Hi Rawb - Do Orthodox mix when dating/marrying? (For example, Greek and Lebanese).
Oh yeah, that’s not a big deal at all (except maybe for some staunch immigrant babushki). I know a Greek priest who has told his kids “I don’t care if they’re Greek, but they better be Orthodox.”
In Orthodoxy one is not a “Greek Orthodox” or “Russian Orthodox” officially. In colloquial terms someone may call themselves such, but it has no ecclesiastical meaning. Thus a person can attend a Russian Orthodox parish one week, a Greek the next, a Serbian the next and round off the month with an Antiochian, receiving Communion in them all and just letting the priest know beforehand that he’s Orthodox. This would be discouraged, of course, because it doesn’t allow the proper development of relationships so necessary for good Orthodoxy.
So marriage between a Greek and a Russian wouldn’t be considered ‘intermarriage.’ Both are Orthodox, it’s One Church - The Orthodox Church.
How many Orthodox live in the U.S. and does that include all of the different groups?
Um…tough to answer. When compiling the census data a lot of people combine Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, and those are two different Churches. So how many there are total…I honestly don’t know. We’re clustered in some areas - San Francisco has a lot, as does Nevada, some upper midwest and Texas. We’re not huge though, I know that.
Which part is difficult? Is it the many fasts and customs?
Imagine you marry an Orthodox (girl? Sorry I didn’t check your gender). So imagine you marry an Orthodox girl. Devout Orthodox. The wedding has to take place in her Orthodox parish. The best man or maid of honor (preferably the best man) has to be Orthodox. Your children have to be raised Orthodox. They’ll be baptized Orthodox, Chrismated Orthodox, and only receive Holy Communion in Orthodoxy. Their Godparents will be Orthodox only. Wouldn’t you feel your church is brushed aside?
Your wife will only attend the Divine Liturgy at her Orthodox parish, where you can’t receive Communion. She complains your church is too legalistic, and finds ample support from her priest and parish community. She may disdain statues and have one wall of your home covered in Icons. You don’t know she’s secretly annoyed that you don’t lead the family chanting in Evening prayer every night. You can probably live with not eating meat or dairy every Wednesday and Friday.
It gets better. Great Lent arrives. You’re surprised to find one Monday morning that all the meat, dairy, red wine, oil, eggs, and fish have disappeared from your home. You discover just how many ways there are to eat lentils, and when Sunday comes around you discover nope - no break, we fast on Sunday too (if you’re lucky you can have oil!). On Wednesday you come home from work to find her bundling the up the kids for Church. You hadn’t heard about Pre-Sanctified Liturgies before. Liturgies on Sunday are suddenly longer and people are getting down on their hands and knees “like Muslims.” Exhausted one night you reach over to embrace your wife in bed and get rebuffed - no sexual relations for all of Great Lent, or any of the fasting periods or the night before Church? On many years your Easter will be ignored by your wife as she’s still in Great Lent, and come Holy Week your family will be trucked down to the temple for upwards of 13 services, all lasting hours.
And that’s just touching on it. Your kids don’t spend time learning the Hail Mary because they don’t know anybody who prays it - they know “It is truly meet and right…” and only call her “Theotokos.” The Sacred Heart is forbidden in your own home. Your wife wears her wedding ring on her right hand. Your family doesn’t pray the rosary together. They don’t go to Mass together. Your kids never have a “First Communion” or Confirmation day. Your wife drinks holy water. No Advent Wreath, no May Crowning, no Fatima or Lourdes for your kids. You get to Epiphany to discover it’s called Theophany and is all about Christ’s baptism, not the Magi. The pope is looked at as suspicious, heretical, and dangerous by your wife and her friends.
Now I was trying to be kind of funny here, and some of those would only be true for a very devout Orthodox woman (the kind who probably wouldn’t marry outside The Faith anyway) but it just highlights differences, and honestly, a lot of those differences are going to come up. There’s not that far of a difference between our ‘hugely devout’ and our ‘regular attendees’ when it comes to expectations about The Church. Where to go to church, which church the kids are baptized in, how Feasts are celebrated, attitudes towards the prayers of the other church, etc etc.
Honestly, your home should be the one place in your life where you faith isn’t challenged. Don’t borrow problems by marrying someone outside your church.
It does sort of take one back when you’re referred to as part of the “diaspora” by a bishop from the “old country” and you’re not of that ethnicity. “No, Master, not everyone here is part of this 'diaspora.” To be fair this is more an issue in some jurisdictions, and understandably when you look at what their old country is - we can see, for example, why the idea of the ‘diaspora’ is so big in the Greek Communion. Same with the Copts. Still, I too would like people be more realistic; this isn’t a diaspora.
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