What is the Sacrament of Marriage?
The Sacrament of Marriage is a sacred rite performed in the Church, in which grace is besought from God for the couple, strengthening their conjugal love and then helping them to live their life in a Christian manner.
Who established marriage?
Marriage was blessed by God at the creation of the first people. The Bible relates that "God created man... male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it'" (Gen. 1:27-28).
How did the Savior regard marriage?
Christ not only did not reject marriage, but recognized in it the closest indissoluble union of man and woman. When once the Pharisees, in justification of husbands divorcing their wives, referred to the law of Moses, the Savior said to them concerning Moses: "because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Mark 10:5-9).
What is the teaching of Scripture about marriage?
The Apostle Paul likens the bond between husband and wife to the bond of Christ with the Church. "For the husband is head of the wife," the Apostle writes, "as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Eph. 5:23-25).
How is Christian marriage contracted?
By a special sacred rite, with the reading of the Word of God and prayers. Therefore, the Apostle, rebuking heretics who reject certain foods and marriage, says that marriage is not dishonorable, "if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer" (1 Tim. 4:1-5).
Why are crowns placed on the bride and groom during the sacred rite of marriage?
Because this custom among people is from antiquity. The prophet Isaiah exclaims: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" (Is. 61:10). Therefore, even in antiquity, crowns were placed on the couple; this good custom has been preserved to this day.
Is arranging a sensible (not dissolute) wedding celebration contrary to the Christian faith?
The Savior Himself with His Mother was at a wedding in Cana of Galilee and, rejoicing with the people's joy, performed His first miracle of turning water into wine (see John 2).
Does the Church permit easy dissolution of marriage, as in the Old Testament?
No, it does not. By law, husband and wife cannot be separated. "For the woman who has a husband," writes the Apostle Paul, "is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man" (Rom. 7:2-3).
And in another place, the Apostle writes: "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (1 Cor. 7:10-11).
How, then, is divorce permitted among us?
Divorce is permitted only on the grounds of adultery, based on the following words of the Savior: "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9).
How does the Church view the birth of children in marriage?
Childbearing is not sinful, but saving: "Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control" (1 Tim. 2:15).
How does Scripture view cohabitation without prayerful blessing?
Cohabitation not with one's own wife, but with another's wife, was considered adultery in the Old Testament and was punishable by death (Lev. 20:10); and even the desire for another's wife was forbidden (Ex. 20:17). In the New Testament, the Lord condemns even a lustful look at a woman (Matt. 5:28). And the Apostle Paul directly says: "For this you know, that no fornicator... has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God" (Eph. 5:5).
Do sectarians recognize Christian marriage?
The Skoptsy completely reject marriage, while the Khlysts and Bratniki (Besedniki) recognize it only outwardly, not allowing conjugal cohabitation.
Does Scripture allow forbidding conjugal cohabitation?
It does not, and says: "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control" (1 Cor. 7:4-5).
How do the Skoptsy justify their rejection of marriage?
They say that marriage was forbidden already in paradise, when it was forbidden to eat the fruit "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Eating this fruit supposedly means being in conjugal cohabitation.
What should be answered to the Skoptsy for this?
It must be said that the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was given before the creation of the woman (Gen. 1:27-28; 2:16-17).
What should be said to the Khlysts and Bratniki when they reject marriage because, supposedly, the Savior condemned it, and that, supposedly, for the sake of marriage the flood was brought (Matt. 24:38-39)?
We must point out to the Khlysts that marriage was not forbidden, since the Lord commanded Noah and his sons to enter the ark with their "wives" (Gen. 6:18).⁷
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