Christian family. Orthodox marriage
The ideal marriage is when two people are united into a small Church in Christ. In ancient times there was no sacrament of marriage, the sacrament was marriage itself, when two members of the church freely decided on the union of a small church, this was announced by them at the Eucharist and celebrated there.
The family is created not only for the glory of God, but also to facilitate each other's path to salvation. This is what the church calls a sacrament. There was no special rank until the tenth century. Emperor Leo VI demanded that all marriages be legalized and churched. Legal functions were assigned to the church. The Church was forced to withdraw the rite of wedding from the Eucharist.
The Church considers only the first marriage a sacrament. If two are united in Christ, then nothing can destroy this unity. With God, everyone is alive. Marriage in Christ is the union of people with one another and with Christ. People help a life partner to climb to Christ. One can only be a Christian by loving another.
For a Christian, there is no such thing as a disagreement in character, etc., since this implies a legal relationship, and people must sacrifice themselves for each other.
Marriages do not exist for procreation, but because most people can only be saved in this way, helping each other.
Orthodoxy forbids a Christian to abhor marriage. Christ, by His first miracle, was at the marriage and sanctified it with His presence.
In marriage, if we believe in God, we remain faithful to our spouse even after his death. Christianity does not insist that there should be love between the young; the Holy Fathers write little about this. It is difficult to find a person who would be in love only once in a lifetime. We were brought up on classical literature, and it is all non-church. Love at 18 and 40 is different. We have an extremely high attitude towards love, and this gives us a reason to leave our wife or husband. There is a lot of self-gratification in love, and this is often not useful for us. The Church Fathers say nothing about the first feeling, good or bad. An experienced confessor will certainly warn the young that their first feeling may pass, that they need to be able to get used to each other, and this is very difficult.
The Church blesses the 2nd wedding, but this is a repentant rite, because “it is better for them to marry than to be kindled” (Ap. Paul).
The Church cannot debunk, it does not have the tools for this. The only thing she can do is testify that this marriage no longer exists.
In the Russian Empire, the Church had legal functions, since there was no civil marriage. A marriage could only be destroyed by adultery on one side. Now there are other reasons why you can dissolve a marriage (a person who has been missing for many years, a drug addict, an alcoholic, a venereal disease or AIDS, a person who cannot perform marital functions, but did not report it before marriage), but this is non-economic, such divorces are permissible, but not welcomed by the Church.
childbearing
The position of the Church is to make as many children as possible, regardless of the economic situation in the family and health.
The church categorically forbids abortions, equating them with murder.
On the 8th day, the child is given a name in the Church, and on the 40th day they are baptized. A woman in labor or a woman after a miscarriage cannot attend the Church for 40 days and receive communion. Experience shows that unaborted children are the most desirable.
Aborted contraceptives are not possible. Only means that do not allow conception are allowed.
The church does not bless "IVF" - the birth of children from a test tube, as many embryos are fertilized, and the doctor leaves only the strongest. The church is against male donation, bearing someone else's child and cloning, all of which are usually destructive. But children conceived in this way are baptized by the Church.
The apostle Paul says that marriage should be avoided only during fasting. But if one spouse is non-church, then the church one must yield in this matter.
If the conversion of one of the spouses occurred after marriage, then it is his duty to convert the other by fasting, prayer, and his own example. It is not a reason, a reason for divorce, if the appeal occurred after marriage.
Marriages between believers and non-believers are usually not blessed, because the fullness of the marriage is not obtained, there are a lot of sorrows. Especially if they are of different faiths.
Relationship between parents and children
The 5th commandment is the purest. Because elderly parents are the most useless thing we have. But they must be respected. The demands of children on their parents are absolutely unfounded.
ill. Suren Khondkaryan
According to the materials of the Forerunner Catechism Courses
Christian marriage is an opportunity for the spiritual unity of spouses, continued in eternity, for "love never ceases, although prophecies will cease, and tongues will be silent, and knowledge will be abolished." Why do believers get married? Answers to the most common questions about the sacrament of the wedding - in the article of the priest Dionisy Svechnikov.
What's happened ? Why is it called a sacrament?
In order to start a conversation about the wedding, you should first consider. After all, the wedding, as a divine service and the grace-filled action of the Church, lays the foundation for church marriage. Marriage is a Sacrament in which the natural love union of a man and a woman, into which they freely enter, promising to be faithful to each other, is consecrated into the image of the unity of Christ with the Church.
The canonical collections of the Orthodox Church also operate with the definition of marriage proposed by the Roman lawyer Modestin (III century): "Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, the communion of life, participation in divine and human law." The Christian Church, having borrowed the definition of marriage from Roman law, gave it a Christian interpretation based on the testimony of Holy Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ taught: “A man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:5-6).
The Orthodox teaching on marriage is very complex, and it is difficult to define marriage in just one phrase. After all, marriage can be viewed from many positions, focusing on one or another side of the life of the spouses. Therefore, I will offer another definition of Christian marriage, expressed by the rector of the St. Tikhon Theological Institute, Fr. Vladimir Vorobyov in his work “The Orthodox Teaching on Marriage”: “Marriage is understood in Christianity as an ontological union of two people into a single whole, which is accomplished by God Himself, and is a gift of beauty and fullness of life, essential for perfection, for the fulfillment of one’s destiny, for transformation and entry into the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the Church does not conceive of the fullness of marriage without its special action, called the Sacrament, which has a special grace-filled power that gives a person the gift of a new being. It is this action that is called a wedding.
The wedding is a certain divine service during which the Church asks the Lord for blessings and sanctification of the family life of Christian spouses, as well as the birth and worthy upbringing of children. I would like to note that the wedding of every Christian couple is a rather young tradition. The first Christians did not know the rite of the wedding, which is practiced in the modern Orthodox Church. The ancient Christian Church arose in the Roman Empire, which had its own concept of marriage and its own traditions of concluding a marriage union. Marriage in ancient Rome was purely legal and took the form of an agreement between the two parties. Marriage was preceded by a "conspiracy", or betrothal, at which the material aspects of the marriage could be discussed.
Without violating or abolishing the law that was in force in the Roman Empire, the early Christian Church gave marriage, concluded according to state law, a new understanding based on the New Testament teaching, likening the union of husband and wife to the union of Christ and the Church, and considered the married couple a living member of the Church. After all, the Church of Christ is able to exist under any state formations, state structures and legislation.
Christians believed that there were two necessary conditions for marriage. The first is earthly, marriage must be legal, it must satisfy the laws that operate in real life, it must exist in the reality that exists on Earth in this era. The second condition is that marriage must be blessed, gracious, church.
Of course, Christians could not approve of those marriages that pagans allowed in the Roman state: concubinage - long-term cohabitation of a man with a free, unmarried woman and closely related marriages. Marriage relations of Christians had to comply with the moral rules of the New Testament teaching. Therefore, Christians entered into marriage with the blessing of the bishop. The intention to marry was announced in the Church before the conclusion of the civil contract. Marriages not announced in the church community, according to Tertullian, were equated with fornication and adultery.
Tertullian wrote that true marriage was performed in the presence of the Church, sanctified by prayer and sealed with the Eucharist. The joint life of Christian spouses began with joint participation in the Eucharist. The first Christians could not imagine their life without the Eucharist, outside the Eucharistic community, in the center of which stood the Lord's Supper. Those entering into marriage came to the Eucharistic assembly, and, with the blessing of the bishop, communed the Holy Mysteries of Christ together. All those present knew that these people began on this day a new life together at the cup of Christ, accepting it as a gift of grace of unity and love, which will unite them in eternity.
Thus, the first Christians entered into marriage both through a church blessing and through a legal contract accepted in the Roman state. This order remained unchanged during the early Christianization of the empire. The first Christian sovereigns, condemning secret, unregistered marriages, in their laws speak only of the civil legal side of marriage, without mentioning church marriage.
Later, the Byzantine emperors prescribed marriage only with the blessing of the Church. But at the same time, the Church has long participated in the betrothal, giving it a morally binding force. Until the wedding became obligatory for all Christians, church betrothal, followed by the actual beginning of marital relations, was regarded as a valid conclusion of marriage.
The wedding ceremony that we can observe now took shape approximately by the 9th-10th centuries in Byzantium. It is a kind of synthesis of church worship and Greco-Roman folk wedding customs. For example, wedding rings in ancient times had a purely practical meaning. The nobility had rings-seals that were used to fasten legal documents written on wax tablets. Exchanging seals, the spouses entrusted each other with all their property as evidence of mutual trust and fidelity. Thanks to this, in the Sacrament of Marriage, the rings retained their original symbolic meaning - they began to denote fidelity, unity, and the inseparability of the family union. The crowns placed on the heads of the newlyweds entered the rite of marriage thanks to Byzantine ceremonials and acquired a Christianized meaning - they testify to the royal dignity of the newlyweds, who will build their kingdom, their world, their family.
So why is there a special meaning of the New Testament teaching about marriage, why is marriage called in the Church of Christ precisely the Sacrament, and not just a beautiful rite or tradition? The Old Testament doctrine of marriage saw the main purpose and essence of marriage in the reproduction of the race. Childbearing was the most obvious sign of God's blessing. The most striking example of God's favor to the righteous was the promise given by God to Abraham for his obedience: “Blessing, I will bless you and, multiplying, I will multiply your seed, like the stars of heaven and like sand on the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the cities of their enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:17-18).
Although the Old Testament teaching did not have a clear idea of an afterlife, and man, at best, could only hope for an illusory existence in the so-called "sheol" (which can only be very inaccurately translated as "hell"), the promise given to Abraham assumed, that life can become eternal through offspring. The Jews were waiting for their Messiah, who would arrange some new Israeli kingdom, in which the bliss of the Jewish people would come. It was the participation in this bliss of the descendants of this or that person that was understood as his personal salvation. Therefore, childlessness was considered among the Jews as a punishment from God, for it deprived a person of the possibility of personal salvation.
In contrast to the Old Testament teaching, marriage in the New Testament appears to a person as a special spiritual unity of Christian spouses, continuing in eternity. In the pledge of eternal unity and love, the meaning of the New Testament doctrine of marriage is seen. The doctrine of marriage, as a state intended only for childbearing, is rejected by Christ in the Gospel: “In the Kingdom of God they do not marry and are not given in marriage, but abide as the angels of God” (Matt. 22, 23-32). The Lord clearly makes it clear that in eternity there will be no carnal, earthly relationships between spouses, but there will be spiritual ones.
Therefore, and, first of all, it makes it possible for the spiritual unity of the spouses, continued in eternity, for "love never ceases, although prophecies will cease, and tongues will be silent, and knowledge will be abolished" (1 Cor. 13, 8). Ap. Paul likened marriage to the unity of Christ and the Church: “Wives,” he wrote in Ephesians, “be subject to your husbands as to the Lord; for the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the Head of the Church, and He is also the Savior of the body. But just as the Church obeys Christ, so do wives obey their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:22-25). The holy apostle attached to marriage the significance of the Sacrament: “A man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church” (Eph. 5:31-32). The Church calls marriage a Sacrament because, in a mysterious and incomprehensible way for us, the Lord Himself combines two people. Marriage is a sacrament for life and for Eternal Life.
Speaking of marriage as a spiritual unity of spouses, in no case should we forget that marriage itself becomes a means of continuing and multiplying the human race. Therefore, childbearing is saving, for it is established by God: “And God blessed them, and God said to them: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it” (Gen. 1, 28). About salvific childbearing teaches ap. Paul: "A woman ... will be saved through childbearing if she continues in faith and love and holiness with chastity" (1 Tim 2:14-15).
Thus, childbearing is one of the goals of marriage, but is by no means an end in itself. The Church calls upon its faithful children to raise their children in the Orthodox faith. Only then does childbearing become salvific, when children become, together with their parents, a “home church”, growing in spiritual perfection and knowledge of God.
To be continued…
Orthodox Christian moral theology
Professor I. M. Andreevsky
APPENDIX
Prof. AND. 
M. Andreev. Marriage and family (In the Orthodox-Russian sense)
The problem of marriage is as old as the world.
The biblical story of the creation of the world is full of superhuman wisdom. It alone can withstand the strictest, most captious criticism. That is why most of the greatest scientists believe in God and in the revealed books, i.e. to the Bible.
Biblical images, in addition to their depth and complexity, are also artistic images, which is why they have attracted and will continue to attract the attention of the greatest representatives of all arts: poetry, music, painting and sculpture.
In order to understand the full depth of the problem of marriage, we must begin to consider this problem from a religious point of view.
The first marriage was the marriage of Adam and Eve in Paradise. They were created by God and their marriage was blessed, as the whole earth was blessed and everything that was done on it at that time.
According to the biblical story, Adam was created first, i.e. a man, then Eve was created from his rib, for God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone; Let us make him a helper fit for him.”
And the man said, “This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called wife, for she was taken from her husband.
The Apostle Paul added to these words: “This mystery is great!”
Truly, marriage is a great mystery!
Christianity not only confirmed the Old Testament truth about marriage as a sacrament of dual unity (the two will be one flesh), but also gave a new deep prototype of marriage: the unity of Christ and the Church.
Regarding the relationship between husband and wife, the apostle Paul says: “Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. Because the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church. But just as the Church obeys Christ, so do wives obey their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for. So also husbands should love their wives as their bodies: he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it, just as the Lord does the Church. So let each of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife fear her husband” (Eph. 5). Of course, “afraid” should be understood not in the philistine worldly sense of slavish fear, but in a religious one: “afraid” of offending, “afraid” of offending, “afraid” of doing something unpleasant to a loved one, “afraid” of losing his love and disposition, and, finally, “ afraid to receive a just and deserved punishment.
This is how a Christian marriage should be.
In a Christian marriage, the man should be the head, and the woman should be his corresponding (completing) helper. A man - a husband, must love his wife, like Christ the Church, i.e. must, love more than himself, must be ready to lay down his life for his wife.
A wife, in response to such selfless love, must submit to her beloved.
Philistine thought does not agree with this. Modern women usually say: “Well, no! To let my husband push me around! Never! Vice versa! I always want and will command my husband!”
There is a deep misunderstanding, thoughtlessness, slander on Christian marriage in these words. Why push around? Indeed, in a true Christian marriage, a loving husband is worthy of trust and selflessness!
If the modern “ideal” of marriage is that in no case should the husband be the head, then they are looking for a husband who cannot be the head.
Instead of marriage - dual unity, in which the masculine principle of love is paramount, a different marriage is obtained, in which both parties are equally non-selfless, love only themselves, their self (hence the words: "male" and "female").
The Christian Church, among its seven sacraments, also has the sacrament of marriage. The Church blesses those who are married, reminding them of the ideal of marriage.
The Sacrament of Marriage is a bodily-spiritual unity, a dual unity of a man and a woman.
Crowns over the heads of those who are getting married are symbols, primarily symbols of martyrdom, for a blessed marriage will certainly bring with it a lot of suffering. First of all, suffering begins in fulfillment of the covenant: “bear one another’s burdens!”
How far mankind has gone from the basic religious paradisiacal principles of life, built on universal mutual love, is evident from the enormous labor that is required to realize this love only among two beings: and a wife.
In addition to the hardships that husband and wife bring to each other in marriage, they receive other hardships when children appear.
Sorrows in marriage are inevitable, and marriage is always a special kind of martyrdom!
Do those who are getting married think about it? Is this sacrament always taken seriously? - Almost never!
But the crowns over the heads of the couple are not only a symbol of martyrdom. They are at the same time a symbol of help from above, a symbol of victory, reward, triumph and glory!
In the sacrament of marriage, the Church not only crowns martyrdom, but also crowns with the promise of help from above and the promise of the triumph of goodness. Per aspera ad astra!
It is a wonderful time when loving each other - a man and a woman - the bride and groom. But how much more beautiful, in a Christian marriage, is the time when they become husband and wife!
In love between the bride and groom there is not yet the fullness of love.
Nadson has a poem: “Only the morning of love is good!”
With deep subtle sadness, this poem notes that this often happens in real life. Not many can stand this temptation.
For whom "only the morning of love is good", he does not know true love. For this, of course, the bride is always better than the wife and the groom is better than the husband.
One of the modern songs sings: “We love the Motherland like a bride!” By this they want to express the greatest, best love. This song is not random. Modernity knows almost no love for a wife, which is better than love for a bride!
How much deeper is Blok's cry of painful love for Russia: “Oh, my Russia! My wife. »
Here "wife" - symbolizes the greatest, deepest love that is possible in life.
In a true Christian marriage, love never wanes. On the contrary, over the years it grows, expands, deepens, spiritualizes. Such love, “wide as the sea, the life of the shore cannot contain,” and here, on temporary earth, it begins to turn into eternal love and becomes truly “stronger than death!”
That is how it should be! This is how a Christian marriage should be.
But what happens in real life?
Leo Tolstoy said that the deepest tragedies of life are the tragedy of the bedroom. Indeed, the tragedy of marriage is very often played out in the bedroom.
The lack of harmony in bodily relations, in the presence of spiritual unity, is sometimes deeply tragic.
The mismatch of sexual temperaments often leads to suicide (see Durkheim - "Suicide"). Tyutchev considered suicide and love to be twins.
The intimate moments of marriage are very rarely depicted in highly artistic poetry (another thing is in tabloid novels). This requires an in-depth aesthetic overcoming of natural ethical obstacles.
Such overcoming is Pushkin's famous poem - "No, I do not value rebellious pleasure", in which Pushkin depicted the harmony of bodily marital relations, in the presence of different sexual temperaments.
About this poem, such a chaste person as S. T. Aksakov exclaimed, “turning pale with delight”: “How he told about it!”
The unusually masculine temperament of Pushkin and the equally unusually feminine temperament of his wife N. N. Goncharova gave harmony to bodily relations. Physically, Pushkin was happy in marriage. But there is absolutely no spiritual unity. And the marriage ended tragically: a duel and the death of Pushkin.
In Yuri Verkhovsky's poem "Is that all?" - the state of disharmony of bodily and spiritual relationships is wonderfully subtly and artistically depicted. But then a subtle hint is given about the possibility of future harmonization of relations on the basis of mutual sensitivity:
"And it's all? you said
Bowing faded features,
In response to the whirlwind of happiness
It seemed in a storm of voluptuousness!
And it's all? Fog covered
Radiance of joyful wings.
I hesitated, bowed before you -
Extinguished suddenly and singed.
Disharmonies can be much deeper and more tragic (See "Life" by Maupassant, "Eugen the Unfortunate" by Ernst Toller, "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky and others.).
In Russian philosophical literature, there is a great work on the topic of these disharmony by V. V. Rozanov - “People of the Moonlight”.
When a child or children appears in a marriage, then the marriage turns into a family, in which no longer dual unity, trinity and polyunity of people begin to be realized.
Marriage is the reunion of two sexes, i.e. halves to a single whole. But the floor is not a simple homogeneous half. A man and a woman are different elements, and marriage is not just a dual unity, but something new (similarly, hydrogen and oxygen are water). In marriage, the spouses get something completely new, which they can never get while being apart. The symbol of this new is the child, which is the real realization of both dual unity (for in him alone are both father and mother) and novelty (his own new personality).
In every child - moreover, there is a breath of holiness - ("theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"). The child, as it were, revives the former and lost holiness of the parents.
The ideal human body is beautiful.
The body of a woman is mostly beautiful (“beautiful sex”), but the most perfect, most beautiful beauty is the beauty of an infant, which Raphael portrayed with an ideal and deep understanding.
One of the remarkable artists of the word - I. A. Goncharov - wrote about the babies of Raphael: His babies always seem to be drenched in the rays of the sun - so soft, tender, childishly puffy and warm in their forms under his brush that they seem to have no contours. The beauty of his babies is universal, universal beauty without nationality. She is in a look of purity and ignorance, alien to any damage and shadow, she is in a smile, she is in tears - she is, finally, in this infantile grace of movements, which a child cannot break, no matter how he grimace. And all babies of tender age are more or less Raphael babies.”
I. A. Goncharov sees Raphael’s special merit in the perfect transfer in painting - “the grace and purity of eternal childish beauty!”
The most beautiful phenomenon in life is the image of a mother with a baby in her arms.
A childless marriage is always flawed.
A woman (made from a “rib”) is also always a kind of child. Ap. Paul calls women “weak vessels.” This should never be forgotten by a man - a husband!
Modern philistine psychology does not understand this at all, and modern “emancipated” women consider such a view for women even “offensive”.
“What God has joined together, let no man separate,” teaches the Church.
Divorce, as a principle, is religiously forbidden. The Orthodox Church allows divorce very rarely and only with the blessing of the bishop.
From a biological point of view, divorce is also a tragedy, a biological tragedy. The biological fact is extremely interesting, when a black child was born to a woman from a white husband, because before this woman had another, black husband! What great significance, therefore, even biologically, is the first husband!
When children appear in a marriage, the husband and wife change (and very deeply) - turning into a father and mother. This is the touchstone of true marriage.
The love of the bride and groom deepens and spiritualizes in the love of husband and wife and reaches its peak in the love of father and mother. In a Christian marriage, children bind their parents very tightly with spiritual bonds. Christian marriage becomes a Christian family. A courageous man - a father, becomes even more "masculine" and is not afraid to do a "women's" business - babysitting children, if necessary. Feminine woman - mother becomes even more feminine. A woman-mother - in a Christian marriage becomes the best wife (and the father - the best husband).
After all, a husband is not only a husband, but also a father, i.e. the one without which there is and could not be motherhood. Children need not only a mother, but also a father, whom a mother can never replace. And a real mother feels this, knows, understands and becomes a better wife, the more she is a mother, i.e. the more she loves children.
But not only because of the love of children, a mother becomes a better wife. There is one more condition. The fact is that in motherhood a woman can lose herself, dissolve in children to the ground, lose the sense of her "I". But communication with her husband saves her from this. In the most selfless love for her husband, a woman will never completely dissolve if there are children. On the contrary, she will feel her feminine individuality more deeply.
From a religious point of view, contraceptives and abortion are completely unacceptable. Abortion is infanticide, and contraception is fornication.
We often do not attach due importance to the words that we meet in the New Testament: in the Gospel, in the Apostolic Epistles. And there is an idea that completely changes the view of marriage, both in comparison with what was and in comparison with what has become. I'll try to explain with an example.
In what relation are the various parts and details of, for example, a car? There are many of them, a car is assembled from them, because it is nothing but a collection of correctly connected parts into one whole. Therefore, it can be disassembled, put on shelves, anything can be changed, replaced
Is a person the same or something fundamentally different? After all, it also seems to have many "details" - members and organs, also naturally, harmoniously coordinated in the body. Nevertheless, we understand that the body is not made up of an arm, a leg, a head, and so on, is not formed from a combination of the corresponding organs and members, but is a single and indivisible organism that lives one and the same life.
So here it is Christian marriage- this is not just a combination of two "details" - a man and a woman, in order to get a new "car", which is indifferent to what is subordinated to what in it. Marriage is a living body, and such an interaction of members in which everything is in conscious interdependence and reasonable mutual subordination. He is not some kind of absolute monarchy in which the wife must submit to her husband, or the husband become the wife's slave. Orthodox marriage- and not that equality, in which you can’t figure out who is right and who is to blame, who should, in the end, obey whom, when everyone insists on his own. So what's next? Quarrels, bickering, who will win this time, at least take out the saints (icons). And all this in a long time or soon leads to a complete catastrophe of the family - its disintegration. With what experiences and troubles!
Yes, spouses should be equal. But equality and equality are completely different concepts, the confusion of which threatens not only the family, but also any society. Thus, the general and the soldier, as individuals and citizens, are, of course, equal, but they have and should have different rights. In the case of their equality, the army will turn into a chaotic gathering of people, unable to carry out its mission. And in a family, what kind of equality is possible, so that with the complete equality of spouses, its integral unity is preserved? Orthodoxy offers the following answer to this vital question.
Relationships between family members, and especially between spouses, should be built not on the legal principle, but on the principle of a living organic body. Each family member is not a separate pea among others, but a living cell of a single organism, in which, naturally, there should be harmony, but which is impossible, where there is no order, where there is anarchy and chaos.
I would like to bring one more image that helps to reveal the Christian view of the relationship of spouses. A person has a mind, a heart. Just as the mind does not mean the brain, but the ability to think, reason and decide, so the heart means not the organ that pumps blood, but the very center of the human being - the ability to feel, experience, revitalize the whole body.
This image - when viewed as a whole, and not individually - speaks well of the peculiarities of male and female nature. A man really lives more with his head. "Ratio" is, as a rule, primary in his life. A woman lives more with her heart, feeling. But both the mind and the heart are inextricably linked and absolutely necessary for a person, so in the family for its full and healthy existence it is absolutely necessary that the husband and wife do not oppose, but complement each other, being, in essence, the mind and heart single body of the family. Both "organs" are equally necessary for the entire "organism" of the family and should be correlated with each other not according to the principle of subordination, but precisely complementarity. Otherwise, there will be no normal family.
Now the practical question arises, how can this image be applied to the real life of the family? For example, spouses buy or not some things. Her: "I want them to be!" - He: "Nothing like that, we can do without them!" And the passions begin. What's next? Separation between mind and heart? Maybe tear a living body into two parts and throw them on different sides?
Christ says that a man and a woman in marriage are no longer two, but one flesh (Matthew 19:6), one body. The Apostle Paul very clearly explains what this unity and integrity of the flesh means: If the foot says: I do not belong to the body, because I am not the hand, then does it really not belong to the body? And if the ear says: I do not belong to the body, because I am not the eye, then does it really not belong to the body? The eye cannot tell the hand: I do not need you; or also head to feet: I don't need you. Therefore, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it (1 Cor. 12:15:16:21:26).
But how do we treat our own body? The Apostle Paul writes: no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it (Eph. 5:29). St. John Chrysostom says that husband and wife are like hands and eyes. When the hand hurts, the eyes cry. When eyes cry, hands wipe away tears.
Here it is worth remembering the commandment, which was originally given to mankind and confirmed by Jesus Christ. When it comes to the final decision, and there is no mutual agreement, it is required that someone has the moral, in conscience, the right to have the last word. And, of course, it should be the voice of the mind and the need for voluntary submission of the heart to it. This commandment is justified by life itself. After all, we know very well how sometimes we really want something, but we are told: “This is not useful.” And we recognize these words as reasonable and voluntarily obey them. So the heart, as Christianity teaches, must be controlled by the mind. It is clear what we are talking about in principle - the priority of the husband's voice.
But a mind without a heart is terrible. This depicts the famous novel by the English writer Mary Shelley "Frankenstein". In this work, the main character, Frankenstein, is depicted as a very intelligent creature, but without a heart - not an anatomical organ of the body, but the ability to love, show mercy, sympathy, generosity, etc. Therefore, Frankenstein and a person simply cannot be called.
However, the heart without the control of the mind inevitably turns life into chaos. One has only to imagine the freedom of uncontrolled desires, desires, feelings ...
Thus, the husband, personifying the mind, can and should streamline the life of the family (ideally, normally, in real life, other husbands behave completely crazy). That is, the unity of husband and wife should be carried out in the manner of the interaction of the mind and heart in the human body. If the mind is healthy, like a barometer, it accurately determines the direction of our inclinations: in some cases, approving, in others, rejecting, so as not to destroy the whole body. That's the way we are.
Christianity calls for such an agreement between spouses. A husband should treat his wife the way he treats his body. None of the normal people beats, cuts, deliberately inflicts any kind of suffering on their own body. This is the main principle of life, which is most consistent with what is called love. When we eat, drink, dress, heal, then for what reason we do it - of course, out of love for our body. And this is natural, and it should be so. Just as natural should be a similar attitude of a husband to his wife and a wife to her husband.
Report of the Archbishop of Tobolsk and Tyumen Dimitri at the section of the same name of the XIV International Christmas Educational Readings
Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters!
Orthodoxy is not just a duty that we perform on Sunday morning and forget about when we leave the church; Orthodoxy is a way of life. And the way of life includes the totality of habits and views, thoughts and actions: lifestyle and way of life. For us Orthodox, Christianity is "our daily bread." A Christian strives for Christ and His Church, and not for the ideals of the modern world, which in many ways do not correspond to the Christian way of life or distort it. This is especially noticeable in relation to the family. First of all, she was subjected to the corrupting influence of secular society, which distorted love and marriage.
Now love is often mistaken for love, and this spiritual (not spiritual) feeling is by no means enough for a true family life. Falling in love can accompany love (however, not necessarily) - but it passes too easily; and then what? “At every step, we have cases when people get married because they “fell in love” with one another, but how often such marriages are fragile! Often such love is called “physiological”. When the “physiological love” subsides, people who in marriage, either violate fidelity, maintaining external marital relations, or get divorced" (1).
How does the Church view marriage?
The Church sees in marriage the secret of love - love not only human, but also divine.
“Marriage is a sacrament of love,” says St. John Chrysostom, and explains that marriage is a sacrament because it exceeds the boundaries of our mind, for in it two become one. Blessed Augustine also calls marriage love a sacrament (sacramentum). The grace-filled character of marital love is inextricably linked with this, for the Lord is present where people are united by mutual love (Matt. 18:20).
The liturgical books of the Orthodox Church also speak of marriage as a union of love. “Oh hedgehog send them love more perfect, more peaceful,” we read in the aftermath of the betrothal. In the course of the wedding, the Church prays for the gift of “love for each other” to the newlyweds.
In itself, marital love in relation to spouses to each other is mysterious and has a shade of adoration. “Marital love is the strongest type of love. Other impulses are also strong, but this impulse has such a strength that it never weakens. And in the next century, faithful spouses will fearlessly meet and will abide forever with Christ and with each other in great joy,” writes Chrysostom. In addition to this side of marital love, there is another equally important one in it.
“Christian marital love is not only joy, but also a feat, and has nothing in common with that “free love”, which, according to the widespread frivolous view, should replace the supposedly outdated institution of marriage. In love, we not only receive another, but also give ourselves entirely, and without the complete death of personal egoism, there can be no resurrection for a new exalted life ... Christianity recognizes only love that is ready for unlimited sacrifices, only love that is ready to lay down its soul for a brother for a friend (John 15:13; 1 John 3:16, etc.), for only through such love does an individual rise to the mystical life of the Holy Trinity and the Church. This is how marital love should be. Christianity knows no other marital love than love like the love of Christ for His Church, Who gave Himself for her (Eph. 5:25)” (2).
St. John Chrysostom in his inspired sermons teaches that a husband should not stop at any torment and even death, if this is necessary for the good of his wife. “I consider you more precious than my soul,” the husband says to his wife at Chrysostom.
“Perfect” marital love, requested in the rite of betrothal, is love ready for self-sacrifice, and the deep meaning lies in the fact that in Orthodox churches the church hymn “Holy Martyr” enters the wedding rite.
What is marriage for?
Marriage is not just a "way of arranging" earthly existence, it is not a "utilitarian" means for procreation - although it includes these aspects as well. First of all, marriage is the mystery of the appearance of the Kingdom of God in this world. “When the holy Apostle Paul calls marriage a “mystery” (or “sacrament”, which sounds the same in Greek), he means that in marriage a person not only satisfies the needs of his earthly, worldly existence, but also takes a step towards to the purpose for which he was created, that is, he enters into the kingdom of eternal life. Calling marriage a "sacrament," the Apostle asserts that marriage is preserved in the kingdom of eternity. The husband becomes one being, one "flesh" with his wife, just as the Son of God ceased to be only God, became also a man so that His people could become His Body. This is why the gospel narrative so often compares the Kingdom of God to a wedding feast. (3)
Marriage is established already in paradise, established directly by God Himself. The main source of church teaching on marriage - the Bible - does not say that the institution of marriage arose sometime later as a state or church institution. Neither the Church nor the state is the source of marriage. On the contrary, marriage is the source of both Church and State. Marriage precedes all social and religious organizations. (4)
The first marriage was concluded by "God's grace." In the first marriage, the husband and wife are the bearers of the highest earthly power, they are sovereigns to whom the rest of the world is subject (Gen. 1, 28). The family is the first form of the Church, it is the "small church", as Chrysostom calls it, and at the same time the source of the state as an organization of power, since, according to the Bible, the basis of any power of a person over a person is in the words of God about the power of a husband over wife: he will rule over you (Genesis 3:16). Thus, the family is not only a small church, but also a small state. Therefore, the attitude of the Church towards marriage had the character of recognition. This idea is well expressed in the gospel narrative of marriage in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11). She saw the sacrament of marriage not in the wedding ceremony, but in the very union of husband and wife into one single being through consent and love. Therefore, the holy fathers often call the mutual love of spouses a sacrament (for example, Chrysostom), the indestructibility of marriage (for example, Ambrose of Milan, Blessed Augustine), but they never call the wedding itself a sacrament. Attaching the main importance to the subjective factor of marriage - consent, they make another, objective factor - the form of marriage - dependent on the first, on the will of the parties and give the parties themselves freedom in choosing the form of marriage, advising the church form, if there are no obstacles for it. In other words, during the first nine centuries of its history, the Church recognized the optionality of the marriage form (5).
How does the Church view marriage? Man is not a purely spiritual being, man is not an angel. We consist not only of the soul, but also of the body, matter; and this material element of our being is not something accidental that can be discarded. God created man with soul and body, that is, both spiritual and material, it is this combination of spirit, soul and body that is called man in the Bible and in the Gospel. "The intimacy of husband and wife is part of the human nature created by God, God's plan for human life.
That is why such communication cannot be carried out by chance, with anyone, for the sake of one's own pleasure or passion, but must always be associated with complete surrender of oneself and complete fidelity to another, only then does it become a source of spiritual satisfaction and joy for those who love "(6)" Neither a man or a woman cannot be used simply as partners for pleasure, even if they themselves agree to it ... When Jesus Christ says: "everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:28), He forbids us even in our thoughts to perceive another person as an object of pleasure. Nothing is unclean in itself, but everything, without exception, can become so through misuse. The same thing can happen and, alas, very often happens with the highest Divine gift to man - with love. And in place of holy conjugal love, which naturally includes carnal relationships, a dirty passion, a thirst for possession, can stand. But in no case should an equal sign be placed between them ”(7).
It is very important to remember that marriage is a long and complex spiritual path, in which there is a place for one's chastity, one's abstinence. Where intimate life occupies too much space, the family is in danger of falling into passion, and the task of the family, as an integral life, remains unresolved ... As soon as spiritual ties are empty in the family, it inevitably becomes a simple sexual cohabitation, sometimes descending to real fornication. which has taken a legal form.
It was said above that procreation is not the sole purpose of Marriage. But Marriage certainly includes (at least potentially) this side as well. And how it flourishes, how it is transformed in the light of the truly Christian teaching on matrimony! The birth of children and caring for them in the family are the natural fruit of the love of a husband and wife, the greatest guarantee of their union. Husband and wife should think of their intimate relationship not only as their own satisfaction or the fulfillment of the fullness of the life of the individual, but also as participation in the bringing into being of a new being, a new personality, destined to live forever.
Intimate relationships are not limited to the birth of children, they exist no less for unity in love, for mutual enrichment and joy of spouses. But with all the lofty significance that Christianity recognizes as carnal union, the Church has always unconditionally rejected all attempts to "deify" it. Our time is characterized by attempts to free carnal extramarital union from associations with sin, guilt and shame. All the champions of this "emancipation" do not understand, do not see that moment, which, perhaps, is central in the Christian vision of the world. "According to the Christian worldview, human nature, despite the fact that it is ontologically good, is a fallen nature, and not partially fallen, not in such a way that some of the properties of a person remained untouched and pure, but in its entirety ... Love and lust - hopelessly mixed up, and it is impossible to separate and isolate one from the other ... It is for this reason that the Church condemns as truly demonic those ideas and trends that - in various combinations with each other - call for sexual liberation" (8).
But is man, in his present, fallen state, capable of true, perfect love?
Christianity is not only a commandment, but a revelation and a gift of love.
In order for the love of a man and a woman to be as perfect as God created it, it must be unique, indissoluble, endless and divine. The Lord not only gave this institution, but also gives the power to carry it out in the Sacrament of Christian marriage in the Church. In it, man and woman are given the opportunity to become one spirit and one flesh.
High is the teaching of Christ about true Marriage! Involuntarily you ask: is it possible in real life? "His disciples say to him: if such is the duty of a man to his wife (i.e., if the ideal of marriage is so high), then it is better not to marry. He said to them: not everyone can accommodate this word, but to whom it is given"
(Matthew 19:10-11). Christ, as it were, says: “Yes, the ideal of marriage is high, the duties of a husband to his wife are difficult; not everyone can do this ideal, not everyone can accommodate My word (teaching) about marriage, but to whom it is given, with the help of God, this ideal is nevertheless achieved” . "Better not get married!" This is, as it were, an involuntary exclamation of the disciples, before whom the duties of a husband to his wife were inscribed. Before the greatness of the task - to transform the sinful nature - a weak person trembles equally, whether he enters into marriage, whether he takes the veil as a monk. Unity in Divine love, which constitutes the Kingdom of God, is given rudimentarily on earth and must be nurtured by achievement. For love is both joy, and tenderness, and rejoicing for one another, but love is also a feat: "Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2).
1. Prot. V. Zenkovsky. On the threshold of maturity M., 1991. pp. 31-32.
2. S.V. Troitsky. Christian philosophy of marriage. Paris, 1932. P.98.
3. Prot. John Meyendorff. Marriage and the Eucharist. Klin: Christian Life Foundation. 2000. P.8.
4. Prof. S.V. Troitsky. Christian philosophy of marriage. Paris, 1932. P.106.
5. Ibid., p. 138-139.
6. Prot. Thomas Hopko. Fundamentals of Orthodoxy. New York, 1987. p.318.
7. Ibid., p. 320.
8. Prot. Alexander Shmeman. Water and Spirit. M., 1993.S.176.