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In Jewish law, a betrothed couple were considered married; remember that St Joseph was considering quietly divorcing Mary when he learned she was with child, and before the angel appeared to him in his dream.
Thus if one is betrothed and his or her spouse fornicates ["pornia"] with someone else he or she was allowed to divorce.
Objective sin should never be allowed in the name of mercy. "Economy" is meant for dispensation from Church discipline, not God's Law.
-Daniel

It is true that the annulment process is coming under increasing scrutiny - by the civil courts, who are taking an increasingly dim view of the notion that the Catholic Church is entitled to pronounce a legal marriage to have been "non-existent" for esoteric reasons unknown to the civil courts. One of these years, someone is going to win a BIG lawsuit against the local marriage tribunal about this - probably in one of those cases where the Church presumes to issue a declaration of nullity of a marriage when both parties were non-Catholic at the time of the celebration of the marriage. Wheee!

Incognitus

Dear Incognito Friend,

Do I sense a certain pet peeve there?

I don't think I have ever seen such glee in any of your posts before!

Fondly,
Alice, who is just teasing you a little bit

P.S. I didn't edit anything in your post--I just hit the 'edit post' button instead of 'reply w/quote' button by mistake.

I never intended to limit pornea to cases of incest, that was just one example of a sexually illicit "marriage". My main point is that saying that a sexually licit marriage is made illicit (pornea) because of illicit sexual behavior outside of the marriage (adultery) seems to be a misrepresentation of the context. The later adultery of one spouse does not have any bearing on the sexual licitness of the original union, which was sanctioned by God.

Equally important in the question of the sexual licitness of a marriage, for example, is the spiritual and emotional maturity of the couple when they enter into the "marriage". Later adultery may be an indication that they were not spiritually and morally able to enter into a true sexual union when "married", and therefore grounds for considering the marriage null, but that can only be evaluated case by case, and adultery does not automatically mean that the marriage was indeed "pornea". Pornea outside of marriage does not automatically imply pornea within the marriage, which seems to be what Jesus is refering to.

Alice:

I understand that, but I still don't think that answers the issue. The case you described would actually never come up in the Catholic Church, as she was not trying to remarry; her situation would already be considered resolved in the Catholic Church. There is absolutely nothing wrong with civil divorce in the Catholic Church, and in fact it would likely be encouraged in cases like hers. The understanding of the difference between God's Law and civil law is very clearly expressed in Catholic teaching and thinking. In the Catholic Church she would never have had to go before a board to receive an "ecclesiastical divorce", which you relate to an "annulment". It now seems to me that an ecclesiastical divorce, at least as you describe, really isn't anything like an annulment at all.

She had every right to respond the way she did, in my opinion, since she never remarried. In the Catholic Church, she would not even be considered divorced in the first place, and never would have been called to account for it before a tribunal.

So let me get this straight, since it seems even more confusing now than before. When an Orthodox person gets a civil divorce, they must get an ecclesiastical divorce as well in order to be considered "normalized" with the Church? If that's the case, that's an even more foreign concept to me than a normalized remarriage after a divorce. I'll need that much cleared up before I can continue with my inquiry :p

We have nothing like that in the Catholic Church. A marriage either "is" in the eyes of God, or it isn't. Civil divorce doesn't change the status either way, so if you want to get a civil divorce to get away from an abusive, cheating spouse, but don't intend to remarry, your status in the eyes of the Church is unchanged. As we say, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's".

Fascinating stuff indeed!

I'm not sure I understand your point, friend. The civil authorities could also one day decide that the Church can not "discriminate" against homosexual relationships. This is already being discussed in Canada, for example. What's more, the Catholic Church has no power to declare a civil contract non-binding, and has never claimed such. Quite the opposite, in fact. The only question is whether or not a civil contract amounts to a spiritual contract, which is what the Catholic Church's tribunals rule on. Under normal circumstances the Catholic Church requires that the civil contractual obligations be settled and accounted for before proceeding with the anullment process. In some circumstances they might be allowed to proceed side by side, but I've never personally heard of a Tribunal issuing a final statement of nullity before the civil divorce is concluded.

Do you have any examples of the Catholic Church telling people that their legal obligations are non-existant due to a Church declaration of nullity?

Regardless, scrutiny by civil authorities means nothing in the upholding of God's Law. Some authorities are Christian, some are pagan, none are the Church or God.

The abuse of the annulment process in the U.S. (which accounts for upwards of 80-90% of the world's annulments, IIRC) is coming under heavy fire in recent years both in the U.S. Church among orthodox circles, and the Vatican. If you're interested in some articles on the subject I can try to dig some up online. I'm not sure if you were trying to counter this or not with your rather....odd example (of a problem that I'm not even certain actually exists).

Response?

Peace and God's Grace!

Dear Ghosty,

Another one of my girlfriends, who is RC, got a legal (secular) divorce. She met another man shortly after and married him, but not in a church ceremony. The reason was, as I understood it, because she did not go through the trouble of getting an official church annulment, therefore, she could not remarry in the Church. Is that correct?

Another example: Princess Caroline of Monaco, after her first disastrous but publicized Church wedding and marriage, appealed for an annulment from the Vatican, but never got it. Her second marriage to her now deceased husband was in a civil ceremony. Therefore, in the eyes of the Church, is she still married to the first husband, the philanderer, and her next two marriages never occured, or are they considered simply adulterous affairs? Does that make her children (from husband #2) illegitimate?

In the Orthodox church, if you do not get an ecclesiastical divorce, you cannot remarry IN THE CHURCH. Period. My Orthodox friend may still meet someone. Since she has not, she doesn't really need to get it, but her status in the Church is not perfect and, spiritually, she would be without closure, if she didn't get the granting of an ecclesiastical divorce.

I don't think that this differs greatly from annulments in the RC church, does it? It is an official granting from the Church of a divorce, and a way for you to remarry if the opportunity arises, within the good graces of the Church (ie: not being excommunicated)

Perhaps the word 'annulment' is just a confusing term that rationalizes that a marriage never really occured, rather than the Orthodox terminology of 'ecclesiastical divorce' which I think is a bit more straightforward...I don't know.

Anyway, I really don't think any of this is as confusing as you are making it.

Might I suggest that you are somehow making this topic more confusing than it really is?

Perhaps you are using quite legalistic terminology to understand Eastern Byzantine concepts which are not at all legalistic in praxis?

Perhaps we should get back to the topic of the thread which is 'oikonomia' and how and why it is granted.

In any case, I believe that it has been sufficiently explained by our erudite posters.

Please start a new thread if you wish to continue the topic on the path you have brought it. Thank you.

In Christ,
Alice, Moderator

Dear Icognitus you said:

"... process is coming under increasing scrutiny - by the civil courts, who are taking an increasingly dim view of the notion that the Catholic Church is entitled to pronounce a legal marriage to have been "non-existent" for esoteric reasons unknown to the civil courts. One of these years, someone is going to win a BIG lawsuit against the local marriage tribunal about this - probably in one of those cases where the Church presumes to issue a declaration of nullity of a marriage when both parties were non-Catholic at the time of the celebration of the marriage. Wheee!"

I say:

What right does the civil courts have to interfere with 'any' religion. A person could still be married within a civil ceremony yet not in a Church, and the other way around. If such a thing should happen, it will definitely be a sign of the furtherance of the persecution of Christianity.

Zenovia

Dear Daniel you said:

"In Jewish law, a betrothed couple were considered married"

I say:

This interests me because I remember once reading that marriage ceremonies only started about the 12th century or such. Do you know anything about that?

Zenovia

Dear Andrew you said:

"It is true that a monogamous, otherwise healthy and normal marriage between two first cousins in "pornea" (sexually immoral) and thus a legitimate basis for a divorce,.."

I know that in the Greek Orthodox Church, (at least in Greece), bishops could and have given permission for first cousins to marry. I know that children of the same God parent are not allowed to marry, and that is why a person usually baptizes either all girls, or all boys.

I also know that siblings of one family could not marry siblings of another family. (Which I find strange since they are not of the same blood.) Of course 'eiconomia' might be considered....I do not know.

It might have been done in order to extend one's family. Welfare and state aid didn't exist so everyone was dependant on relatives . The more one had, the better chance they had for survival.

As for royalty, the Czar of Russia had considered his outstanding nephew for his eldest daughter...so it seems it was a common thing.

I also recall reading at one time, that the Jews always intermarried. It was not uncommon for an uncle to marry his niece. I guess it was to keep the wealth in the family.

Zenovia

Until an investigation shows otherwise, your friend is assumed to be married to the first man, and is now commiting adultery. It's not about whether or not she can remarry in the Church. Incidently, her (first) husband is also commiting adultery if he's "moved on". She should go about seeing if there are grounds for assuming that the first marriage never happened/was binding. What God has brought together, in the first marriage, no man (civil court) can seperate. It's pretty explicit in Scripture.

This isn't about being heartless, as I'm certain that she had her reasons. She really needs to set herself straight with God, however. Forgiveness is always open and freely given, but first one must be humble enough to recognize that they need to ask forgiveness.

Again, unless her first marriage was found to have been sexually illicit, meaning that it itself was an affair and not a true marriage (which, incidently, is what an annulment is a declaration of), her first marriage is presumed to be real, and everything afterwards is an adulterous affair. Again, this isn't out of being heartless, it's about protecting the sanctity of marriage and taking people at their word when they marry. We do not say "For better or for worse, or until we decide to leave eachother", after all.

Another point to remember is that in the Catholic Church, it is the two couple themselves that perform the Sacrament of Marriage, with the priest blessing it. Their word, and their sexual union, is their bond. The Church will honor that even if they refuse to later, unless good evidence is presented that they never actually gave that bond. Simply "acting up" later is not inherently evidence that the bond was not made, however.

The reason that such a "rationalization" must be made is because it is God that is the Sacrament, not us. We can no more "unmake" a Marriage than we can a Baptism, or an Ordination, or a Confirmation. All we can do is recognize that they never took place for various reasons.

Prior to the 50s and 60s, annulments were almost unheard of in the Catholic Church, and remain so in most of the world. The culture that grew up in the U.S., and to a somewhat lesser extent Europe, led people to view annulments as a "Church divorce" which is never what they were. Annulment tribunals were no different than any organized effort to evaluate the validity of a Sacrament, and since most people understood and appreciated what a Sacrament was, they didn't seek annulments very often. They knew if they were married or not, and it would be like trying to get "unBaptised".

In this context, the Church can't give an "Ecclesiastical Divorce" because it can't de-Sacrament. Are there any other Sacraments that can be removed in the Orthodox Church? For example, can someone be de-Baptised, or de-Confessed? Again, an honest question, as I really don't know the much about the Orthodox view of Sacraments.

Not really, I just want to know how the use of oikonomia applies to the Sacraments. I understand the principle of pastoral care, I'm just wondering if the Orthodox view of the Sacraments is such that a Sacrament can be undone by virtue of Pastoral concern, or if it's more of a "let God sort it out" kind of thing. I'm not judging either way, I'm just honestly curious.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that a father knows his own family best, and it's the same principle applied in the Catholic Church. I just don't really know how that interacts with the validity of the Sacraments.

I agree on the first point, as I really only pursued the divorce issue because others had brought it up as an example of oikonomia. I disagree on the latter, though, because my main question is how it pertains to Sacraments, which I thought was well within the topic of the thread. If the use of oikonomia really is just the recognition of the invalidity of any given Sacrament, then I can totally dig that; I'm just still unclear on what it is because the divorce example provided was pretty specific.

So just to clearly state my real question: does oikonomia apply to all Sacraments? Can a previously assumed-to-be valid Ordination or Baptism be revoked by application of oikonomia, and if so under what conditions? I really only ever hear of it applying either to cases of divorce, or to other types of pastoral care and advice, but I've never really grasped its relation to the Sacraments that seems implied by the "ecclesiastical divorce/annulment" connection. It's not so much a legalistic thing, as it is knowing how it relates to what.

Peace and God bless!

I think that the topic has been sufficiently explained.

If any of our priests wish to elaborate, that would be wonderful.

No one in Orthodoxy is 'undoing' sacraments.

Much of what you wrote is understood in the same
manner. A marriage just really isn't a marriage if one of the partners is having an affair and does not wish to end it in order to find reconciliation with his/her spouse.

Without ecclesiastical 'divorce' in Orthodoxy, any second marriages are illicit affairs in the eyes of the Church.

Western legalistic terminology just doesn't jive with how spirituality is understood in the Eastern churches.

As for my RC girlfriend, well, not to be rude, but as I see in many of my RC friends that are quite nominally practicing Catholics, she just doesn't really care about where her divorced and remarried status puts her in the eys of the Church.

THAT is why the Orthodox practice 'oikonomia' in some pastoral situations like divorce and that is why most Greek Orthodox I know who divorce and remarry, even the lukewarm and nominally practicing ones, DO care to find reconciliation in the Church and with the Church.

BTW, I have been married since an early age to the same person for 25 years. Marriage is NOT easy but for those who pray together and put God in it, with a little good old fashioned dose of awareness of morality and what it means in His eyes, it works.

It is the LACK of spirituality, and the lack of importance attributed to God and Church that is the biggest problem in society today, and one which both our Churches would do good to try to change. Unless society changes its norms and values, all sorts of sins of sexual nature, no matter how much we debate them, or approach them, or try to change laws, ecclesiastical or civil, will continue running rampant. The devil's influence reigns on the airwaves, in magazines and on the big screen.

Alice, Moderator

Dear Zenovia, I believe that the reason for this is that once the marriage of one man to a woman has happened, his brother cannot marry the sister of his wife, say, because then they are in-laws,spiritually related family within the four degrees of separation.

Gaudior, wondering if that makes it clear?

Oikonomia has its limits:

The only "legit" way for two brothers of one family to marry two sisters of a different family is if the marriages occur simultaneously in two different churches. This has been granted and done.

Now on to Zenovia's point regarding first cousins:

Just because bishops grant something under oikonomia doesn't mean that they are (1) correct in doing so; or (2) have the authority to do so.

Celebration or even a blessing of a marriage of first cousins is not within episcopal authority and I hold that they are in error.

Let's look scripturally: "Jesus, your brothers and sisters are calling you." We know the word "adelfos" to mean (a) blood brothers/sisters; or (b) first cousins; or (c) members of a common group i.e. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Brothers of the Elk Lodge, etc.

First cousins were considered as brothers and sisters and still ought to be so considered. Certainly, in the church they are.

Even in modern Greek, the term for first cousin is "exadelfos."

Marriages of first cousins are to be rejected under all circumstances.

Under episcopal oikonomia, a bishop may grant the marriage of second cousins.

The canons are very strict and show the boundaries of oikonomia; i.e. one marriage is the norm, but up to two remarriages may be granted. As they clearly state: "He who grants a fourth is to be anathema" (deposed, if he is a cleric).

With love in Christ,
Andrew

FYI, that should read Roman or Latin Catholic Church. Unlike the Catholic West, in the Catholic Churches of the East, the minister of the Holy Mystery of Crowning (Matrimony) is the priest.

Dear Alice - yes, I have an axe to grind. No, I have never been married. But I've had to deal with enough cases to cause me to become quite, ah, dismayed (there's a word for you) at the games that go on.
I can assure you that it is almost unheard-of for the alleged ground of an "annulment" to have any connection at all for the real reason which has caused one or both parties to want an annulment.
Here's one instance of just how insane and how abusive it gets. You are obviously a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian (please light a candle and say a prayer for me). Have you ever heard of a "Trullan Marriage"? No? I didn't think so. You could ask your priest, but he has almost certainly never heard of it either. You could ask the local Roman Catholic parish priest, but it's a good bet that he too is ignorant of this bizarre concept (and he probably has never consciously heard of the Council in Trullo). Well, please be seated to read this.
The Council in Trullo passed a canon saying that if an Orthodox shall "marry" somebody who is not Orthodox, it shall be as if the marriage had never taken place. The RC canon lawyers interpret this to mean that a "mixed marriage" therefore cannot validly occur without a dispensation. But that's just the beginning.
At the time of the Council in Trullo, the Great Schism was still a few centuries in the future, so the local Orthodox bishop had the "right" - courtesy of the Pope - to grant such dispensations. HOWEVER . . .
In 1054, as we all know, the Prozymite Heretics under the malevolent leadership of Michael Cerularius fell away from the One True Church (and guess who that is?). One result is that instantly the Orthodox hierarchy lost the ability to give valid dispensations. [I'm not making this up, you know!]
Rome to the rescue. In 1949 Pope Pius XII issued something called Crebrae Allatae, containing the marriage laws of the Eastern Churches as Pius XII conceived these laws to be. In his great benevolence, he reduced the impediment I just mentioned to a mere prohibition - meaning that such a marriage was "valid" but "illicit".
In consequence: ANY marriage between an Eastern Orthodox Christian and some other kind of Christian between 1054 and 1949 was invalid - unless, of course, the Eastern Orthodox Christian and, say, the Lutheran spouse took the trouble to obtain a dispensation from the local Roman Catholic Bishop before getting married. [I repeat: I'm not making this up.] One slight problem - most RC marriage tribunals knew little or nothing about this.
So here's the case I ran into (changing the names, of course);
This couple attended Divine Liturgy faithfully every Sunday - they even came on time. The wife always came to Holy Communion; the husband never did. Then, in 1968, they asked if they could have their marriage blessed. Assuming that they meant the jubilee blessing (it was to be their silver anniversary) I of course said yes. Then the truth came out.
John (the husband) was a Roman Catholic, despite attending Divine Liturgy every Sunday at our Church. Joan (the wife, obviously) was Eastern Orthodox. Joan had been previously married to a Methodist in an Anglican church in a nearby city, sometime in the 1930s. She had divorced the Methodist before World War II, and after World War II she and John decided to get married. They tried the RC priest, who refused to do anything on the ground that he considered the marriage to the Methodist still valid.
The upshot was that for 25 bloomin' years John got up every Sunday at the crack of dawn, went to Mass (never receiving Communion, you understand, because of his "sinful pseudo-marital relationship"), went home, collected his wife and the two of them went to the Divine Liturgy. For 25 years successive RC pastors put John and Joan through this incredible and pointless religious torture.
I heard this and the bell "Trullan Marriage" rang in my evil mind. So I told the unhappy couple to leave it with me, and I went down to the local RC marriage tribunal. They tried giving me the "o, but we recognize the previous marriage" line. My response was brief, vulgar and to the point - and when I spoke the words "Council in Trullo" the overstuffed monsignor I was speaking to suddenly remembered that there was something to it. He asked me for a day so that he could look it up.
The next day I went back, and His Ineffabilitude agreed that yes, I was right, the first marriage could not possibly have been valid. BUT it had to go to Rome anyway, AND the had to interview the previous husband! I told him what he could do with that nonsense, assured the now-happy couple that all was well, and married them. Thereafter they both received Holy Communion every Sunday. [I had carefully not told His Ineffabilitude the real names of the happy couple.]
That's just one case. Want more? What kind of people go around issuing codes of law for somebody else's Church?

Incognitus