Melkite Patriarch and the Synod in Rome

[twf]

I would be really interested to see what His Beatitude, or any of the other Byzantine Catholic primates for that matter, have to say at the Synod on the issue of communion for the divorced and remarried. I know the statements of individual Synod Fathers haven’t been released…but I would be very curious to know if any of the Eastern Catholic primates support the practice of their Eastern Orthodox counterparts (as promoted by Cardinal Kasper et al). Anyone hear anything on that front?

 

[twf]

I’m surprised there is no interest in discussing Eastern Catholic views on this matter when those in favor of Cardinal Kasper’s proposal are explicitly siting Byzantine / Orthodox praxis.

 

[Seraphim73]

Patriarch Sviatoslav has spoken on it. He said basically what any Orthodox bishop would say. Certainly nothing a lot of more traditional minded Catholics want to hear.

georgiabulletin.org/news/2014/10/look-east-canonical-spiritual-balance-synod-members-say/

 

[Peter_J]

I’m surprised there is no interest in discussing Eastern Catholic views on this matter …

There are multiple factors. For one thing, CAF interest in GCism (and OCism) waxes and wanes in general.

 

[5Loaves]

I would be really interested to see what His Beatitude, or any of the other Byzantine Catholic primates for that matter, have to say at the Synod on the issue of communion for the divorced and remarried. I know the statements of individual Synod Fathers haven’t been released…but I would be very curious to know if any of the Eastern Catholic primates support the practice of their Eastern Orthodox counterparts (as promoted by Cardinal Kasper et al). Anyone hear anything on that front?

Cardinal Kasper suggests that divorced Catholics who have then married outside the Church be allowed to commune. I know of no Orthodox jurisdiction that allows Orthodox Christians who marry outside the Orthodox Church to receive communion.

What many imagine is Orthodox practice of economia allowing in some cases Orthodox Christians to marry for a second time, is far from what that practice is in reality. And for those Orthodox who are allowed to marry a second time in the Orthodox Church it’s certainly not unheard of that they are not allowed to commune, at least for a considerable time. The marriage service is not the same as a first marriage, including that there is no crowning.

 

[twf]

Cardinal Kasper suggests that divorced Catholics who have then married outside the Church be allowed to commune. I know of no Orthodox jurisdiction that allows Orthodox Christians who marry outside the Orthodox Church to receive communion.

What many imagine is Orthodox practice of economia allowing in some cases Orthodox Christians to marry for a second time, is far from what that practice is in reality. And for those Orthodox who are allowed to marry a second time in the Orthodox Church it’s certainly not unheard of that they are not allowed to commune, at least for a considerable time. The marriage service is not the same as a first marriage, including that there is no crowning.

I’m sorry - I wasn’t clear. It is the praxis of the ancient Byzantine Church that Cardinal Kasper’s supporters are invoking. The idea of a second, liturgical wedding arose much, much, much later. The early Church did, at times, allow those in second civil weddings to commune. I personally can’t reconcile this with Church teaching, but it was the practice in at least some regions.

 

[Vico]

Cardinal Kasper suggests that divorced Catholics who have then married outside the Church be allowed to commune. I know of no Orthodox jurisdiction that allows Orthodox Christians who marry outside the Orthodox Church to receive communion.

What many imagine is Orthodox practice of economia allowing in some cases Orthodox Christians to marry for a second time, is far from what that practice is in reality. And for those Orthodox who are allowed to marry a second time in the Orthodox Church it’s certainly not unheard of that they are not allowed to commune, at least for a considerable time. The marriage service is not the same as a first marriage, including that there is no crowning.

Those are very important points. Not crowing means that the Orthodox second marriage is a non-sacrament (natural marriage). The Orthodox require the spouses to both be Christian. So the Orthodox allow only one instance of the sacrament of matrimony because widows also do not marry again as a sacrament.

 

[Seraphim73]

Those are very important points. Not crowing means that the Orthodox second marriage is a non-sacrament (natural marriage). The Orthodox require the spouses to both be Christian. So the Orthodox allow only one instance of the sacrament of matrimony because widows also do not marry again as a sacrament.

That’s not true. I’m afraid you’re misinformed.

 

[Cavaradossi]

That’s not true. I’m afraid you’re misinformed.

The saints who permitted the practice of second marriage in the church indeed did not allow second marriages to be crowned.

 

[twf]

That’s not true. I’m afraid you’re misinformed.

Some Orthodox have told me that the second marriage is a sacrament. Others have told me that it most certainly is not (as witnessed by the lack of crowning). Regardless, the early Church did not allow second sacramental marriages…if memory serves, second liturgical wedding ceremonies weren’t introduced until at least the 9th century.

 

[5Loaves]

I’m sorry - I wasn’t clear. It is the praxis of the ancient Byzantine Church that Cardinal Kasper’s supporters are invoking. The idea of a second, liturgical wedding arose much, much, much later. The early Church did, at times, allow those in second civil weddings to commune. I personally can’t reconcile this with Church teaching, but it was the practice in at least some regions.

I believe “The Gospel of the Family Going Beyond Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal in the Debate on Marriage, Civil Re-Marriage and Communion in the Church” from Ignatius Press looks at this. In an interview with the Press I understood that these early second marriages were for widowed, and it was pressures from the secular government that pushed the East into changing.

See also The Myth and Reality of Second Marriages among the Orthodox.

 

[Vico]

That’s not true. I’m afraid you’re misinformed.

I could be. I know that crowning and the Holy Eucharist are independent and that the Antiochian Orthodox still have the crowning rite at the penitential marriage. But the idea is that the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist is not received in the celebration of the Second or Third marriage.

Yet O.C.A. has stated that “It is the practice of the Church as well not to exclude members of second marriages from the sacrament of holy communion if they desire sincerely to be in eucharistic fellowship with God, and if they fulfill all other conditions for participation in the life of the Church.”

For the sacrament concept:

Fr. John Meyendorf writes in Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, p. 28-29:In its canonical and practical tradition, the Church also remembered the fact that the Eucharist is the true “seal” of marriage. Marriages concluded before Baptism, i.e., without connection to the Liturgy, have no sacramental meaning.

and

In cases where the married couple was not “worthy” - i.e., when the marriage was not in conformity with Church norms - they partook not of the Sacrament, but only of a common cup of wine blessed by the priest. This practice-similar to the distribution of blessed bread, or antidoron at the end of the Liturgy to those who are not “worthy” of communion-became universal and is still adopted today.
Another source is Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, Theology and Eucharist:The theology of manuals stresses the sacramental power of the Church or, in other words, the Church as the “distributor of grace.” But it overlooks almost completely the Church as the end and fulfillment of the sacraments. For grace is another name for the Church in the state of fulfillment as the manifestation of the age of the Holy Spirit. There has occurred a very significant shift in the understanding of the sacraments. They have become private services for individual Christians, aimed at their personal sanctification, not at the edification of the Church. The sacrament of penance, for example, which was originally an act of reconciliation *with *the Church is understood today as a mere “power of absolution.” Matrimony, which at first had even no special “liturgy” of its own and was performed through the participation of a newly-wed couple in the Eucharist, is no longer considered as the passage — and, therefore, transformation — of a “natural” marriage into the dimensions of the Church (". . . for this is a great mystery, *but *I speak concerning Christ and the Church," Eph. 5:32), but is defined as a “blessing” bestowed upon husband and wife, as a simple Christian sanction of marriage. The Eucharistic cup is replaced in it by a cup “symbolizing” common life. Examples like these can be multiplied. But no theological deformation and no piety, based on this deformation, can ultimately obscure and alter the fundamental and organic connection of all sacraments with the Eucharist, as the sacraments of sacraments, and, therefore, truly *the *Sacrament of the Church.

St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4, Winter 1961, pp. 10-23

http://www.schmemann.org/byhim/theologyandeucharist.html

 

[wynd]

I could be. I know that crowning and the Holy Eucharist are independent and that the Antiochian Orthodox still have the crowning rite at the penitential marriage. But the idea is that the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist is not received in the celebration of the Second or Third marriage.

It’s not received in a first marriage ceremony either. There is no Holy Communion in the Orthodox wedding service.

 

[Seraphim73]

The saints who permitted the practice of second marriage in the church indeed did not allow second marriages to be crowned.

But the second marriage is sacramental.

 

[Seraphim73]

I could be. I know that crowning and the Holy Eucharist are independent and that the Antiochian Orthodox still have the crowning rite at the penitential marriage. But the idea is that the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist is not received in the celebration of the Second or Third marriage.

Yet O.C.A. has stated that “It is the practice of the Church as well not to exclude members of second marriages from the sacrament of holy communion if they desire sincerely to be in eucharistic fellowship with God, and if they fulfill all other conditions for participation in the life of the Church.”

For the sacrament concept:

Fr. John Meyendorf writes in Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, p. 28-29:In its canonical and practical tradition, the Church also remembered the fact that the Eucharist is the true “seal” of marriage. Marriages concluded before Baptism, i.e., without connection to the Liturgy, have no sacramental meaning.

and

In cases where the married couple was not “worthy” - i.e., when the marriage was not in conformity with Church norms - they partook not of the Sacrament, but only of a common cup of wine blessed by the priest. This practice-similar to the distribution of blessed bread, or antidoron at the end of the Liturgy to those who are not “worthy” of communion-became universal and is still adopted today.
Another source is Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, Theology and Eucharist:The theology of manuals stresses the sacramental power of the Church or, in other words, the Church as the “distributor of grace.” But it overlooks almost completely the Church as the end and fulfillment of the sacraments. For grace is another name for the Church in the state of fulfillment as the manifestation of the age of the Holy Spirit. There has occurred a very significant shift in the understanding of the sacraments. They have become private services for individual Christians, aimed at their personal sanctification, not at the edification of the Church. The sacrament of penance, for example, which was originally an act of reconciliation *with *the Church is understood today as a mere “power of absolution.” Matrimony, which at first had even no special “liturgy” of its own and was performed through the participation of a newly-wed couple in the Eucharist, is no longer considered as the passage — and, therefore, transformation — of a “natural” marriage into the dimensions of the Church (". . . for this is a great mystery, *but *I speak concerning Christ and the Church," Eph. 5:32), but is defined as a “blessing” bestowed upon husband and wife, as a simple Christian sanction of marriage. The Eucharistic cup is replaced in it by a cup “symbolizing” common life. Examples like these can be multiplied. But no theological deformation and no piety, based on this deformation, can ultimately obscure and alter the fundamental and organic connection of all sacraments with the Eucharist, as the sacraments of sacraments, and, therefore, truly *the *Sacrament of the Church.

St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4, Winter 1961, pp. 10-23

http://www.schmemann.org/byhim/theologyandeucharist.html

That’s the opinion of one priest. You’ll find no synod that teaches that a second marriage is not a sacrament.

 

[Vico]

That’s the opinion of one priest. You’ll find no synod that teaches that a second marriage is not a sacrament.

There is no universally accepted Synod on marriage for Eastern Orthodox that I know of. I have read Synod of Jerusalem, Decree 15. It quotes for marriage: Matthew 19:6 and Ephesians 5:32 and states that the sacraments are supernatural and not bare signs.

However, surely you do not suggest that all the the Church beleives and practices on marriage is synodal?

 

[twf]

That’s the opinion of one priest. You’ll find no synod that teaches that a second marriage is not a sacrament.

And you’ll find no evidence that the early Church saw second marriages as sacraments. The Eastern Church often cries “novelty!” for this or that Latin doctrine, but I firmly believe this is one area where the Eastern Church has introduced a true novelty with zero basis in the Fathers or praxis of the early Church.

 

[Seraphim73]

There is no universally accepted Synod on marriage for Eastern Orthodox that I know of. I have read Synod of Jerusalem, Decree 15. It quotes for marriage: Matthew 19:6 and Ephesians 5:32 and states that the sacraments are supernatural and not bare signs.

However, surely you do not suggest that all the the Church beleives and practices on marriage is synodal?

No but we don’t have much else to go on that can be shown on the internet. I mean I am Orthodox, I’ve attended second marriages and spoken to multiple priests about the issue. So I know what my Church teaches. Marriage is a sacrament so when the Church performs a marriage it’s a sacrament.

 

[Seraphim73]

And you’ll find no evidence that the early Church saw second marriages as sacraments. The Eastern Church often cries “novelty!” for this or that Latin doctrine, but I firmly believe this is one area where the Eastern Church has introduced a true novelty with zero basis in the Fathers or praxis of the early Church.

I don’t see any evidence that it didn’t. I also don’t see any patristic support for your annulment system. You annul marriages today that no one would have dreamed of 60 short years ago. It seems both Churches have made a concession to human weakness. Maybe we should come down from our horses and have a fruitful discussion.

 

[Seraphim73]

I would add there certainly is synodal evidence for admitting remarried to Communion. Look at the Council of Trullo in the 7th century that formally accepted St Basil’s canons from the 4th century. The canons in question are silent on the sacramental nature one way or the other but it is a fact that the Catholic Church tolerated remarriage for many, many centuries.