr. John Chryssavgis, Love,
Sexuality, and the Sacrament of Marriage (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2005), 45ff.
[6] “Metropolitan Joseph’s Archpastoral
Directive on So-called ‘Same-Sex Marriage,’” accessed June 2, 2017,
http://antiochian.org/metropolitan-josephs-archiepiscopal-directive-so-called-same-sex-marriage.
[7] See Fr. Philip LeMasters, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church,
Family, Marriage and Sex (Minneapolis, MN:
Light & Life Publishing Co., 2004), 79 ff. for “An Orthodox Response
to ‘Same-Sex Unions.’”
[8] “The Sacrament of Marriage and Its
Impediments,” Official Documents of the
Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, I/10, accessed June 2,
2017,
https://www.holycouncil.org/-/marriage.
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