Catechesis · Inquirer
Holy Matrimony
Catechesis · Inquirer
Holy Matrimony
Marriage in the Orthodox Church is a sacrament -- a mystery -- in which a man and a woman are united not merely in a legal contract or a social arrangement but in the eschatologic…
Question
What is Christian marriage?
Marriage in the Orthodox Church is a sacrament -- a mystery -- in which a man and a woman are united not merely in a legal contract or a social arrangement but in the eschatological community of the Kingdom. The Orthodox marriage service is called the "crowning" because the bride and groom receive crowns: they are crowned as king and queen of a small kingdom -- the family, the domestic church. They are also crowned as martyrs -- witnesses who will lay down their lives for one another.
The crowns have a dual significance. They are the crowns of victory -- the couple has conquered the passions that would prevent their union and have chosen self-giving love. And they are the crowns of martyrdom -- in the ancient Church, the same word was used for both. Marriage is a martyrdom: the daily laying down of one's life for the other. The crowns are not symbols of happiness but of the costly vocation they are undertaking.
The teaching
The domestic church -- marriage as a small Kingdom
John Chrysostom called the Christian family the "domestic church" (*kat'oikon ekklesia*) -- the Church in miniature. The family gathers for prayer, reads Scripture, fasts together, celebrates the feasts, raises children in the faith. It is not merely a private household with religious practices -- it is a community ordered toward God, a small expression of what the whole Church is. The parents are the priests of this domestic church; the home is its sanctuary.
The service begins in the narthex with the betrothal -- the exchange of rings. The priest says: "The servant of God N. is betrothed to the handmaid of God N." The language is covenantal and theocentric: God is the active agent; the couple are servants of God entering a covenant in His name. The betrothal in the narthex and the crowning in the nave mirror the movement of baptism: from the outer world to the inner sanctuary, from promise to fulfilment.
O holy God, who hast fashioned man from the dust and fashioned woman from his side -- crown them with glory and honour. Crown them as king and queen, as thou didst crown the holy martyrs.
The crowning prayer holds together the royal and martyric dimensions of marriage. The couple is crowned as royalty -- they receive the dignity of those who rule a small kingdom. And they are crowned as martyrs -- those who lay down their lives for the truth. Christian marriage is the royal and martyric vocation applied to the ordinary life of two people committed to each other and to God. The glory is real; the cost is real.
The Orthodox Marriage Service
Crowning Prayer · ancient
Marriage as Martyrdom
What the crowns of marriage actually cost
The identification of the marriage crowns with the martyrs' crowns is not poetic decoration. It is a serious theological statement about what faithful marriage requires. The martyr witnesses to the truth at the cost of their life. The faithful spouse witnesses to the truth of self-giving love at the cost of their preferences, comfort, autonomy, and self-will -- daily, for a lifetime. The vocation is no less demanding for being ordinary.