Is it worth it to get married? What does the word of the holy Apostle Paul and the gospel reading about the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee teach husband and wife? What does the white board under the feet of the bride and groom mean?

Among the mysteries Orthodox Church a special place is occupied by the wedding ceremony. When united in a marriage union, a man and a woman take an oath of fidelity in Christ to each other. At this moment, God holds the young family together as a whole, blesses them on a joint path, the birth and upbringing of children according to the laws of Orthodoxy.

- an important and responsible step for believers Orthodox people. It is impossible to go through the sacrament simply for the sake of fashion or colorful memories of a spectacular ceremony. The ceremony is performed for those who are churched, that is, people baptized according to the rules of Orthodoxy, who are aware of the importance of creating a family in Christ.

On a sacred level, husband and wife become one. The priest reads, calls on God, asks him for mercy for the newly created family to become His part.

In Orthodoxy there is a concept: the family is the Small Church. The husband, the head of the family, is a type of the priest, Christ himself. The wife is the Church, betrothed to the Savior.

Why is it necessary for the family: the opinion of the church

The church opposes the spiritual life of the consumer society with marriage according to the tradition of Orthodoxy. The family in the life of a believer is a stronghold that bestows:

• mutual support in everyday hardships;
• joint spiritual development;
• educating each other;
• the joy of mutual love blessed by God.

A married spouse is a companion for life. Spiritual forces received in the family, a person then transfers to social and state activities.

Scriptural meaning

For happy family life little carnal mutual love for each other. A special connection between husband and wife, the union of two souls appears after the wedding ceremony:

• the couple receives the spiritual protection of the church, the family union becomes a part of it;
• the Orthodox family is a special hierarchy of the Small Church, where the wife submits to her husband, and the husband to God;
• during the ceremony, the Holy Trinity is called to help the young couple, they ask her to bless the new Orthodox marriage;
• children born in a married marriage receive a special blessing already at birth;
• it is believed that if a married couple lives in observance of Christian laws, God himself takes her in his arms and carefully carries her through her whole life.

Just as in the Big Church they pray to God, so in the Small Church, which becomes a married family, the word of God must constantly sound. Obedience, meekness, patience with each other, humility become true Christian values ​​in the family.

The power of the grace of the Lord is so great that, having received His blessing during the wedding ceremony, then the couple often devotes their aspirations to the Christian life with great zeal, even if the young people rarely attended the temple before. Such is the leadership of Jesus Christ, who became the owner of the Orthodox house.

Important! One of the main vows of a married couple is an oath of fidelity to each other until the end of their lives.

What gives and means for spouses?

Orthodox Christians should know that it is the wedding that seals the union of a man and a woman before God. The church does not conduct the ceremony if the couple has not legally registered the relationship. But one official registration is not enough for the union to be considered legalized by the church: an unmarried couple appears before God as strangers to each other.


The wedding gives a special blessing of heaven to the couple:

• to life according to the precepts of Jesus Christ;
• to a prosperous family life in spiritual unity;
• for the birth of children.

There are frequent cases when people realize the importance of strengthening the union precisely by the church and come in order not only to observe a beautiful tradition, but to comprehend the deep sacred meaning of the ceremony.

Spiritual preparation

Before performing the ceremony, young people need to undergo special training:

• keep fasting;
• visit confession;
• take communion;
• read prayers, turning to God with a request to grant a vision of their sins, forgive them, teach how to atone;
• you must definitely forgive all your enemies, ill-wishers, pray for them with Christian humility;
• pray for all the people who, voluntarily or involuntarily, have been offended in life, ask God for forgiveness, the opportunity to atone for guilt.

Before the wedding, if possible, it is recommended to distribute all debts, make donations for charitable causes. Wedding is a sacrament of the Church, young people should try to approach it with a clear conscience, a calm heart.

What do couples need to know?

Additionally, you need to know some of the subtleties of the wedding ceremony, preparation for it:

1. Before the wedding itself, a young couple should fast for at least three days (or more). These days, you need to not only limit yourself to food, but also devote more time to prayer. You should also completely refrain from flat pleasures;
2. The groom is allowed to attend the wedding in an ordinary classic suit, but there are much more requirements for the bride's dress. It should be modest, exposing the back, neckline, shoulders is not allowed. Modern wedding fashion offers dresses in a variety of colors, but the wedding dress should be modest, preferably in shades of white;
3. By Orthodox tradition the bride is not wearing a veil or covering her face. This symbolizes her openness to God and her future husband.

The wedding day must first be agreed with the priest. There are a number of restrictions on the ceremony. For example, they do not get married on fasting days, on many church holidays - Christmas, Easter, Epiphany, Ascension.

There are also especially good days for the sacrament, for example, on Krasnaya Gorka or on the day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. The priest will tell you the best day for a particular couple to perform the wedding ceremony.

Useful video

The wedding is called a church marriage, in which the newlyweds testify their love before God. About what the wedding gives for the family and what is its meaning, in the video:

Conclusion

If young people love each other, consider themselves Orthodox Christians, a wedding is necessary. Marriage, sealed by the church, acquires a special blessing, the protection of God. He gives strength to a righteous family life according to the laws of Orthodoxy. The wedding becomes not just a beautiful tradition, but the exit of a young couple to a new level of relationship with God.

Questions about the Sacrament of Marriage and Wedding

HWhat is marriage in the church sense?

Marriage is a Sacrament in which, with a free promise before the priest and the Church of mutual marital fidelity by the bride and groom, their marital union is blessed, in the image of the spiritual union of Christ with the Church, and the grace of pure unanimity is asked for the blessed birth and Christian upbringing of children. Marriage itself is a great sacred thing. It becomes a saving path for a person with the right attitude towards him. Marriage is the beginning of the family, and the family is the small church of Christ.

What is the purpose of Christian marriage? Is it only the birth of children?

Embodying the original will of the Lord about creation, the marital union blessed by Him became a means of continuing and multiplying the human race: “And God blessed them, and God said to them: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). But having children is not the only purpose of marriage. The difference between the sexes is a special gift of the Creator to the people He created. “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). Being equally bearers of the image of God and human dignity, a man and a woman are created for integral unity with each other in love: “Therefore, a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).

Therefore, for Christians, marriage has become not just a means of procreation, but, in the words of St. John Chrysostom, "the sacrament of love", the eternal unity of spouses with each other in Christ.

The Christian family is called the “small church”, because the unity of people in marriage is like the unity of people in the Church, the “big family” is unity in love. In order to love, a person must reject his egoism, learn to live for the sake of another person. This goal is served by Christian marriage, in which the spouses overcome their sinfulness and natural limitations.

There is another purpose of marriage - protection from debauchery and the preservation of chastity. “To avoid fornication, each one should have his own wife, and each one should have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). “If they cannot abstain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to be inflamed” (1 Cor. 7:9).

Is it necessary to get married?

If both spouses are believers, baptized and Orthodox, then the wedding is necessary and obligatory, since during this Sacrament the husband and wife receive a special grace that sanctifies their marriage. Marriage in the Sacrament of the Wedding is completed by the grace of God for the creation of the family as a home church. A stable house can only be built on a foundation whose cornerstone is the Lord Jesus Christ. AT Christian marriage God's grace becomes the foundation on which the building is built happy life families.

Participation in the Sacrament of Marriage, as in all other Sacraments, must be conscious and voluntary. The most important motive for the wedding should be the desire of the husband and wife to live like a Christian, like the Gospel; This is what God's help is given in the Sacrament. If there is no such desire, but they decide to get married “according to tradition”, or because it is “beautiful”, or so that “the family is stronger” and “no matter what happens”, so that the husband does not go on a spree, the wife does not fall out of love, or For reasons like this, it's wrong. Before getting married, it is advisable to approach the priest for an explanation of the meaning of marriage, the necessity and importance of the wedding.

When is the wedding not taking place?

Weddings are prohibited during all four multi-day fasts; during Cheese Week (Shrovetide); on the Bright (Easter) week; from the Nativity of Christ (January 7) to Epiphany (January 19); on the eve of the twelfth holidays; on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays throughout the year; September 10, 11, 26 and 27 (in connection with a strict fast for the Beheading of John the Baptist and the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord); on the eve of the patronal temple days (each temple has its own).

The days on which the wedding is allowed are marked in the Orthodox calendar.

What is required to get married?

The marriage must be registered at the registry office. It is necessary to find out in advance in the temple about the requirements that apply to those wishing to enter into a church marriage. In many churches, an interview is held before the Wedding.

Those approaching such an important Sacrament, following the pious tradition, try to prepare themselves for participation in it, having cleansed themselves by Confession, Communion and prayer.

Usually for a wedding you need to have wedding rings, icons, white towel, candles and witnesses. More specifically, everything is clarified in a conversation with the priest who will marry.

How to book a wedding?

It would be more correct not just to “sign up” for the Wedding, but first of all to learn how to prepare for it. To do this, it is good to talk to the priest. If the priest sees that those wishing to enter into a church marriage are already ready for this, then you can “sign up”, that is, agree on a specific time for the performance of the Sacrament.

How to confess and take communion before the wedding?

Preparation for Confession and Communion before the wedding is the same as at any other time.

Is it necessary to have witnesses at a wedding?

Traditionally, the couple has witnesses. Witnesses were especially needed on that historical period when church marriage had the status of an official state act. Currently, the absence of witnesses is not an obstacle to the wedding, you can get married without them.

Is it possible to get married after the birth of a child?

It is possible, but not earlier than 40 days after birth.

Is it possible to get married to those who have been married for a long time?

It is possible and necessary. Those couples who get married in adulthood are usually more serious about the wedding than young people. The splendor and solemnity of the wedding they are replaced by reverence and awe of the greatness of marriage.

Why should a wife obey her husband?

- “Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church” (Eph. 5:22-23).

All people have the same human dignity. Both men and women are equally bearers of the image of God. The fundamental equality of the dignity of the sexes does not abolish their natural difference and does not mean the identity of their vocations both in the family and in society. Do not misinterpret the words of the Apostle Paul about the special responsibility of the husband, who is called to be “the head of the wife,” loving her, as Christ loves His Church, and also about the calling of the wife to obey her husband, as the Church obeys Christ (Eph. 5:22-23; Col 3:18). In these words we are talking, of course, not about the despotism of a husband or the enslavement of a wife, but about primacy in responsibility, in care and love; It should also not be forgotten that all Christians are called to mutual "obedience to one another in the fear of God" (Eph. 5:21). Therefore, “neither a husband without a wife, nor a wife without a husband, in the Lord. For as the wife is from the husband, so is the husband through the wife; yet it is from God” (1 Cor. 11:11-12).

Creating a man as a man and a woman, the Lord creates a family arranged hierarchically - the wife was created as a helper to her husband: “And the Lord God said: it is not good for a man to be alone; Let us make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). “For the husband is not from the wife, but the wife is from the husband; and the husband was not made for the wife, but the wife for the husband” (Cor. 11:8-9).

The family as a home church is a single organism, each of whose members has its own purpose and ministry. The Apostle Paul, speaking of the organization of the Church, explains: “The body is not made up of one member, but of many. If the leg 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? If the whole body is eyes, then where is hearing? If everything is hearing, then where is the sense of smell? But God arranged the members, each in the composition of the body, as He pleased. And if all were one member, then where would the body be? But now the members are many, but the body is one. The eye cannot tell the hand: I do not need you; or also head to feet: I don't need you. On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be the weakest are much more needed, and which seem to us less noble in the body, we make more care for those; and our ugly ones are more plausibly covered, but our decent ones have no need of it. But God measured the body, giving greater care to the less perfect, so that there would be no division in the body, and all the members should take care of each other equally” (1 Cor. 12:14-25). All of the above applies to the "small church" - the family.

The headship of a husband is an advantage among equals, just as in the Holy Trinity among equal Persons, one-man command belongs to God the Father.

Therefore, the husband's service as the head of the family is expressed, for example, in the fact that in the most important issues for the family, he makes decisions on behalf of the whole family, and is also responsible for the whole family. But it is not at all necessary that the husband, when making a decision, does it alone. It is impossible for one person to be an expert in all fields. And the wise ruler is not the one who can decide everything himself, but the one who has wise advisers in every area. So the wife in some family matters (for example, in matters of relationships between children) can understand better than the husband, then the advice of the wife becomes simply necessary.

Does the Church allow second marriage?

However, after confirmation by the diocesan authorities of the canonical grounds for divorce, such as adultery and others recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church as legal, a second marriage is allowed to the innocent spouse. Persons whose first marriage broke up and was annulled through their fault are allowed to enter into a second marriage only on condition of repentance and fulfillment of the penance imposed in accordance with canonical rules. In those exceptional cases where a third marriage is allowed, the period of penance, in accordance with the rules of St. Basil the Great, is extended.

In its attitude to the second marriage, the Orthodox Church is guided by the words of the Apostle Paul: “Are you united with your wife? don't seek divorce. Did he leave without a wife? don't look for a wife. However, even if you marry, you will not sin; and if a girl marries, she will not sin... A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is free to marry whomever she wants, only in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:27-28, 39).

Can people over 50 years of age enter into a church marriage?

In ecclesiastical marriage law, there is a higher limit for marriage. St. Basil the Great indicates the limit for widows - 60 years, for men - 70 years (rules 24 and 88). The Holy Synod, on the basis of an instruction given by Patriarch Adrian (+ 1700), forbade persons over the age of 80 from marrying. Persons aged 60 to 80 must seek permission from the bishop (Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin) to marry.

Marriage and the Family: An Untimely Experience of the Christian Perspective

Lecture by S. S. Averintsev, July 20, 1996, Moscow.

POr the reader does not expect something like a small theological dissertation, built according to a correct, pre-prepared plan, with extracts from the Church Fathers and authoritative spiritual writers in the right places.

Rather, it will be confessions recorded almost without a system - and utterly personal. So personal that it's not easy to write them down.

The fact is that me, what I am, the question of the experience of my relationship with my deceased parents, my wife, my children, I have experienced and am experiencing is too inextricably linked with another question - why, in fact, do I believe in God?

This experience for me is perhaps the most compelling proof of the existence of God.

Ask a real monk about his monasticism, a real hermit about his hermitage - and you will hear the most reliable stories about God that can ever be. God did not vouchsafe me to be either a monk or a hermit. But he made me worthy to be a son, a husband and a father - and from here I know what I know, which, once I know, I can no longer not know.

Therefore, for me, no worldview is convincing, except for faith.

* * *

Consistently faithless consciousness, as it seems, is unable to give any consistent answer to the question about the simplest realities. human life. These realities inevitably crumble for him, break up into their components (into their plane projections), turning into some kind of dust and decisively ceasing to be realities.

Let us return, however, to the subject.

What is the reality of marriage for an unfaithful consciousness? Firstly, "sex", "physiology", in other words, the same "flesh", about which the French poet Mallarme, it must be said, far enough from anything resembling Christian asceticism, noted with such truthfulness that she in itself, "alas," a sad thing ("La chair est triste, helas! ..") in the advertising propaganda of hell. And who has not studied French, let him re-read the early Akhmatova (“Oh, how my heart yearns! Am I waiting for the hour of death?”). Our contemporary, who is trying to settle down more cheerfully, learning the techniques of sexual technique from books, doesn’t he reek of despondency from a mile away? I don't want to mention a name in this connection, a really glorious one, but the bachelor Immanuel Kant, poor fellow, defined marriage as a contract for the mutual transfer to the use of the corresponding parts of the body; this is, without a doubt, the most unintelligent and empty definition that ever entered the mind of this great thinker. But let's continue our list. The second point is "psychology", that is, spontaneous emotions, which, by definition, are changeable, and even contradictory; “I want” a person at the same time the most mutually exclusive things. Emotions are just emotions: a garrulous parliament in which speakers interrupt each other so that God forbid! Not only is "psychology" in this view a part that has lost its whole; it itself continues to break up into atoms of counter-feelings. The third point is “sociology”: the family as a “cell of society”. It's not tasty. Point four - "economy": joint management of the economy. So. The fifth point is "morality". It doesn't get any easier from time to time.

And all together - isn't it rubbish?

And not that - and not that - and not that.

The same is true of motherhood, fatherhood, and sonship. "Physiology" again (in this case"genetics" + "embryonology"). Again, "psychology" - not least, of course, the well-known "Oedipus complex". Again "sociology": family education as a public institution. Economics again. Morality again.

All projections are only not the thing itself, thank the Creator, known to me from experience. Unbelieving people are doomed to be, in the form of inevitable compensation, exceptionally gullible. They take drawings and diagrams that are useful in business, in professional use, but meaningless outside of this business, as a true image of reality.

But I know, I know! My experience is given to me, and it is impossible to forget it. There is nothing like its incomparable simplicity in the above lists. But now I hear completely different words - and I'm on my guard, and I begin to understand what I have experienced. For example, these are the words of the Apostle Paul that every paternity in heaven and on earth is named from God the Father (Eph. 3:15). And about marriage: “There will be two in one flesh,” the discouraging, unexpected accuracy of these words became completely clear to me, it seems, only after my silver wedding. Not a state-owned "cell of society". Not a romantic "union of hearts". One flesh.

* * *

The blessed difficulty of the family lies in the fact that this is a place where each of us comes incredibly close to the most important person in our life - the Other.

Especially for marriage, the property of the Other to be precisely the Other sharply emphasizes two prohibitions: the biblical prohibition on same-sex love and the prohibition on incest. A man must connect with a woman and accept her feminine outlook on things, her feminine soul - to the depths of his own masculine soul; and the woman has an equally difficult task in relation to the man. Chesterton, who praised marriage like no other, noted: by male standards, any woman is crazy, by female standards, any man is a monster, a man and a woman are psychologically incompatible - and thank God! The way it is. But this is not enough: a man and a woman who create new family, must certainly come from two different families, with an inevitable difference in skills and habits, in what goes without saying - and get used to the differences, to a slightly different meaning of the most elementary gestures, words, intonations. This is what is to become one flesh.

As for the relationship between parents and children, here, on the contrary, the unity of flesh and blood is at the beginning of the path; but the way is cutting the umbilical cord again and again. The one that came out of the womb has to become a person. This is a test for both parents and children: to accept again as an Other - the one with whom he once formed one indistinguishable whole in the warm darkness of generic existence. And the psychological barrier between generations is so difficult that it will compete with the abyss that separates the male world from the female one, and with the ditch dug between various family traditions.

Oh, this Other is, according to the Gospel, the Middle One! The thing is that we did not invent him - he inexorably, exactingly presents us with the harsh reality of his own being, absolutely independent of our fantasies, in order to completely exhaust us and offer us our only chance for salvation. Outside the Other there is no salvation; The Christian way to God is through the Neighbor. It is common for a pagan to seek God first of all in the wonders of the universe, in the power of the elements, in “cosmic rhythms”, as our contemporaries most prone to such a style are expressed, or in no less elemental abysses of their own subconscious, inhabited, speaking in Jungian, “ archetypes." It's not that Christians were completely forbidden to enjoy the beauties of God's creation; The Lord himself praised the flowers of the field, surpassing King Solomon in splendor in all his royal glory. Nor is there an absolute prohibition against listening to the voices of one's own silence; but here we are commanded to be careful not to fall into delusion, not to mistake the acoustic tricks of our inner emptiness for the voice of God, otherwise a terrible beast called “selfhood” will crawl out of this emptiness and devour our poor little soul, and lie down on it place. The twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew teaches us to seek God first of all - in the Near: the absolute otherness of God, das ganz Andere, "completely different", as the German religious philosopher Rudolf Otto formulated 80 years ago, - in the relative otherness of the Other, the exactingness of God, - in the exactingness of the Near. "Since you did not do this to one of the lesser powers, you did not do it to Me." What is not done for the Other in time is not done for God in eternity. Therefore, the commandment to love your neighbor is “similar” to the commandment to love God (Mt 22:39). But God, as noted in the 1 epistle of John the Theologian, no one has ever seen; and therefore, alas, it is not difficult for us to deceive ourselves, replacing the reality of God with our own fantasy, inventing some convenient god on the order of the above-named “selfhood”, becoming attached to our dream and mistaking this attachment for holy love. It is more difficult to do all this with the Near One, with the Other, precisely because he is the Other. God forbid a young man to tune in to looking for "the girl of his dreams"; the probability is very high that just the one that could well become for him joy and salvation is the least similar to this ghost, and the other, on the contrary, falsely orients him with a deceptive similarity. God forbid novice parents plan future relationships with their children for those times when the latter will grow up; everything will be different. And thank God. God forbid that children out of false piety in fantasy endow their parents with non-existent virtues; firstly, they run the risk of not noticing the good that exists in such an occupation, and secondly, the most unsightly person is a more adequate subject for love than the most imposing idol. Our God is Existing and Living, and has no communion with imaginaries.

It is difficult for the "Self" to come to terms with the will of the Other, with the rights of the Other, with the very existence of the Other. This temptation is always ready. Who does not know the textbook phrase from Sartre's play "Locked Up": "Hell is others"? But here is the time to remember the words of John the Theologian: “Whoever says: “I love God, but hates his brother, is a liar; For whoever does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? To take seriously the will of God, the rights of God, the existence of God is right, it is not easier. For our "self" it is like death. However, why "how"? Death is what it is - no metaphors, no hyperbole.

And if for some reason it is easier for us to understand the absolute otherness of God, that is, His transcendence, than the very relative, but intolerable otherness of our brother in belonging to the human race, does this not mean that the worst thing has happened to us: that we replaced the Living God with a fictitious god?

The Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who mostly worked in theology in Hitler's prison and was hanged by the Nazis at the end of the war, said that the most perfect way to experience the Transcendent was to accept the "I" of the other. We will not discuss specifically the Bonhoeffer context of this thesis; we only note that the thesis is in good agreement with the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew mentioned above. There is something to think about: in the eyes of a witness to the truth of God, each other, precisely because of his otherness, gives us the experience of God; from the point of view of the Sartrean character, for the same reason, he gives the experience of hell. Reflecting both on this contrast and on the nature of hell, which, according to the cumulative testimony of the holy ascetic of the 7th century. Isaac the Syrian, Dostoevsky and Bernanos, consists in the tormenting and already final impossibility to respond with love to the given existence of God and the Neighbor, and over the significant fact that the same fire is both a symbol of love and a symbol of hell - I once wrote then poetry. I dare to offer them to the patient reader (recalling, if necessary, that the words “hear, O Israel” - Deut. 6:4 - introduce the famous biblical confession of the unity of God, whom one must love “with all the heart”, “with all the soul” and “with all the strength”) . And they open with the above-mentioned quote from Sartre.

"Others are hell"; so the truth of hell

Hell confessed. Mind, understand: in another,

In everyone - the other, in everyone - who

Not me, meets me immutably

One and Only - hear

Israel! - and departs again and again

To His unity, and above all

Isolation, divisions - then,

What is given to another: bread and stone,

Love - and dislike. And let their darkness

Innumerable and crowds, these

others; and let the earthly feeling closeness

There is tightness, and the torment of tightness, -

He cannot renounce himself: to a friend -

Both Friend and Friendship; for dislike -

Truly different. Love itself -

Irresistible, unbearable fire,

Burning hell. Gate

Blessed inseparability - Gehenna

There is tightness, and the torment of tightness.

Another - il Friend; any - or Favorite;

Enemy - or God. God cannot be

And everything is in the fire of His love, and the fire

One for all; but hell God is hell.

* * *

Of course, everything that has been said above about the blessed difficulties of family life also applies to that special kind of Christian family, which we call the monastic community. And in the circle of the monastery, the closeness and fundamental indissolubility of relations between people can become a terrible test. And there the test is essentially salutary. "He who endures to the end is saved." Of course, there is a striking difference between the atmosphere of a monastery and that of the most devout family; and yet the similarity between the central problem and the ways to solve it is more significant. It is not clothes and devout gestures that make a monk; and even ascetic deeds, for all their importance, are still not as important as humility, patience, brotherly love and peacefulness. As a willingness to belittle oneself - in front of another. Like love.

“If I give away all my possessions, and if I give up my body to be burned, but do not have love, then there is no use for me. Love is long-suffering, love is merciful, love is not jealous, does not boast, does not puff up, does not act disorderly, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not count evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; covers everything, believes everything, hopes for everything, endures everything. Love never ends,” wrote the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 13:3-8).

And yet the paradigm of the family is significant in relation to such a community of people, which is called the human race. This must be said without any hint of embellishing sentimentality. People, of course, really are brothers; but, as Voloshin noted in his time, since the time of Cain and Abel we know very well what a brother can be for a brother. Oh, still, let's say today. Serb brothers, Bosnian brothers.

It is worth remembering that when Christ was asked who a neighbor is for a person, he answered with a parable about the Merciful Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37), that is, about the Merciful Foreigner. It was, we confess, quite strong: almost as if He began to speak to the Bosnians today - about the Merciful Serb, or vice versa. (In Nazi Germany, one honest priest in a sermon suggested that his listeners substitute a Samaritan Jew in place). Is it not seen here as an extreme exacerbation of the principle that was mentioned above in connection with the prohibition on incestuous marriages and according to which we must recognize our own - precisely in someone else's and alien? Let us think about the fact that in the genealogy of our Lord according to the Gospel of Matthew, of women, only those who came from somewhere outside are mentioned: there are no honest, respectable matrons - neither Sarah, nor Rebekah, nor Leah, nor Rachel, who are still commemorated as prototypes of blessed motherhood in the rank of Orthodox marriage, however, there are at least three foreign women - and the Canaanite Tamar, who disguised herself as a pagan temple harlot in order to conceive her twins from Judah, and Rahab, also a Canaanite and, moreover, a harlot from the city of Jericho, and the Moabite woman Ruth, who lay down in the field to to the feet of the gray-haired Boaz, which was touching to tears, but also quite bold. But we do not know the clan and tribe of Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite Uriah; but we know her story. On the whole, it does not look very much like the triumph of purebredness - the Old Testament ideal of "the holy seed" (Isaiah 6:13), "the pure seed" (Jeremiah 2:21). Yes, and for the celebration of good manners.

But these women represent all of humanity, with discordant languages, with discordant foundations, mores, and customs. With universal guilt, which can only be justified by the birth of Christ. Only and can be redeemed by that love of Christ.

* * *

Redemption, correction, justification are the key concepts of Christianity.

You see, reader: a Christian is a sensible bore who, at the sight of a wrongly running clock, has a trivial thought that they need to be demolished for repair. But ideas are possible that are much more interesting and sharp. For example: there is no right time anyway, the right time is a dogmatic and authoritarian invention. What the clock shows is one of the possible answers to the question: what time is it. Or so: a watch is an object so contemptible, at least in its orientation not for eternity, but for time, that it is necessary not to repair, but to break it as soon as possible.

Two views are possible on the carnal existence of man, the most opposite to the Christian one. The first is neo-pagan: the floor not only does not need purification and sanctification - on the contrary, it, and only it, is able to justify and sanctify everything else. Once upon a time, romantics recited on this topic, including Nietzsche (who surprisingly did not like it). Therefore, Vasily Rozanov and D. G. Lawrence devoted a lot of eloquence to her. Now, the farther, the more she goes into the conduct of efficient advertising of "girls without complexes." The second view is neo-Manichean: sex is so bad, essentially bad, ontologically, that it is obviously impossible to justify or sanctify it. Logically, both views seem to radically exclude each other; the subject, however, is that logic is pretty much done away with very soon, and then both moods, becoming simply moods, succeed each other in much the same way as euphoria and depression succeed each other in a neurotic. Such an illogical pendulum of moods is extremely characteristic of the psychology of the same romanticism, which played with contrasts of unrestrained angelization and equally unrestrained demonization of the erotic. This psychology was smuggled into the Christian thought of Vladimir Solovyov, who was much more severe about marriage than about romantic and platonic love - under the condition of its Platonism. The Russian reader does not need to be reminded how this part of Solovyov's legacy played out in Blok's life and work. But Solovyov or Blok is, after all, a tragic level. In our time it has usually been replaced by a simplicity worse than theft; but the illogical combination of the incompatible under such conditions is even more striking. I will never forget how one champion of the sexual revolution, who, in arguing with me, extremely energetically defended the sovereign and self-sufficient beauty of sex as such, at the next meeting suddenly began to scold the natural behavior of men and women, as they say, with the last words. These words, which I, the reader, will not repeat, because they contradict the dignity of the subject that we are discussing, struck me not by their rudeness - now we have become accustomed to a lot - but only by their senselessness. Because they could get any sense only in the context of false asceticism, rabid hypocrisy - but certainly not in the context of praises to "free sex". If it's so good, why on earth is it so bad (or vice versa)? But the prince of this world is experienced enough to know how little the children of this world are concerned with logic. Fashion literature, as a rule, behaves in the same way as this lady: she proceeds from the fact that everything is possible - and everything is vile. If vile - in relation to what point of reference, to what commandment, to what height and purity? For all evaluation logically presupposes value; every condemnation logically presupposes a law. No, they assure us: no reference points, no commandments and laws, no vertical coordinates - everything is vile, but vile "just like that", without correlation with anything else. Nothing follows from nothing, nothing obliges anyone to anything... And the hope of T. S. Eliot, who looked back at the Baudelaire example, that the infernal diableries would prove to someone the existence of the Good seems naive. Once upon a time, it happened like this: even reading Paul Claudel converted Rimbaud to faith, and Eliot Baudelaire, it seems, helped. But it can be proved only for those who have not yet renounced logic. Our contemporaries, alas, more than once uncritically accepted different kinds ideologies that combine the most incompatible. Swallow this one too.

Contrary to both paganism and Manichaeism, the Christian doctrine of the carnal nature of man is sheer prose that disappoints the romantics. Christian intuition says that everything is not so rosy here - but not so hopeless either. Even in the best, most prosperous case, there remains an urgent need for purification and sanctification. Even in the most dreary case, the path of purification cannot be completely closed. The nature of man is corrupted by sin more thoroughly than the Rousseauists ever dreamed; and yet it is precisely corrupted, and not bad in the first place. Dirt, as you know, is a substance out of place; to the reality of sex, this applies so literally that you don’t even dare to pronounce it. The evil of godless and inhuman lust is a spiritual evil, not an essential one, it is rooted in "selfhood", in egoism, in a false choice, and not in ontological structures. As C. S. Lewis pointed out in his time, for a Christian there is no special sexual ethics - there is just ethics, one and indivisible: let's say, adultery is bad for the same reason that any treachery towards the one who trusts is bad. You can’t lie, betray, you can’t assert yourself at the expense of your neighbor, you can’t get carried away by egocentric self-gratification, it doesn’t matter whether it’s actually carnal or spiritual, in these respects, as in any others. And if the Sinai Decalogue still singles out “do not commit adultery” as a separate commandment, then this is because in the case of adultery, the lie that has settled in the soul corrupts the body, that is, with a special, unique fullness, it infects the entire psychophysical being of a person from top to bottom. Fornication is a great sin of the soul against the body. “The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” said the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 6:13). It is the high dignity of the body that for him is the supreme argument against the permissibility of fornication. "Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but a fornicator sins against his own body. Don't you know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you, which you received from God, and you no longer belong to yourself?" (ibid., 18-19).

For some reason, the opponents of Christianity very often imagine that for Christians the source of sin is the material principle. This is what is called exactly the opposite. Something more or less similar was taught by pagan Platonists and Neoplatonists, then by the same Manichaeans; but the Christians argued with them, so that the Platonists reproached them - this is a paradox for modern man! - for excessive love for the body. When we carefully read the biblical texts, especially the New Testament ones, we are convinced that the word "flesh" in any odious sense is not a synonym for "corporal", "material". "Flesh and blood" is, so to speak, "human, all too human", only-human as opposed to divine. “It was not flesh or blood that revealed this to you,” Christ says to Peter (Mt 16:17), and this means: not your human thoughts. "Act according to the flesh" - to follow the lead of oneself, of one's "self". “Those who live according to the flesh think about carnal things” - these words of the Apostle Paul (Rom 8, 5) do not contain a blasphemy against the bodily dimension of human existence, but a sentence to the vicious circle of selfish self-isolation, which rejects the highest and its duty to it. When "flesh" contextually means "body", negative overtones are completely absent. As 1 Corinthians 15 makes clear, "not all flesh is the same flesh," and in resurrection of the dead a person will receive spiritual flesh, a “spiritual body”; Philosophically educated pagans, accustomed, in agreement with Plato, to evaluate the body as a gloomy dungeon of the spirit, wondered why these Christians need the resurrection of the flesh? And the supreme mystery of Christianity is called the Incarnation of God: "The great mystery: God has appeared in the flesh" (1 Tim 3:16).

However, man is arranged vertically. Upright walking, so characteristic of human nature, with the significance of an icon or a hieroglyph, raises the forehead and eyes - above the more sensual lips, the face as a whole - above the chest, the heart - above what Bakhtin called "the bodily bottom". The lower is not rejected, not cursed; but it must be in obedience to the higher, it must know its place. This principle in itself characterizes not so much Christian ethics, but simply human ethics; a person is worthy of his name to the extent that he subordinated his body to his spirit, his mind, his will and conscience. With this, any decent agnostic has always been supposed to agree. Specific to Christianity is the tendency, directly or indirectly, to link crises of the obedience of the body to the spirit with those moments when the human spirit itself consciously or unconsciously leaves obedience to the Spirit of God. From a Christian point of view, the seriousness of prodigal, impure thoughts and conditions in which the flesh rebels against the spirit is mainly due to their significance as symptoms. When the human spirit takes, so to speak, the wrong angle in relation to its higher goal, when the spiritual life is replaced by self-affirmation, self-pleasure and self-deception (in ascetic language - "charm") - the probability is especially great that the will suddenly saves before the most empty, the most absurd, the lowest "I want"; including a person whom everyone, including himself, is simply accustomed to considering simply incapable of anything like that. In the story of Leo Tolstoy, the same father Sergius, who cut off his finger so as not to fall into fornication, succumbs to the most trivial temptation - but only after asceticism became false, overgrown with "human glory". No matter how things stand with Tolstoy's heresy, the analysis of this incident is found in the most impeccable harmony with the tradition of Christian asceticism. "The fish rots from the head"; the initial damage, as a rule, does not come from below, but from above, not from the flesh, but from the mind and spirit - when the latter becomes, in the most literal sense, an “unclean spirit”. The corruption of the flesh is, as it were, the materialization of the corruption of the spirit. Strictly speaking, sex as such - in the language of our contemporaries sex - is an abstraction that makes sense in the context of anatomy and psychology, but is absent in the "existential" reality of a person - precisely because a person is a creature whose bodily life can never have an innocent self-identity. bodily functions of the animal. Everything in a person is spiritual, with a plus sign or a minus sign, without any middle ground; what in our time in bad Russian is usually called “lack of spirituality” is by no means a zero option, but precisely a negative value, not the absence of the spirit, but its damage, decay, decay, infecting the flesh in a secondary way. Therefore, it is not given to a person to actually become a "beautiful beast" - or even an ugly beast; he can only become an increasingly bad person, and at the very end of this path - a demon. But this accident can only be described superficially, without proper theological and philosophical correctness, as a victory of matter over spirit. After all, a demon is a spiritual being, an "unclean spirit." Gender in itself, as a subject of relevant scientific disciplines, is spiritually, morally and aesthetically without quality (this is what we wanted to say a little higher, noting that “existentially” it is something non-existent); he receives his malignancy or benignity, his curse and corruption, or, on the contrary, he receives purification and sanctification from outside, from other, by no means material levels of our being.

But we are concerned with the question of purification and sanctification. As if Queen Victoria said at a military council in response to someone's "in case of defeat ...": "Our Majesty is not interested in the case of defeat." And yes, he is completely uninteresting. The sexual revolution nevertheless brought one blessing - according to the proverb “there is no blessing without good”: it finally took away from depravity the charm of a dangerous and daring challenge, the amusement of a hidden secret, unheard of exposing its triviality, and even creating a system of ideological clichés to protect its “rights” , boringly predictable, like any cliché of this kind. In our time, sinners and harlots outdo any hypocrite, outdo any Pharisee. It would be unreasonable to rejoice at this: one of the main weapons of hell is the trivialization of temptation itself, metaphysical boredom. It is more dangerous than passion. Overwhelmed by passions, it used to be that they found a path to fiery repentance - but here the tone that makes repentance possible is lost.

So, let's move on to more interesting matters.

The Apostle Paul says of a woman: "she will be saved through childbearing"; he ends the sentence by speaking of both spouses: "...if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with chastity" (1 Tim 2:15). It is worth noting that in the Greek original (as well as in other ancient languages ​​- Hebrew and Latin) the word translated as faith also means "fidelity". Until now, in some contexts, the Church Slavonic designation of believers is commonly used - "faithful" ("liturgy of the faithful"). It would hardly be prudent to say that the same word has two alternative translations: either “faith” or “fidelity”, as they say, a homonym, like “onion” is a plant and “onion” is a weapon. No, that's the whole point, that for the Bible of the Old and New Testament - faith is fidelity, the believer is the faithful. But this is a plot so important that it will still be necessary to return to it. For now, let's continue the review of the above words of the Apostle Paul.

"Saved through childbearing": the apostle had reason to emphasize this point for the woman. Motherhood naturally occupies a much more significant place in her life than fatherhood - in the life of the most philanthropic, kind and responsible man. Each of us who was nursed at the mother's breast and comforted by mother's caress in infancy received the initial initiation into the high mysteries; we forget it too easily and begin to appreciate nothing - but Vyach. Ivanov, who knew a lot about initiations, was able to sing of this initiation in the sonnets of his "Tender Secret".

Crown dedications to all

We were given - and a scroll

Read to everyone - and everyone drink

Lethean was brought by the priests...

A mother who feeds and, according to a wonderful Russian folk expression, pities her child, is an unworthy, but genuine image - of what? Of course, immaculate Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin, but dare and take even higher. The word, which in the Old Testament means by the grace of God, is formed from a root, which actually means the mother's womb; the memory of this is preserved in the outlandish Slavic word formation "comfort". The prophet Isaiah, among all the prophets the prophet of mercy, again and again resorts to the metamorphosis of motherhood to describe God's caress:

"Rejoice, heaven, and rejoice, earth,

And shout, mountains, in jubilation:

For the Lord comforted his people

And He had mercy on His sufferers.

And Zion said: “The Lord has left me,

And my God has forgotten me!”

Will a woman forget her baby

Will he not have pity on the son of his womb?

But if she forgot

I won't forget you"

(49,13-15)

"They will carry you in their arms

And caress on your knees;

How his mother consoles someone,

So I will console you

And in Jerusalem you will be comforted.”

(66, 12-13)

The grace of God, according to Isaiah, is maternal, and even more maternal than maternal: "but if she also forgot, I will not forget."

God forbid, speaking of such matters, to fall into a tearful sentimentality, like the atmosphere of a painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuse. And yet it is permissible to say that some aspect of reality is adequately perceived by a dumb baby who experiences maternal caress as the grace of God, not yet distinguishing the image from the Prototype. At least the prophet Isaiah justifies him. Then a person learns to distinguish; he receives knowledge about his earthly mother and about his parents in general, which knowledge, even in the most gratifying case, when, by earthly standards, parents have enough virtues, and he has reverence, is still somewhat sad in comparison with the initial experience. But God forbid he forget what he knew before any other knowledge. He - knew, and can not dissuade ignorance. Now the bitter experience of life can come. He has already been in power and glory.

The traditional teachers of Christian moral theology were quite right when they qualified good will to begetting children as a necessary condition for the justification and sanctification of married life. This is indeed a necessary condition, but not yet a sufficient one. No wonder the apostle Paul continued: “if they continue in faith and love…”

From time immemorial, people have felt: if God sent earthly blessings, it is not a sin to sit down together at the banquet table - but under fear of shame and shame, it is necessary that the joint tasting of dishes and drinks that “please the heart of man” signifies and symbolizes something that goes far beyond the simple sensual pleasure. It should be a sign and a symbol of inviolable patriarchal peace between all who share the meal. Without this commandment, ancient as the human race, and raised to an unimaginable height in the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist, the feast turns into an act of "gluttony", unworthy of human dignity; companions no longer “eat”, they “eat” and “get drunk”. The same law is even more valid when applied to the marriage bed. The most carnal affection, in order not to become an intolerable abomination, must signify and symbolize the most spiritual thing that can be: unconditional mutual forgiveness and unconditional mutual trust. Spouses who approach each other without forgiving something, hiding a stone in their bosom, practice fornication in marriage.

The most corporeal as a sign and at the same time the reality of the invisible spiritual: this is the definition of the Christian sacrament. Washing baptismal water is a sign and at the same time the reality of an invisible spiritual washing. Bodily partaking of the holy gifts is a sign and at the same time a reality of communion with the Otherworldly. The apostle Paul also calls marriage a sacrament, even a “great” sacrament (Eph 5:32); and this is the highest thing that can be said about marriage. Dizzyingly high. And he adds: "I speak in relation to Christ and the Church." The meaning of these words, which are not always easy to understand for a modern person: at its highest point, marriage is a sign and at the same time the reality of the relationship between Christ and the church. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her.”

The key word of the Bible is traditionally conveyed by us with the word “covenant”. “The Lord made a covenant with Abraham” (Genesis 15:18). “I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:19). Actually, it means "union", "contract"; sometimes - "marriage" (Mal. 2:14). Before all the "attributes" of God, as later reflection will be expressed, the Bible recognizes and praises the unshakable, diamond fidelity of God: "The faithful God keeps His covenant." Even the word of biblical usage, usually translated as "truth", has distinct semantic overtones of "fidelity". Man is called to respond to the fidelity of God with faith and fidelity - that is why these concepts are identical in the Bible! Otherwise, he arouses the righteous jealousy of God against himself: "The Lord is a Jealous God." The prophets never tire of describing the "covenant" between God and His people as an indissoluble marriage to an unworthy but beloved wife who will not be forsaken by Him. No wonder in the canon old testament could not but enter the Song of Songs.

"Put me like a seal on your heart,

Like a ring on your hand:

For love is strong as death,

Luta, like the underworld, jealousy "

The arrival of the Messiah was expected as the arrival of the Bridegroom, the Beloved (Heb. "dod"), who will conclude the New Marriage - the New Testament. No wonder Christ performed his first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee; it is not for nothing that the constant image of the fullness of times in the gospel parables is the wedding meal.

This is what Christian marriage signifies as a sacrament. It is clear that such a marriage cannot be a "practical" temporary contract. It is indissoluble in principle, and this is not because the priests wanted to torment people, but because the union of unconditional forgiveness and boundless trust is only forever. Because faith and fidelity, worthy of such a name, do not know the end. Because the covenant of God is an everlasting covenant.

“The Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth,” as the prophet Malachi says in the place mentioned just above, the very one where the amazing, untranslatable expression is used, “eshet beriteha” literally “wife of your covenant”.

Notes:

Of course, we do not simply mean non-confessional consciousness; people who are turned away from confessional practice by the great temptation of confessional strife are often not only believers (to the point of being ready to seriously resist the onslaught of an atheistic totalitarian ideology, as happened in the Soviet Union), but are also an example of true piety and reverence, and even heroic and ascetic surrender of oneself God (suffice it to recall the deceased unbaptized Simone Weil). We do not even mean a consciousness that, for one reason or another, tends towards purely theoretical atheism - as long as, due to the blessed inconsistency in the depths of the personality, in spite of the superficial doctrinal theses of consciousness, some ability to comprehend the integral experience of love remains; we all, of course, have seen people who for some reason consider themselves unbelievers, from whom we can usefully learn love! However, we are not talking about personal phenomena, but about the internal, immanent logic of worldviews themselves, when these worldviews really determine the being of a person from top to bottom. And we have also seen cases when doctrinal theses close the opportunity to fully receive and give love from thoughtful and consistent people. I still hear in my ears the voice of my peer, who died quite recently, a thinker very deeply wounded in his spirit by the implications of the hated, but apparently invincible for him thesis about the death of God, who spoke in a philosophical conversation with his doomed goal: “No natural human relationships are no longer possible.” He had a wife with whom he lived all his life, he left two children ...

There is one science that Plato, with his “AgewmetrhtoV oudeiV eisitw” (i.e., the prohibition to start studying philosophy without preliminary “geometrical” studies), elevated it to the rank of an avatar of philosophy: that which is now called higher mathematics. We are not sure that our considerations fully apply to her. However, when discussing the "scientific" approach to the realities of marital relations, as well as the relationship between parents and children, mathematics is mentioned only in the form of not entirely interesting humor.

Actually, in Greek di esoptrou, i.e. rather “in the mirror”, as ow. Cassian Bezobrazov.

N. Yu. Sakharova spoke well about this in one of her St. Petersburg courses.

R. Otto. Das Heilige. Cber das Irrationale in der Idea des Gottlichen und sein Verhaltnis zum Rationalen. Breslau, 1917.

“Fathers and teachers, I think: “What is hell?” I reason like this: "Suffering that it is no longer possible to love" - ​​and then the entire text "On hell and hellish fire, mystical reasoning" (F. M. Dostoevsky. Complete works, vol. 14, L., 1976, S. 292). Compare: The works of Abba Isaac the Syrian, ascetic and hermit. Moveable words. Ed. 3rd, Sergiev Posad, 1911, p. 112.

See: Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros ed. L. Koehler, Leiden, 1985, pp. 150-152.

See: Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros ed. L. Koehler, pp. 66-67 (values ​​are given in this order: (1) "reliability"; (2) "permanence"; (3) "fidelity"; (4) "true"). Compare: P. A. Florensky. Pillar and ground of truth. M., 1990, S. 21-22.

Russian Synodal translation: “your lawful wife” (Mal. 2:14) (ed.).

Sacrament of Marriage

From the book of Abbot Hilarion (Alfeev) - The Sacrament of Faith

Llove between a man and a woman is one of the important themes of biblical evangelism. As God Himself says in the Book of Genesis, "A man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). It is important to note that marriage was established by God in Paradise, that is, it is not a consequence of the Fall. The Bible tells of married couples who had a special blessing of God, expressed in the multiplication of their offspring: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel. Love is sung in the Song of Solomon - a book that, despite all the allegorical and mystical interpretations of the Holy Fathers, does not lose its literal meaning.

The first miracle of Christ was the turning of water into wine at a marriage in Cana of Galilee, which is understood by the patristic tradition as a blessing of the marriage union: “We affirm,” says St. Cyril of Alexandria, “that He (Christ) blessed the marriage man and went ... to the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11)."1

History knows sects (Montanism, Manichaeism, etc.) that rejected marriage as supposedly contrary to the ascetic ideals of Christianity. Even in our time one sometimes hears the opinion that Christianity abhors marriage and "permits" the marriage union of a man and a woman only out of "condescension to the infirmities of the flesh." How incorrect this is can be judged at least from the following statements of the Hieromartyr Methodius of Patara (4th century), who, in his treatise on virginity, gives a theological justification for childbearing as a consequence of marriage and, in general, sexual intercourse between a man and a woman: "... It is necessary, so that man ... act in the image of God ... for it is said: "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). And we should not disdain the Creator's determination, as a result of which we ourselves began to exist. the bowels of a woman's womb, so that bone from bone and flesh from flesh, having been perceived by an invisible power, were again formed into another person by the same Artist ... This, perhaps, is also indicated by the sleepy frenzy brought on the primordial (cf. Gen. 2 :21), prefiguring the pleasure of the husband in communication (with his wife), when he, in the thirst for procreation, goes into a frenzy (ekstasis - "ecstasy"), relaxing with the hypnotic pleasures of procreation, so that something that is rejected from his bones and flesh, formed again ... into another person ...

Therefore, it is rightly said that a man leaves his father and mother, as suddenly forgetting everything at the time when he, united with his wife in the embrace of love, becomes a participant in fruitfulness, leaving the Divine Creator to take a rib from him in order to become a father himself from a son. So, if even now God is forming a man, is it not impudent to avert procreation, which the Almighty Himself is not ashamed to do with His pure hands?" As Saint Methodius further states, when men "throw the seed into the natural female passages," it becomes "participant in the divine creative power."2 Thus, conjugal intercourse is seen as a God-ordained creative act performed "in the image of God." Moreover, sexual intercourse is the way in which God the Artist creates.3

Although such thoughts are rare among the Fathers of the Church (who were almost all monks and therefore had little interest in such topics), they cannot be passed over in silence when expounding the Christian understanding of marriage. Condemning "carnal lust", hedonism, leading to sexual promiscuity and unnatural vices (cf. Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9, etc.), Christianity blesses sexual intercourse between a man and a woman within the framework of a marriage union.

In marriage, a person is transformed, overcoming loneliness and isolation, expanding, replenishing and completing his personality. Archpriest John Meyendorff defines the essence of Christian marriage in this way: "A Christian is called - already in this world - to have the experience of a new life, to become a citizen of the Kingdom; and this is possible for him in marriage. Thus, marriage ceases to be only the satisfaction of temporary natural urges ... Marriage is a unique union of two beings in love, two beings who can transcend their own human nature and be united not only "to each other" but also "in Christ."4

Another prominent Russian pastor, priest Alexander Elchaninov, speaks of marriage as an "initiation", a "mystery", in which there is "a complete change in a person, an expansion of his personality, new eyes, a new sense of life, a birth through him into the world in a new fullness." In the union of love between two people, both the disclosure of the personality of each of them and the emergence of the fruit of love - a child that turns the two into a trinity - takes place: "... In marriage, complete knowledge of a person is possible - the miracle of feeling, touching, seeing someone else's personality ... Before marriage a person glides over life, observes it from the outside, and only in marriage does he plunge into life, entering it through another person. real life gives that feeling of completeness and satisfaction that makes us richer and wiser. And this fullness is still deepening with the emergence of us, merged and reconciled - the third, our child. "5

Attaching such an exceptionally high value to marriage, the Church has a negative attitude towards divorce, as well as a second or third marriage, unless the latter are caused by special circumstances, such as adultery by one or the other party. This attitude is based on the teaching of Christ, who did not recognize the Old Testament regulations regarding divorce (cf. Mt. 19:7-9; Mk. 10:11-12; Lk. 16:18), with one exception - divorce through "the fault of fornication" (Matthew 5:32). In the latter case, as well as in the event of the death of one of the spouses or in other exceptional cases, the Church blesses the second and third marriages.

In the early Christian Church, there was no special wedding ceremony: the husband and wife came to the bishop and received his blessing, after which they both communed at the Liturgy of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. This connection with the Eucharist is also traced in the modern rites of the sacrament of Marriage, which begins with the liturgical exclamation "Blessed is the Kingdom" and includes many prayers from the rite of the Liturgy, the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel, and a symbolic common cup of wine.

The wedding is preceded by betrothal, during which the bride and groom must testify to the voluntary nature of their marriage and exchange rings. The wedding itself takes place in the church, as a rule, after the Liturgy. During the sacrament, crowns are placed on those who are married, which are a symbol of the kingdom: each family is a small church. But the crown is also a symbol of martyrdom, because marriage is not only the joy of the first months after the wedding, but also the joint bearing of all subsequent sorrows and sufferings - that daily cross, the burden of which in marriage falls on two. In an age when the breakup of the family has become commonplace, and at the first difficulties and trials, spouses are ready to betray each other and break their union, this laying on of martyrdoms serves as a reminder that marriage will only be lasting when it is not based on momentary and fleeting passion, but on the readiness to lay down one's life for another. And the family is a house built on a solid foundation, and not on sand, only if Christ Himself becomes its cornerstone. Suffering and the cross are also reminiscent of the troparion "Holy Martyr", which is sung during the triple circumambulation of the bride and groom around the lectern. During the wedding, the gospel story about marriage in Cana of Galilee is read. This reading emphasizes the invisible presence of Christ in every Christian marriage and the blessing of God himself on the marriage union.

In marriage, the miracle of the transfer of "water" must take place, i.e. everyday life of earthly life, into "wine" - an unceasing and daily holiday, a feast of love of one person for another.

Notes:

1 Cyril of Alexandria. Epistle 3 to Nestorius.

2 Methodius, Bishop of Patara. Complete collection of creations. Ed. 2nd. SPb., 1905. Ss. 36-37, 40.

3 N. Berdyaev. Collected works. Ed. 3rd. T. 2. Paris, 1991. S. 430

4 J. Meyendorff. Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective, ed. 2, New York, 1975, p. 17.

5 Priest Alexander Elchaninov. Entries. Ed. 6th. Paris, 1990. Ss. 34, 58-59.

Question from Elizabeth: quite recently, my beloved and I got married, started a family, but his parents are very religious and insist on getting married in the Church. But no one can really explain to me what it will give, why we need to get married. For me personally, esotericism is closer, when you can understand at least some senses, and not just blindly follow traditions, albeit good ones. If you can, help me figure out whether to get married, I beg you. Sincerely, Elizabeth.

Let's try, Elizabeth. In fact, everything is not difficult enough. Of course, every ritual, religious or otherwise, has its own spiritual meaning. Which, by the way, is far from always obvious and understandable from the definitions given to these rituals. Therefore, let's try to understand the very essence and understand what is really important and what is of secondary importance in marriage.

Mystery of the Wedding. Common definitions

1. Wedding among the Slavs is one of the culminating rituals of the wedding ceremony, formalizing marriage, along with betrothal, wedding night, etc. The rite combines a number of ritual and magical actions aimed at ensuring a happy and lasting marriage, prosperity and economic well-being, health and long life, predicting future childbirth, headship in the family, and the marriage of bridesmaids.

2. Wedding is the sacrament of the Church, in which God gives future spouses, when they promise to be faithful to each other, the grace of pure unanimity for a joint Christian life, the birth and upbringing of children.

Those wishing to get married must be believing baptized Orthodox Christians. They should be deeply aware that the unauthorized dissolution of a marriage approved by God, as well as the violation of the vow of fidelity, is an absolute sin.

And now let's understand the essence of the Wedding:

Let me remind you of the common, and religious, and esoteric truth that marriages are made in Heaven! Two Souls - two halves, if they deserve each other - meet on Earth and a union, a family is created. Such a union is initially blessed if people are given a true feeling of Love. That is why wise people say “God crowns”. And the church's traditional wedding ritual can only serve as reinforcement, and then only if the newlyweds themselves, with all their hearts, really strive to live and build a family according to spiritual law.

By and large, the Wedding is a spiritual ritual for the newlyweds to receive blessings from the Higher Forces for the creation and development of a family, for living together in harmony and honesty, for raising children as worthy personalities, etc. Ideally, the wedding ritual enhances the feelings of the young, the quality of fidelity and mutual understanding, enhances the energy of the future family.

If this ritual is carried out in the Orthodox Church, this means that this blessing and patronage is given to the young family by Christian Patrons (Saints, etc.), Christian.

All this is of course wonderful, but let's see what happens in fact!

In reality, and it has always been, whether a wedding was held or not, the family will be strong and happy only if both spouses are worthy in all respects, if they do not grossly violate moral laws. And if the spouses begin to swear godlessly and destroy their feelings with resentment and hatred, do not want to negotiate, forgive, seek a compromise, go to the left and fall into lust - no wedding will help them, even if Jesus Christ himself conducts it. It is always in the power of the people themselves, it is the choice of everyone - to be a worthy or vile person.

And then, even if two people during the wedding itself received the high and bright patronage of God and the Higher powers, they, with the same success, with their nasty behavior and sin, can just as quickly lose this support and patronage as they have gained. When a person consciously begins to do evil - to destroy, to commit violence, to betray, to substitute, etc. this inevitably leads to the fact that they take him under their black wing. And as a punishment for his sins, he loses protection, until he realizes and atones for his.

Like this. If people are not initially brought up as worthy and spiritual, if they do not have a moral core and they do not seek to form it in themselves, no wedding will save their union from collapse.

So, is it necessary to get married in the Church?

It depends, among other things, on why you and your loved one are creating a family. If it is important for you to build a worthy family and raise your children as worthy, strong, honest and noble people, if you put spiritual laws and principles of honor as the basis of the family - Wedding can strengthen your union and contribute to the achievement of your joint goal.

And if you console yourself with the reliable fact that going through the wedding ritual will somehow make up for your spiritual failure and automatically protect the marriage from your own vices and weaknesses, such as the desire to go left, etc. - you are deeply mistaken, this will not help. God helps only those who try, only those who fight for faith, spiritual law, for their souls and the well-being of loved ones, for purity of conscience and other noble values. And for those who are trying to shift all responsibility onto Him, not wanting to independently develop, work on themselves, cope with their weaknesses and negativity, he helps to create such living conditions in which a person will no longer be able to be lazy and stupidly ignore the accumulated problems, trying to escape from them. . Often these are unbearable living conditions.

The wedding will help only those who themselves strive with all their heart to know and observe the foundations that are laid in it. The only way!

But on the other hand, if you and your spouse are given to each other by Fate (for love), and you sincerely want to build a decent family based on honesty and love, then you can turn to God and the Forces from a pure heart Light to bless your marriage. And this can be done without any wedding. Although it may be beneficial for some people to go through and experience the traditional outer ritual. But, in fact, if your spiritual impulse is pure, believe me - you will already be heard by Heaven and receive proper protection and support for your wonderful goal, regardless of whether you got married or not.

So, as always, the choice is yours!

And if you want to find out more precisely whether your marriage is blessed by God, or what needs to be done to make it blessed - the best thing I can recommend to you is to work individually with a good one. The healer will almost instantly be able to tell what patronage your future family has, and what needs to be done so that the Light Forces take your union under their beautiful white wing.

I will be glad to answer your questions or give contacts of a good Healer.

As husband and wife, so the bride and groom in the church. Ever since the time Ancient Russia any young couple had to be bound by marriage in the temple. The young assumed responsibility before the Lord and the Church, vowing to keep the union sent from above all their lives. Today, this is an optional procedure. Young people who know what is needed for themselves decide on the need for this sacrament.

First of all, for this you need to be sincere with your partner and with yourself. In no case should you get married just because it is a component and also because of the current fashion for this procedure!

wedding in a church?

This is necessary for God's blessing of the marriage. Spouses initiated into the sacrament of the wedding receive God's grace, which helps them build a single union of thoughts and love. But perhaps the most important goal for which a church wedding is needed is the spiritual fusion of the soul and body of two loving hearts and, of course, instilling Christian morality in future or existing children. In addition, the wedding involves the hope of two loving people each other and, of course, the Lord.

Many people who do not quite understand why a church wedding is needed mistakenly believe that this is an indispensable guarantee of family well-being and happiness, as well as complete deliverance from worldly hardships. It's not like that at all! A wedding does not give any family benefits and indulgences. It is believed that married souls must independently pass all the trials prepared for them by fate and resolve all controversial issues. Remember, a wedding is a certificate of your matured feelings! People who have decided on this sacrament should be aware of the full responsibility for their boat of love.

What do you need to know?

1. Those who are getting married should be well aware of what is expected once and for a lifetime.

2. It is believed that new life, which comes after the wedding, involves a complete cleansing from sins and an internal renewal of the human soul, therefore, before the sacrament, both take communion and confess during the liturgy.

3. The young fast for three days before the sacrament. It is advisable not to have sex (and masturbation) during fasting, to think only about the spiritual.

4. The bride must have a special dress for the wedding (special tailoring, not exposing the back, shoulders and arms to the elbows). In addition, it should not be bright, red and dark. The bride cannot hide her face, as she is open before God and her beloved. The groom's outfit is the same as at the wedding.

5. There is a special wedding calendar. It calculates the days on which, according to church rules wedding sacraments are held. There are also days on which this should not be done in any case.

6. The time spent on this procedure usually does not exceed forty minutes. This should be kept in mind by all who are going to invite friends and relatives to the sacrament.

What is a wedding, why do people get married, and why even Christians, especially Slavs by origin, and indeed all non-Jews, should not get married in a church.
Why do people get married? What happens during the wedding ceremony in the Orthodox Church? Everything that is said during the wedding ceremony is a kind of agreement with God, and spouses with each other, which is concluded for life.

And what could be more important than an agreement with God himself? Do you read important documents that you sign?
Therefore, in accordance with its importance, this contract, before its “conclusion”, must be carefully reviewed and scrupulously re-read in order to be consciously sure that what you agree to during the wedding ceremony corresponds to the text and contract spoken by the priest.
But for some reason, with all this importance of each word, under which we subscribe for life, we are responsible for its fulfillment before God himself, most people simply wait for the end of this ritual.
At the same time, they go through the wedding ritual as an ordinary boring formality, most often not even understanding what the priest says in Old Russian or in a very strange quick way, so that individual words are rarely made out at all. Then why do people get married at all? How does the wedding take place?
So that you can consciously and responsibly make a decision about whether to get married in a church (except for painting in official government bodies), I like Chief Editor portal of self-development and a person who has studied this topic quite deeply and for a long time, let me remind you of the main controversial points and some oddities in the logic and text of the wedding ceremony. We will talk about the Orthodox church marriage.
And also let me remind you the fates, characters and life stories of people who are mentioned in these texts and rituals, and who, according to the church, should be equal in worldly and spiritual life. Those who are considered by the church as examples of purity, kindness, wisdom and chastity.
After all, judge for yourself how we can imitate someone without really remembering their main benefits and the most famous facts from their lives.

The main problem areas of the wedding ceremony in the Orthodox Church
So let's get started. The first problem and, one might say, the first bewilderment Slavic families in the wedding ceremony in the Orthodox Church, there is most often a phrase that can be found in different options, but one way or another it is most often pronounced.
It could be - “The servant of God (name) is married to the servant of God (name) for the glory of Israel!” or “For the glory of Israel I crown (or them)”.
Or in the middle - “The Lord bless you from Zion, and you will see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. You will see the sons of your sons. Peace on Israel!
Is there patriotism in the wedding ceremony?
It seems a little strange that a Slavic couple of newlyweds somewhere in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus is crowned precisely in favor and for the glory of the state of Israel. Moreover, often none of these couples have even been to Israel, just like the priest himself.
There is, of course, such a name - Israel, and perhaps this person was a good and pious Jew, but this does not make the wedding ritual more Slavic or more patriotic for the country in which it passes and people who were born in this state.
Why not get married, get married and have children for the good of your country, why, for example, at least not for the good of Japan, Denmark or Paraguay, why precisely for the good of Israel?
Why not get married for the good and peace in your land, and in general, throughout the world? Why should the world be only for Israel, and what if the grass does not grow on their own land?
Is Israel the center of Christianity?
Why, if a blessing is given from God himself, then it must be from Zion? Why do the clergy think so, or those who wrote the words for this ritual (which, by the way, is not very well known). Is there really no God on our lands?

Moreover, to marry Orthodox Christians in the name of Israel is not very religiously justified, because all the main centers of Christianity are located far beyond the territory of Israel, and even here Christians are percentage almost the least on the planet. Now Israel is not the center of Christianity.
In addition, the majority of the people in these parts unequivocally voted for the crucifixion of the “son of God”, naturally, without regretting it so far.
Moreover, if he were born there again in our time, according to the instructions of the spiritual scriptures of this country, he would be crucified again, for it is commanded: “If a prophet or interpreter of dreams appears among you and shows a sign or a miracle, and if this sign or miracle comes true ... that prophet or interpreter of dreams shall be put to death” (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)
Further in the text: “If your own brother, or son, or daughter, or beloved wife, or your closest friend, secretly tempt you, saying: “Let us go to serve other gods” ... do not listen to him. Don't feel sorry for him. Do not spare and do not cover. You must certainly kill him” (Deuteronomy 13:6-9)
That is, if you believe the text of the Bible, you must certainly kill any of your relatives, best friends and parents, if they profess a different religion or are atheists.
Yes, and to call neighbors and relatives to execution, and in the case of mass apostasy, destroy entire cities and nations (Book of Deuteronomy 13:14-16).
This is certainly not Christianity, but some kind of demonism. It seems to me that this is a harsh way out even for very jealous Christians, and it does not at all correlate with the Christian ideals of forgiving one's enemies and "loving" all neighbors.
Personally, I would not like to be surrounded by people with a similar worldview. Too much murder and blood has already been spilled for the sake of an all-merciful, all-forgiving and equally loving God.
All this cannot in any way be a recommendation for a happy and blessed life of an adequate person in our time.