[Mrs. Don-o]

You wrote: "And, there is no substitute for an official declaration of nullity...However, if the annulment is initially denied, one can appeal to Rome."

Thanks for your prompt answer to my question.

Does that go for all of the Eastern churches who are in communion with the Pope? Melkites, Maronites, Chaldeans, Armenians, Ukrainians and all the rest?

What does "internal forum" mean?

[sanormal]

Internal forum refers to the sanctity of the confessional, that is the priviledged and private interaction between you and your pastor. It has been widely and improperly used in some places as a way for pastors to give their faithful parishioners who are in irregular marital situations the "green light" to recieve Holy Communion.

[visualops]

sanormal is correct in part. The Internal Forum is the forum of conscience. This of course encompasses Confession, among other things.
Regarding the "internal forum solution", this is one of the best explanations of it I've come across:

the use of the so-called "internal forum solution" for cases of divorced-and-remarried persons who are personally convinced that their previous marriage was invalid is unacceptable, unnecessary and pastorally unsound. The canonical judicial procedures established by the Code of Canon Law to examine claims that a previous marriage was invalid are, in our view, comprehensive and responsive enough to declare invalid all marriages which truly are. As Msgr. Mario F. Pompedda, now dean of the Rota, remarked: "It would be purely academic to hypothesize about the existence of cases in which moral certitude could be reached only in the internal forum, that is, in conscience; such would be so rare that they should be considered practically nonexistent."[12] This is especially true since Canon 1536.2, combined with Canon 1679, allows tribunals to grant a declaration of nullity, in the absence of other "objective" proofs of a previous marriage's invalidity, on the basis of personal depositions of the parties themselves. The canons, however, further require that these personal depositions of the parties be corroborated by character witnesses for the parties, if possible, and by other relevant facts and supporting evidence ().[13] These canons were added to the Code of Canon Law when it was revised in 1983 precisely to address cases in which proofs of invalidity-other than the declaration of the parties-are not available. Their presence in the code refutes one of the principal arguments for the use of the so-called "internal forum solution," making any use of it unnecessary and unacceptable.