Orthodox and divorce

[Monica4316]

I came across another Orthodox source… This seems to say at one point that the reason adultery is singled out for divorce is because of the jealousy and even murder it might cause? That is different than the reason I read before from the Orthodox link that seems to say that a marriage ceases with adultery… The new link I found also seems to not favour marrying again. As to the link of this with Catholicism… The Catholic Church allows separation due to adultery, and the article from Catholic Encyclopaedia describes how the word divorce in Church writings can also mean separation… So in the Catholic understanding this can be accepted, granted there’s no remarriage, but as a separation not a dissolution of the marital bond… As for whether the dissolution is possible that is another question that needs to be looked into, but for now I’m just giving a second idea for why adultery was mentioned… google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://scottnevinssuicide.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/marriage-and-divorce-in-the-orthodox-church-according-to-st-nikodemos-the-hagiorite/amp/&ved=0ahUKEwj448e32svVAhVm7IMKHREVDP8QFggqMAI&usg=AFQjCNEe91LYYNwYJHcPtTuT2wtAxrXduQ&ampcf=1

 

[pacloc]

Where are all the technicalities on declaring marriages null in all this history?

 

[Monica4316]

Where are all the technicalities on declaring marriages null in all this history?

The Catholic response may be that if the East accepted remarriage, we wouldn’t find them talking about nullity… The Catholics would say that the East was mistaken in this…

As for annulments, there’s the account of Pope Nicholas I refusing to grant an annulment in the 800s…

Also from Catholic Encyclopaedia

That separation and remarriage of the separated parties may not take place merely on account of private convictions of the invalidity of a supposed marriage, but only in consequence of an ecclesiastical judgement was taught by Alexander III and Innocent III in IV Decretal., xix, 3 and II Decretal., xiii, 13. In earlier centuries the summary decision of the bishops sufficed; at present the Constitution of Benedict XIV, “Dei miseratione”, 3 November, 1741, must be followed. This prescribes that in matrimonial cases a “defender of the matrimonial tie” (defensor matrimonii) must be appointed.

And

In the Decretals the declaration of nullity is treated under the title “De Divortiis”. But it is important that these matters should be carefully distinguished from one another. The lack of exact distinction between the expressions “declaration of invalidity” and “divorce”, and the different treatment of invalid marriages at different periods, may lead to incorrect judgements of ecclesiastical decisions. Decisions of particular Churches are too easily regarded as dissolutions of valid marriages, where in fact they were only declarations of nullity; and even papal decisions, like those of Gregory II communicated to St. Boniface and of Alexander III to Bishop of Amiens, are looked on by some writers as permissions granted by the popes to Frankish Churches to dissolve a valid marriage in certain cases. The decision of Gregory II, in the year 726, was embodied in the collection of Gratian (C. xxxii, Q. vii, c. xviii), and is printed in “Mon. Germ. Hist.”, III: Epist. (Epist. Merovingici et Karolini ævi I), p. 276; the decision of Alexander III is given in the Decretals as pars decisa, i.e., a part of the papal letter (IV Decretal., xv, 2) left out in the Decretal itself. In both cases there was question of a declaration of the invalidity of a marriage which was invalid from the very beginning because of antecedent impotence.

This shows that annulments were given…

 

[Rohzek]

Thanks to everyone who responded…

I wanted to respond to this link in more detail… I have been doing some research since I read it a while ago tonight. I’ll keep researching of course… I am trying to figure this out, not just to debate. I’ll present some other points for consideration… what do you all think of this?

1. the Penitentiaries quoted are described by Catholic Encyclopedia as not being official and actually were suppressed later on:

“It is true that several of the Penitential Books composed about this time in the Frankish regions contain the cases mentioned by these two synods and add others in which the real dissolution of the marriage bond and a new marriage with another wife might be allowed. The following cases are mentioned in several of these Penitential Books: adultery, slavery as punishment for crime, imprisonment in war, wilful desertion without hope of reunion, etc. (Schmitz, “Bussbücher”, II, 129 sqq.). These Penitential Books had indeed no official character, but they influenced for a time the ecclesiastical practice in these countries. However, their influence did not last long. In the first decades of the ninth century, the church began to proceed energetically against them (cf. the Synod of Châlons, in the year 813, canon xxxviii; Labbe, IX, 367). They were not completely suppressed at once, especially as a general decay of Christian morality took place in the tenth and early part of the eleventh century. Towards the end of the eleventh century, however, every concession to the laxer practice as regards divorce had been corrected. The complete indissolubility of Christian marriage had become so firmly fixed in the juridical conscience that the authentic collections of church laws the Decretals of the twelfth century, do not even see the necessity of expressly declaring it, but simply suppose it, in other juridical decisions, as a matter of course and beyond discussion. This is shown in the entire series of cases in IV Decretal., xix. In all cases, whether the cause be criminal plotting, adultery, loss of faith, or anything else, the bond of marriage is regarded as absolutely indissoluble and entrance upon a second marriage as impossible.”

newadvent.org/cathen/05054c.htm

I wrote the blog post/article you speak of. It’s true that there were a number of penitentials that were later disregarded as corrupted. This process of sifting through it began during the early and middle of the ninth century. Perhaps you will agree with that assessment of them being corrupted, but my main thrust of argument for citing them is that they are historical evidence that leans towards or entirely echoes the Orthodox position on divorce and remarriage in the Latin West. As to whatever the Catholic Encyclopedia means by “official character” who knows. It should be noted that the Catholic Encyclopedia article is very much out of date, over a century old.

I’d highly recommend reading the introduction to the following volume on another penitential that I cite in my subsequent article if possible. It has an excellent overview about the change in status of penitentials beginning in the early ninth century. As to whether Christian morality actually decayed in the 10th or 11th centuries, I highly doubt it:

pseudo-Theodore, Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori, edited by Carine van Rhijn, CCSL 156B (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009).

 

[Augustine3]

What’s the problem?

Deut. 24:1

Why don’t Catholics allow it, is my question.

P.S. I am aware that the original question was directed at Orthodox Christians

Jesus answers your quote from Deuteronomy

The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied, “Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (and be joined to his wife), and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” - Mark 10:2-9

 

[Rohzek]

1. the Synods were local synods that were at times Frankish Synods that were influenced by the secular government… Catholic Encyclopedia speaks of this too. My point is that they were local synods in the West but not necessary Synods where the Pope was even present. Thus they might not truly show the Catholic view, as the Catholic view needs to be developed together with the Pope, even if in a council. The same can be applied to the penitentiary books.

"Whilst the popes constantly rejected absolute divorce in all cases, we find some of the Frankish synods of the eighth century which allowed it in certain acute cases. In this regard the Council of Verberie (752) and Compiègne (757) erred especially. Canon ix of the first council is undoubtedly erroneous (Labbe, VIII, 407). In this canon it is laid down that if a man must go abroad, and his wife, out of attachment to home and relatives, will not go with him, she must remain unmarried so long as the husband is alive whom she refused to follow; on the other hand, in contrast to the blameworthy woman, a second marriage is allowed to the husband: “If he has no hope of returning to his own country, if he cannot abstain, he can receive another wife with a penance.” So deeply was the pre-Christian custom of the people engraven in their hearts that is was believed allowance should be made for it to some degree. Canon v seems also to grant the unauthorized permission for a second marriage. It treats of the case in which the wife, with the help of other men, seeks to murder her husband, and he escapes from the plot by killing her accomplices in self-defence. Such a husband is allowed to take another wife: “That husband can put away that wife, and, if he will, let him take another. But let that woman who made the plot undergo a penance and remain without hope of marriage.” Some explain this canon to mean that the husband might marry again after the death of his first wife, but that the criminal wife was forbidden forever to marry. This last is in agreement with the penitential discipline of the age, because the crime in question was punished by life-long canonical penance, and hence by permanent exclusion from married life.
In its thirteenth canon (according to Labbe, VIII, 452; others call it the sixteenth), the Council of Compiègne gives a somewhat ambiguous decision and may seem to allow absolute divorce. It says that a man who has dismissed his wife in order that she might choose the religious life, or take the veil, can marry a second wife when the first has carried out the resolution. Nevertheless, the intended choice of the state of Christian perfection seems to imply that this canon must be limited to a marriage that has not been consummated. Hence it gives the correct Catholic doctrine, of which we shall speak below. This must also be the meaning of canon xvi (Labbe, VIII, 453; others, canon xix), which allows the dissolution of a marriage between a leper and a healthy woman, so that the woman is authorized to enter upon a new marriage, unless we suppose that here there is a question of the diriment impediment of impotence. If these canons were really intended in any other sense, then they are contrary to the general doctrine of the Church. Other canons, in which separation and second marriage are allowed, refer undoubtedly to the diriment impediments of affinity and spiritual relationship, or to a marriage contracted in error by persons one of whom is free and the other not free. Hence they have no reference to actual divorce, and cannot be interpreted as a lax concession to popular morals or to passion. "

link: newadvent.org/cathen/05054c.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Frankish_synods

From a Catholic point of view, that is true, most weren’t presided over by a pope. But that was never why I wrote the article. I wrote it to show that a historical tradition existed in the Latin West that resembled the Greek East on divorce and remarriage.

As to what degree secular influence there was on those synods, I’d be greatly interested in any council, local or ecumenical, that was not influenced in some degree by outside political forces. The canon regarding the leper has nothing to do with impotence. It solely concerns the contagion of disease. If impotence was the concern, they would have mentioned it, as they did in other canons.

At any rate, I am not the most knowledgeable person or an expert on this matter. I merely consulted the secondary scholarship and the primary sources themselves and posted an anonymous internet article on the subject. That being said, I think it is better than many if not most comparable internet articles out there.

If you’re looking for something more definitive or informative, I’d recommend the following book written by Philip Lyndon Reynolds, a historian who as far as I can tell has written a non-confessional history:
**
Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage During the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (New York: E. J. Brill, 1994).
**

When it comes to this subject, I cannot recommend this book enough. You will not be disappointed. He also discusses the issue of validity and licitness, which in neither of my articles I have discussed. The book is a tad expensive though, so I recommend getting it through your library, if possible.

Best wishes.

 

[prodromos]

The Catholic response may be that if the East accepted remarriage, we wouldn’t find them talking about nullity… The Catholics would say that the East was mistaken in this…

As for annulments, there’s the account of Pope Nicholas I refusing to grant an annulment in the 800s…

Also from Catholic Encyclopaedia

That separation and remarriage of the separated parties may not take place merely on account of private convictions of the invalidity of a supposed marriage, but only in consequence of an ecclesiastical judgement was taught by Alexander III and Innocent III in IV Decretal., xix, 3 and II Decretal., xiii, 13. In earlier centuries the summary decision of the bishops sufficed; at present the Constitution of Benedict XIV, “Dei miseratione”, 3 November, 1741, must be followed. This prescribes that in matrimonial cases a “defender of the matrimonial tie” (defensor matrimonii) must be appointed.

And

In the Decretals the declaration of nullity is treated under the title “De Divortiis”. But it is important that these matters should be carefully distinguished from one another. The lack of exact distinction between the expressions “declaration of invalidity” and “divorce”, and the different treatment of invalid marriages at different periods, may lead to incorrect judgements of ecclesiastical decisions. Decisions of particular Churches are too easily regarded as dissolutions of valid marriages, where in fact they were only declarations of nullity; and even papal decisions, like those of Gregory II communicated to St. Boniface and of Alexander III to Bishop of Amiens, are looked on by some writers as permissions granted by the popes to Frankish Churches to dissolve a valid marriage in certain cases. The decision of Gregory II, in the year 726, was embodied in the collection of Gratian (C. xxxii, Q. vii, c. xviii), and is printed in “Mon. Germ. Hist.”, III: Epist. (Epist. Merovingici et Karolini ævi I), p. 276; the decision of Alexander III is given in the Decretals as pars decisa, i.e., a part of the papal letter (IV Decretal., xv, 2) left out in the Decretal itself. In both cases there was question of a declaration of the invalidity of a marriage which was invalid from the very beginning because of antecedent impotence.

This shows that annulments were given…

But nothing before the 8th century.

 

[Monica4316]

But nothing before the 8th century.

I am not a historian and I don’t know… Since the King was already asking for an annulment, it must have been an established custom. Also it seems like in Church writings, before language became more specific, they would use the word “divorce” in a very wide way - including separation and even nullity. The second quote explains this…

"In the Decretals the declaration of nullity is treated under the title “De Divortiis”. But it is important that these matters should be carefully distinguished from one another. The lack of exact distinction between the expressions “declaration of invalidity” and “divorce”, and the different treatment of invalid marriages at different periods, may lead to incorrect judgements of ecclesiastical decisions. "

This might explain why it doesn’t seem like annulments even existed, because that word didn’t exist, they called it divorce but the concept was annulment when seen in context… Separation was also called divorce…

 

[Monica4316]

I think this was interesting… Its about Pope Nicholas I. They didn’t want to accept his judgement but he didn’t waver in it… He was trying to protect the Church law and the correct understanding…

"Nicholas showed the same zeal in other efforts to maintain ecclesiastical discipline, especially as to the marriage laws. Ingiltrud, wife of Count Boso, had left her husband for a paramour; Nicholas commanded the bishops in the dominions of Charles the Bald to excommunicate her unless she returned to her husband. As she paid no attention to the summons to appear before the Synod of Milan in 860, she was put under the ban.

The pope was also involved in a desperate struggle with the bishops of Lotharingia over the inviolability of marriage. King Lothair II had abandoned his lawful wife Teutberga to marry Waldrada. At the Synod of Aachen on 28 April 862, the bishops of Lotharingia approved this union, contrary to ecclesiastical law. At the Synod of Metz, June 863, the papal legates, bribed by the king, assented to the Aachen decision, and condemned the absent Teutberga. Upon this the pope brought the matter before his own tribunal. The two archbishops, Günther of Cologne and Thietgaud of Trier, who had come to Rome as delegates, were summoned before the Lateran Synod of October 863, when the pope condemned and deposed them as well as John of Ravenna and Hagano of Bergamo. The Emperor Louis II took up the cause of the deposed bishops, while King Lothair advanced upon Rome with an army and laid siege to the city, so that the pope was confined for two days in St. Peter’s without food. Yet Nicholas did not waver in his determination; after Engelberga arranged a reconciliation with the pope,[6] the emperor withdrew from Rome and commanded the former Archbishops of Trier and Cologne to return to their homes. Nicholas never ceased his efforts to bring about a reconciliation between Lothair and his lawful wife, but without effect.

Another matrimonial case in which Nicholas interposed was that of Judith of Flanders, daughter of Charles the Bald, who had married Baldwin I, Count of Flanders, without her father’s consent. Frankish bishops had excommunicated Judith, and Hincmar of Reims had taken sides against her, but Nicholas urged leniency in order to protect freedom of marriage."

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Nicholas_I

 

[Monica4316]

I wrote the blog post/article you speak of. It’s true that there were a number of penitentials that were later disregarded as corrupted. This process of sifting through it began during the early and middle of the ninth century. Perhaps you will agree with that assessment of them being corrupted, but my main thrust of argument for citing them is that they are historical evidence that leans towards or entirely echoes the Orthodox position on divorce and remarriage in the Latin West. As to whatever the Catholic Encyclopedia means by “official character” who knows. It should be noted that the Catholic Encyclopedia article is very much out of date, over a century old.

I’d highly recommend reading the introduction to the following volume on another penitential that I cite in my subsequent article if possible. It has an excellent overview about the change in status of penitentials beginning in the early ninth century. As to whether Christian morality actually decayed in the 10th or 11th centuries, I highly doubt it:

pseudo-Theodore, Paenitentiale pseudo-Theodori, edited by Carine van Rhijn, CCSL 156B (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009).

Hello Rohzek, your blog article is leading me to a lot of research its an important topic for sure. I think its something that needs to be examined since its a major difference between the East and the West.

I think I see what you mean that these writings show that the Orthodox view was also in the West at certain points. That may well be true, - for the Catholic, it would be significant that this view was not ultimately accepted by the Church… It would be seen as something that had a certain popularity but the normative Latin view would come from pronouncements from the Pope…

 

[Monica4316]

From a Catholic point of view, that is true, most weren’t presided over by a pope. But that was never why I wrote the article. I wrote it to show that a historical tradition existed in the Latin West that resembled the Greek East on divorce and remarriage. \quote]

I see… I think the Catholic approach is different in how these things are examined. For the Orthodox the existence of a historical tradition is important. For the Catholic its important to see if it was approved or not, since there were whole periods in time when most Bishops were in error on something. I remember reading how at one point all the Eastern Bishops signed a document to come back to Rome after all of them were involved in an early Church heresy, and Rome was the only one that stayed against it. The document is Libellus Hormisdae and it was in response to the Acacian Schism. They gave allegiance to the Apostolic See and the verse “you are Peter…” was quoted in support. Here is a translation forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=866901

For this reason, there might be certain views that were present but it would be significant for the Catholic to see how Rome officially reacted to them… I am still in the process of researching this

As to what degree secular influence there was on those synods, I’d be greatly interested in any council, local or ecumenical, that was not influenced in some degree by outside political forces. The canon regarding the leper has nothing to do with impotence. It solely concerns the contagion of disease. If impotence was the concern, they would have mentioned it, as they did in other canons.\quote]

 

[Rohzek]

I’m not sure what the official view of these Frankish synods was but it seems they were regional and mostly composed of Bishops?

Yes, although some of their synods had papal legates present.

The whole idea of the state controlling the Church is a concern… The Catholic would be concerned over the amount of power the King or Emperor would have over Church matters, for instance.

I hesitate to break it down into black and white categories. It would be incorrect to say that state and church we clearly demarcated and separated, but it would also be incorrect to say that one ruled over the other. There is actually a phenomenal book on the Frankish Councils from the Merovingian dynasty to the beginning of the Carolingian dynasty (roughly ends with the Peppinid period of the Carolingians, so Charlemagne’s father). It explains further the complexities of Church and State relations during this period. It is the following:

Gregory Halfond, The Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768 (Boston: Brill, 2010).

The book is very expensive though, so again I recommend finding it via a library if possible. If you still have trouble finding this book, then contact me via PM.

Thank you!

You’re welcome. I always enjoy getting people to be curious in history.

 

[Augustine]

… the normative Latin view would come from pronouncements from the Pope.

Not necessarily. Even nowadays local synods take place and the Pope does not explicitly endorse its acts. However, if something offends orthodoxy, a Pope would likely pronounce it heterodox. So it’s possible that the lack of pronouncements by Popes on Frankish Synods indicates that they did not offend orthodoxy, especially something as public and affecting the salvation of souls as marriage.

 

[Augustine]

… juridical conscience…

Only Rome could come up with such terms…

 

[Monica4316]

I did come across a quote by St Augustine that possibly explains some of the quotes…

“Neither can it rightly be held that a husband who dismisses his wife because of fornication and marries another does not commit adultery. For there is also adultery on the part of those who, after the repudiation of their former wives because of fornication, marry others. This adultery, nevertheless, is certainly less serious than that of men who dismiss their wives for reasons other than fornication and take other wives. Therefore, when we say: ‘Whoever marries a woman dismissed by her husband for reason other than fornication commits adultery,’ undoubtedly we speak the truth. But we do not thereby acquit of this crime the man who marries a woman who was dismissed because of fornication. We do not doubt in the least that both are adulterers. We do indeed pronounce him an adulterer who dismissed his wife for cause other than fornication and marries another, nor do we thereby defend from the taint of this sin the man who dismissed his wife because of fornication and marries another. We recognize that both are adulterers, though the sin of one is more grave than that of the other. No one is so unreasonable to say that a man who marries a woman whose husband has dismissed her because of fornication is not an adulterer, while maintaining that a man who marries a woman dismissed without the ground of fornication is an adulterer. Both of these men are guilty of adultery” (Adulterous Marriages 1:9:9 [A.D. 419]).