[The_Reader_David]

I wonder about the context of the remark. Our Lord in some of his comments on divorce and remarriage made an exception for unchastity, which you Latins have ignored in your canon law, and which we Orthodox have instantiated in ecclesiastical divorces in which the innocent party can be given permission to remarry — not just in cases of the divorce of an adulterous spouse by the aggrieved innocent spouse, but for divorces of a husband by a wife whom he has tried to force into prostitution (a slightly different application of the for porneia exception).

Jesus’s comments also call only the party initiating the divorce and remarrying an adulterer (with the exception for porneia), but say nothing about a chaste spouse unjustly divorced being an adulterer should she (under Jewish law it would have been she) or he remarry. There is room for modification of your rigorist stand without violating the plain meaning of Our Lord’s injunctions on the matter, and without opening the floodgates to imitating the anything goes attitude of secular Western society. (Just as there is room for us Orthodox to tighten up our application of economia, often applied a bit too freely IMHO, to these matters.)

[impimp]

The exceptions Jesus referred to are a grounds for annulment. The word He used related to those who have strong blood ties.

[Petrosius]

You have our Lord's remarks wrong. The exception is if the marriage itself is porneia, not that porneia justifies the divorce of a valid marriage. Your reading makes no sense within the context of our Lord's response to the question if a person could divorce "for any cause whatever." The Pharisees were trying to put him in the middle of the debate between the school of Hillel and that of Shammai. If your reading were correct he would just have said that only for porneia and that Shammai was right. The context of his remarks, however, was against any divorce and that both were wrong. Jesus was reestablishing the permanence of marriage before a concession was allowed under the law of Moses. Nor would our Lord's instruction in Luke and Mark have made any sense if there were an exception that these two evangelist failed to mention.

Jesus’s comments also call only the party initiating the divorce and remarrying an adulterer (with the exception for porneia), but say nothing about a chaste spouse unjustly divorced being an adulterer should she (under Jewish law it would have been she) or he remarry.

Not quite so simple. If anyone should marry a divorced women he also commits adultery.

There is room for modification of your rigorist stand without violating the plain meaning of Our Lord’s injunctions on the matter

I would ask you to take a look at Paul:

To the married, however, I give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): A wife should not separate from her husband — and if she does separate she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband — and a husband should not divorce his wife. (1 Cor. 7:10-11)

I am sorry, but because of human weakness the Orthodox have strayed from the clear and binding instruction of Jesus Christ.

[Ransomed]

“...and which we Orthodox have instantiated in ecclesiastical divorces in which the innocent party can be given permission to remarry — not just in cases of the divorce of an adulterous spouse by the aggrieved innocent spouse, but for divorces of a husband by a wife whom he has tried to force into prostitution (a slightly different application of the for porneia exception).”

Does this apply to the Orthodox limit on remarriages? If so why have the limit if the same circumstances happen again to this person?

FReegards