Folia Canonica 11. (2008)
STUDIES - George Gallardo-Dimitri Salachas: The "ritus sacer" of the Sacrament of Marriage in the Byzantine Churches
152 GEORGE D. GALLARO-DIMITRI SALACHAS obey her husband as if he were the Lord, for the husband is the head of his wife just as Christ is the head of the Church. Furthermore, Christ is the savior of the Church, which is his very body, and, as the Church is submitted to Christ, so the woman should obey her husband in everything. But the husband, too, must love his wife as Christ has loved the Church, to the point of sacrificing his life for her. The crowns exchanged between spouses also signify the crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus Christ, making it a crown of irrevocable love and of the sacrifice of Christ for his Church. The couple shares in this love of Christ for his Church to the point of sacrificing his life for her. They offer themselves and receive each other as a crown in order to become deeply united to each other, each one giving his or her life for the other. The crowns, moreover, signify the grace of the resurrection, or even the special grace that the couple receives from the Holy Spirit to start a new family, a domestic church. The grace received in the sacrament of matrimony takes place in terms of sacrifice and glory: “The spouses themselves receive it from the moment they undertake to present themselves before the heavenly Father in their dignity as priests, and to offer to him the sacrifice in Christ, the ‘reasonable gift,’ the oblation of their entire nuptial life. The grace of the common priesthood of the Christian couple forms and molds the nuptial being in the image of the Church. By loving each other the spouses love God. Every moment of their life rises up like a royal doxology, like an unending liturgical chant. Saint John Chrysostom brought forward this magnificent conclusion when he affirmed, “Marriage is a mysterious icon of the Church.”78 The priest, blessing the spouses with the crowns, says: “O Lord our God, crown them with glory and honor.”79 This prayer is actually inspired by Psalm 8, which praises the creative work of God and especially man as the king, ruler and steward of all God’s creations. This prayer is really an invocation, much like the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Divine Liturgy to come upon the faithful and upon the holy gifts and to change them into the body and blood of Christ. This joyful hymn and prayer can be said to be the epiklesis of the sacrament of marriage. Through this invocation for Christ himself to crown the couple with “glory and honor” a nuptial Pentecost is effected, that is, the Holy Spirit descends upon the couple to transform them into a new creation. There is nothing merely symbolic here, but a true and real liturgical coronation of the couple to be husband and wife “with glory and honor.” By being crowned in the name of the Holy Trinity, the couple is challenged to see that real glory and honor are to be found in their joyful self-offering and service to each other. The natural marriage is blessed and led into the life of the Church. At the conclusion of the rite, the priest takes the crowns from the heads of the bride and groom. Taking it from the groom, he says: 78 Evdokimov, 123. 75 Contos, 60.
