Hello!
I left the Catholic Church about a year ago and am earnestly pondering to enter the Orthodox Church. However, this process is complicated by my doubts concerning the validity of second marriages. I mean, I would have no problem at all if the church would say: if you marry a second time, that�s your own business, but the teaching of the Church is immutable, we can�t run the marriage service here in Church a second time.
But that�s exactly what happens in Orthodoxy.
It is often argued that Basil, Chrysostom, Clemens Alexandria, Origen and some other fathers allowed for second marriages. But this is, to put it mildly, not even half the truth.
For instance, Basil and Clemens among the above named took a strong stance against remarriage even in case of adultery.
(A fine father-compilation can be found at:
http://www.marriagedivorce.com/mdfathers.htm; for Athenagoras, see:
www.geocities.com/frneissen/Athenagoras-Origen.doc [
geocities.com] ; you should be made shortly aquainted with the biblical problems, so read the two small texts copyright by John Piper here(google for other startling articles by him if interested):
www.geocities.com/frneissen/by-John-Piper.doc [
geocities.com] )
Indeed, the only one of the early fathers allowing for a second marriage in case of adultery is Ambrosiaster, but he even excludes the woman from this permission and only grants it to man.
One often fails to differentiate between divorce and remarriage. Surely Chrysostom was ready to allow for divorce, but not so is the case with remarriage.
Again, the only of the early fathers is Ambrosiaster.
Well, let�s cite Basil:
�The woman who has been abandoned by her husband[that is, the woman not guilty of adultery!], ought, in my judgment, to remain as she is. The Lord said, �If any one leave his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, he causes her to commit adultery;� thus, by calling her adulteress, He excludes her from intercourse with another man. For how can the man being guilty, as having caused adultery, and the woman, go without blame, when she is called an adulteress by the Lord for having intercourse with another man?
A man who marries another man�s wife who has been taken away from him will be charged with adultery� �- Amphilochius 199 (a)
I�ve looked on the Internet for the supposedly plain statements of Basil and Origen where they explicitly allowed for a second marriage celebrated in the Church � but I couldn�t find any.
For instance, I read the following: �The Holy Basil the Great, for example, referred not to a rule but to usage, as far as this problem was concerned. Speaking concerning the man who had been cheated by his wife, he declares that the man is �pardonable� (to be excused) should he remarry.�
But this may be took wholly out of context. A long quotation is missing. But I would readily concur that if this was what Basil said, it would completely agree with his condemnation of remarriage, because he does not say that the one may marry in the Church, but just that a marriage(maybe civil?), when contracted, was perhaps a lesser evil.
The whole question I�m posing here is the following:
Did the early church celebrate second marriages in the church, were they blessed by the priest, as the Orthodox practise today?
Well, let�s cite another passage I found on the Internet, again not the long quotation I yearn for, but just a brief claim:
�He[Origen] noted that Christ rejected "the opinion that a wife was to be put away for every cause,"8but he did not seem to rule out divorce completely. Indeed, he admitted that some church leaders "have permitted a (divorced) woman to marry, even when her husband was living," and he confessed that such permission was "not altogether without reason," being undoubtedly a lesser of evils.9�
(by the way, another passage on the Internet concerning this issue reads as follows: �On the subject of remarriage, Origen wrote, "Already contrary to scripture, certain Church leaders have permitted remarriage of a woman while her husband was alive." Origen then quotes 1 Corinthians 7:39 word perfect, "The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.")
Well, Well, Well�.. but did the bishops grant a marriage in the Church?? This is the only question of interest. That the bishop/presbyter in general should be consulted on questions of sex- and family-life was not unusual in such times, consider, for instance, Ignatius:
�If any man is able in power to continue in purity, to the honour of the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so without boasting; if he boasts, he is undone; if he become known apart from the bishop, he has destroyed himself. It is becoming, therefore, to men and women who marry, that they marry with the counsel of the bishop, that the marriage may be in our Lord, and not in lust. Let everything, therefore, be done for the honour of God." Ignatius of Antioch, To Polycarp, 5 (A.D. 110).
Okay, here again is my main question:
Did the early church celebrate second marriages in the church, were they blessed by the priest, as the Orthodox practise today, or was this incorporation of formerly only civilly/legally performed second marriages into the rite of the Church a later development, yeah, deviation from the thinking of the Fathers?
Well, all the Orthodox out there: Fetch me from the snares of Protestantism(the only alternative left).
Please don�t indulge in polemical or superfluous reactions but condescend to offer scientifically sound explainations. I�ll also post this topic on CatholicAnswers to hopefully secure many helpful answers.
Yours,
Frederik
