Folia Canonica 11. (2008)
STUDIES - George Gallardo-Dimitri Salachas: The "ritus sacer" of the Sacrament of Marriage in the Byzantine Churches
156 GEORGE D. GALLARO-DIMITRI SALACHAS proached for this. They are deprived of communion for one or two years. The priest who blesses this marriage is not permitted to feast with them, according to the seventh canon of the Synod of Neo-Caesarea.”91 The rite of betrothal and of matrimony in such cases are similar as for those who are marrying for the first time; the prayers recited by the priest over the couple, however, are largely penitential in content. The priest asks God to forgive the spouses and to call them back to penance; to be condescending towards their weakness and frailties; to grant them the penance of the publican, the tears of the prostitute, and the confession of the good thief, so that they may be dutiful in the unity of their love and in their agreement to observe God’s commandments, and thus be worthy of the heavenly kingdom.92 In addition, the prayers emphasize the reason for which second marriages are tolerated, namely because of the danger of sexual immorality, according to the words of the Apostle Paul: “It is good for a man to abstain from a woman; still, because of danger of immorality, each man should have his wife, and every woman her husband.”93 The Eastern Churches’ severity towards second marriages, even when legitimately celebrated, is in conformity with the Pauline doctrine that exalts the value of matrimony as well as the value of virginity, which is often brought up in the context of matrimony. Paul thus insinuates the complementarity of these two states of life, either of which cannot be understood without the other. Paul recognizes the validity of the principle according to which it is better for celibates to remain such, but denies its application to married persons, whom he advises against abstinence. Paul invites married persons to use matrimony against the danger of immorality, but this is not advice given generally to all Christians, since each person should remain in the situation in which he or she has been called. In the New Testament widowhood is considered a consecrated state, similar to the state of voluntarily embraced virginity. So it was also in the early Church—in the writings of the Fathers of the Church and of ancient canonical norms. The theological reasoning for the fathers’ reservation towards second marriages is based on the concept of matrimony as a unique and unfailing covenant (and the two shall become one flesh), and as icon (man-woman as icon of the unfailing union of Christ-Church). This is to say that second marriages cannot make a unique covenant and icon out of a widow or widower in the same way that it did in the first matrimony. 91 Euchologion to Mega, 253. 92 Sec The Great Book of Needs, 182. 93 ICor. 7: 1-2.
