In this case would a marriage be valid?

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Let assume you have two people who are Eastern Orthodox (baptized). The man was also later baptized into a Protestant church. They are both non-practicing. As a result when they get married they do it outside of the prescribed rites and conditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church and go on to get a civil marriage, live together, have a child, etc. Does the Catholic Church consider their marriage valid or not? (I’m asking since I know that the EOC has valid sacraments and they, from my knowledge would say that the two are not married but would the CC essentially not care about what the EOC would say and say that the two have a natural marriage although She would not say the same thing about two Catholics that are married outside the conditions imposed by their rite?
 
I am pretty sure that the Catholic Church would agree with the Eastern Orthodox Church that the civil marriage was not valid.

Note also that being “re-baptized” in a Protestant church is, objectively, gravely sinful as a denial of valid baptism.
 
He was a kid at a time and kinda pushed into it by his family so I wouldn’t say that it was in his case.
 
Jimmy Akin notes that the 1983 Code of Canon Law “allowed an exemption from the requirement of observing the Catholic form of marriage for Catholics who had left the Church by a formal act of defection.” The act of being baptized in another church may meet that requirement, but I don’t know if that law would apply to Eastern Orthodox Christians.

An additional question I would have to ask is whether the Church considers non-Catholics who are married in a manner outside the rules of whatever denominations they belong to are considered validly married.

Is the couple at all concerned with whether or not the Church recognizes the validity of their marriage? For example, have they started attending a Catholic Church? If so, they should talk to their parish priest – this can likely all be sorted out and remedied as needed.
 
Ioana said:
Does the Catholic Church consider their marriage valid or not?
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In general, no. EO require marriage by an EO priest.

The Church would not recognize this marriage as valid. The EO have valid holy orders and sacraments, therefore apostolic succession and authority when it comes to the form of marriage.

Also, natural marriage is a valid marriage involving one or two unbaptized people. So if the Catholic Church didn’t consider it to be a valid marriage, it would not be a natural marriage but rather no marriage at all.
 
Cimachol said:
The act of being baptized in another church may meet that requirement, but I don’t know if that law would apply to Eastern Orthodox Christians.
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The act of baptism into another denomination does not meet that criteria. The Church outlines the procedure and it includes a letter in writing to your bishop, and the bishop’s acceptance of it and documentation in the sacramental record.

Pope Benedict XVI removed that provision from canon law in 2009, so even if someone formally defected, if they married civilly after 2009 they would still be in an invalid marriage.

Moreover, Catholic canon law would not apply to a member of the EO Church, so those canons would not apply even if they hadn’t been abrogated.
 
I think the Catholic Church would consider this marriage to be valid. Canonical form only applies to members of the Catholic Church; it does not apply to anyone else.

I am a Catholic and if I had married outside the Catholic Church without a dispensation my marriage would have been invalid. A friend/colleague of mine is not a practising member of any church and was never a Catholic. He was married in a civil ceremony. The Church considers his marriage valid. If he divorced and wanted to marry a Catholic woman in the Catholic Church he would need to get an annulment.

Members of Eastern Orthodox churches are not Catholics and they are not bound by canonical form. Therefore, if they married in a civil ceremony the Catholic Church would view their marriage as valid.

Dr Edward Peters, a canon lawyer of considerable repute, argues we should dispense with canonical form. His argument is twofold. First, canonical form was a ‘medicine’ for a ‘disease’ (clandestine marriages) that no longer exists. Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises as valid the marriages of non-Catholics who marry in any form of religious or civil ceremony.
 
TomH1 said:
I think the Catholic Church would consider this marriage to be valid. Canonical form only applies to members of the Catholic Church; it does not apply to anyone else.
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This is not correct.

Form does indeed apply vis-a-vis valid marriage of memebers the EO Churches. Not Catholic form but the EO’s own requirement of marriage by a priest.
 
Ask your priest, we cannot give you advice on the validity of marriage, yours or anyone else

It is against CAF rules
 
I’m not really asking for advice per se, I’m just wondering what the validity of it would be. Nothing anybody on here says has anything but a very remote chance to leading towards any legal action, so small that I can essentially say that nothing anybody on here says will lead to any sort of legal action on my part or that of people I know.
 
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If I am to stand corrected I would like to know the reason and a citation of a source. One learns more when an explanation is provided. If the Catholic Church requires the members of Eastern Orthodox churches to marry according to the rites of their proper church where in the Code or other law from the Vatican is this prescribed.
 

Also, see here for a response to a similar question from a thread in 2008. The poster Cameron_Lansing is a canon lawyer in the diocese of Lansing, MI. He no longer posts here, but has answered this question more than once while he did.
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Annulments for non-Catholics Liturgy and Sacraments
The canonical reference is the requirement that marital consent be legitimately manifested (c. 1057). The requirements for valid form are treated in the instruction on marriage cases, Dignitas connubi, in some of the beginning paragraphs. If you obtain a copy, you can review this at greater length. I summarize only. What, if any, forms *are *non-Catholics bound to follow? When marrying among themselves, baptized non Catholics are bound to the form stipulated by their own religious laws regard…
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He quotes from Dignitas Connubii which explicitly lists what you are asking in Article 4:

Art. 4 – § 1. Whenever an ecclesiastical judge must decide about the nullity of a marriage of baptized non-Catholics:

1o in regard to the law by which the parties were bound at the time of the celebration of the marriage, art. 2, § 2 is to be observed;

2o in regard to the form of celebration of marriage, the Church recognizes any form prescribed or accepted in the Church or ecclesial community to which the parties belonged at the time of the marriage, provided that, if at least one party is a member of a non-Catholic Eastern Church, the marriage was celebrated with a sacred rite.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...trptxt_doc_20050125_dignitas-connubii_en.html
 
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Cheers, that is very useful and I think settles it by the looks of it.
 
You told us the couple are Eastern Orthodox and non practicing, and that they had a civil marriage, not a Church marriage. There seems to be some information missing here. Why would the couple even care what the Catholic Church says about their marriage? Something must have happened that prompted them to ask this question. What was it?
 
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Thank you!

I have not read through the sources you have provided but I certainly will.

I am aware of ‘Canon Law Made Easy’ but was not aware of it as far back as 2013. I read each new article and am wading through the archive.

I do appreciate it when people are prepared to provide support for their answer rather than say, ‘because I said so’.

Best wishes

Thomas Hunt
 
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They aren’t asking. I’m curious. I live in an EO country so this is a common situation.
 
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