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To: ilovesarah2012; proud American in Canada; jboot

I was speaking of the sacramental life of the Church. I know about church-related adoption agencies (see my first post); receptions in church halls are (but should not be) a gray area.

Perhaps churches should get out of the civil marriage business. Then if an Orthodox couple (man and woman, of course) wanted to get married, they would first go to a justice of the peace and have a simple, low-cost civil “wedding”, after they would NOT be considered married by the Church. Then they would have a Big Fat Greek (or Serbian, Russian, OCA, etc.) Orthodox Wedding in the Church, presided over by an Orthodox Priest. Then they would be considered REALLY married. Receptions in church halls could be restricted to celebrations of Sacramental Weddings.

Such a system was how it was in communist countries, and is still followed in several countries today. It would tend to devalued civil “weddings”. But it is not Christians who have devalued them, but the disgusting “gay” activists and their parasite lawyers, judges, and liberal protestant clergy.


24 posted on 08/19/2011 9:32:40 AM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: Honorary Serb
Perhaps churches should get out of the civil marriage business.

With all due respect, friend, I cannot imagine a more wicked solution. Marriage is a sacrament established by God for His people. It is first and foremost and only the business of the Church.

If anything it is the state that should get out of the marriage business. The state can render no other sacrament, nor would the Church have permitted them to, when the Church still had the power to constrain. Will the state now render all the sacraments? Of course not! Why then should they be permitted to officiate at marriage?

25 posted on 08/19/2011 9:53:41 AM PDT by jboot
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