Pan-Orthodox Council Pulled Back From Blessing Marriages of Orthodox, Non-Orthodox Christians

Catholic Culture ^ | 7/1/16

[marshmallow]

The recent Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church did not achieve its original goal of unifying the discipline of the Sacrament of Marriage among the 14 Orthodox churches, according to a L’Osservatore Romano report.

On June 23 and 24, participants discussed the council’s fifth document, “The Sacrament of Marriage and its Impediments”-- a topic first placed on the conciliar agenda in 1961.

After discussing the Sacrament of Marriage, the final document stated that “a civil marriage between a man and a woman registered in accordance with the law lacks sacramental character since it is a simple legalized cohabitation recognized by the State, different from a marriage blessed by God and the Church. The members of the Church who contract a civil marriage ought to be regarded with pastoral responsibility, which is necessary to help them understand the value of the sacrament of marriage and the blessings connected with it.”

“The Church does not allow for her members to contract same-sex unions or any other form of cohabitation apart from marriage,” the council fathers continued, as they lamented “the frightening increase in the number of divorces, abortions, and other problems of family life.”

Turning to impediments to marriage, the document confirmed the Orthodox practice of tolerating a second or third marriage following annulment or dissolution-- leading Chania Hyacinthe Destivelle, the author of the L’Osservatore Romano article, to state that it would have been “interesting” if the council fathers had explained how a union earlier defined as “indissoluble” could be dissolved.

[Fai Mao]

The question should be phrased: Do both (man and woman) parties accept the Nicaean Creed? If the answer is “Yes” then fine.

But then I am a low church Protestant

[rmichaelj]

?, I suppose as far as determining whether the man and woman are “Christians”, that is a good starting point, but even there people think the Niceness creed means different things (I doubt your definition of Catholic in the creed matches what a Catholic is supposed to believe.

But the real problem is that church leaders in general have been so bad at holding to what marriage is (don’t get me started about the state of most catholic marriage tribunals) that even if one is marrying another catholic, you have to be sure that the other person has the same understanding of marriage that you do. And I mean reeeaaallly know, not just because they tell you they do. Heaven knows that it is unlikely the bishop or marriage tribunal will actually back you up.

At one point if you took the effort to appeal to the Roman Rotary, they actually would try to defend the marriage (over 90% upheld). But with pope francis, I’m not sure this would still be the case.

[Bayard]

Essentially says Civil marriages are meaningless in the eyes of God. Am I reading this right? If so I agree.