Folia Canonica 11. (2008)
STUDIES - George Gallardo-Dimitri Salachas: The "ritus sacer" of the Sacrament of Marriage in the Byzantine Churches
148 GEORGE D. GALLARO-DIM1TR1 SALACHAS ment is usually celebrated in the narthex of the church. The Aghiasmatarion (Byzantine Ritual) published by the Congregation for the Eastern Churches,58 prescribes that the priest goes to meet the couple at the entrance of the church and, before starting the service of engagement, he questions them if they have come freely and without reservation to give themselves to each other in marriage. The couple comes to the church to receive each other from God, and be blessed by him, through the priest, who receives them with joy and leads them step by step into the life of the church. This is also expressly required by the Latin canon 1057, § 1 and the Eastern canons 776, § 1 and 817, § l.59 Once their manifestation of consent has been received, the priest blesses the spouses three times by making the sign of the cross on their heads, gives them a lighted candle, and leads them into the church. The fact that the exchange of consent in the priest’s presence happens in the narthex, before the liturgical rite of the “crowning” is celebrated in the solea (the raised floor in front of the iconostasis), is especially significant. It means that the matrimonial union established by the exchange of consent by the spouses is not strictly speaking part of the liturgical rite. True, the act that constitutes matrimony is the consent of the parties, defined as the act of the will with which a man and a woman, by an irrevocable pact, give themselves to each other and accept each other.60 Yet, in Eastern theology it is not the human act of legitimately declared consent by the parties that works the sacramental wonder; the consent is the essential condition without which this wonder cannot be worked, but the one who works it is the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the priest. It is true that the Lord Jesus Christ elevated the marriage bond between baptized persons to the dignity of a sacrament, and that between two baptized persons there can subsist no valid marriage bond or contract that is not, by that very reason, a sacrament.61 However, so that this might happen within the bosom of the Church, the working of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the priest is required. This binding force is the Holy Spirit who enrolls the spouses in the school of Christ and causes them to be reformed in Christ’s likeness. They cannot by themselves create community; what is needed is a corporate openness to the work of the Spirit who provides them with “the glue of love” that binds together otherwise disparate personalities. By blessing the betrothal, God is making a personal pledge to the couple, a promise to keep them united in peace and harmony throughout their life together, providing, of course they remain faithful to God and obedient to his commandments. God is faithful and keeps his promises to 58 See Aghiasmatarion: Ta Mysteria, Rome 1954, 1: 76; The Great Book of Needs, South Canaan (Pa) 1998, 1: 153-161. M Prader, II matrimonio, 37 - “In the Byzantine churches there is no requirement for the couple to declare their consent. Since the sixteenth century, however, some Byzantine Catholic churches adopted the norm of the Roman church by inviting the couple to publicly declare their consent.” “ CCEO c. 817 § 1 and 1983 Code, c. 1057 § 1. 61 CCEO c. 776 § 2 and 1983 Code, c. 1055 § 2.
