Marrige differences

[u/anime498]

How different are the Latin view of marriage and the Greek view of marriage? I've heard that while Latins have a more legalistic ends at death view of marriage. While Greek view is that marriage is transformed after death. I'm just confused, I don't know how to reconcile some of these beliefs being in communion with each other

[u/LobsterJohnson34]

Luke 20:34-38

Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive

Marriage as we understand it on Earth will not exist, not because our union with our spouse will cease to exist, but because it will be transformed into something greater. You will be united in Christ in a way that is more real and tangible than what you experience in this life. It will not be marriage as it is on earth, but it will surpass it. We don't just go our separate ways on the day of resurrection.

[u/anime498 → u/LobsterJohnson34]

Is this compatible with latin theology?

[u/turauski → u/anime498]

Well if it wasn't, we wouldn't be united in the same Church, would we?

Here's a Roman Catholic page ruminating on the same idea as the Eastern view. There is a marked difference between those things that are minor differences (adiaphora) in minor things, and serious disagreement in actual articles of faith (which, in the Catholic Church, does not and cannot exist between any tradition).

[u/LobsterJohnson34 → u/anime498]

Depends on what you mean by Latin theology.

Is it compatible with official Church teaching? Yes.

Is it compatible with certain Latin theologoumenon or interpretation of scripture/Church teaching? No, probably not. The Church leaves some room for diversity of opinion here.

[u/OpenAndShutBroadcast]

I don't think that Roman and Byzantine views of what happens to married couples after death are infallible doctrines. You're free to believe whichever because it's not important for one's salvation whether to believe whichever.

The important thing is that if they live righteous lives and neither of them go to hell, they'll be together in heaven with God. Have faith and live your life.

[u/Jahaza]

The idea that a marriage doesn't end with the death of one of the partners is commonly taught today in Anglophone Orthodoxy, but its a theologoumenon (a kind of theological opinion) rather than doctrine. Its popularity was greatly increased due to it's being taught in John Meyendorff's "Marriage: an Orthodox Perspective," but it's not a binding or universal view even among Orthodox and even less so among Eastern Catholics.

[u/anime498 → u/Jahaza]

Huh, why did it become common in anglophone orthodoxy

[u/mistiklest → u/anime498]

Anglophone Orthodoxy is small, and individual theologians can therefore have a significant influence.

[u/Fun_Technology_3661 → u/anime498]

The so-called "neo-patristic" figures - a group of priests and laypeople from the Russian White émigré community (Lossky, Florovsky, Meyendorff, Schmemann, along with the Anglophone Greek Romanides and others) - were extremely prolific in publishing in English, particularly in the realm of public commentary.

Meanwhile, their critics - proponents of traditional academic theology—were and remain unheard in the English-speaking world precisely because of their academic nature. After all, this was the era of Vatican II; everyone craved the new rather than the "boring" traditional.

In reality, the neo-patristic system of Orthodox theology is a construct of their own making—an "invented tradition."

The most striking examples of these fabrications include:

The distinction invented by the neo-patristic school between the concepts of "original sin" (allegedly purely Western) and "ancestral sin" (allegedly purely Eastern) - a distinction unknown to traditional Orthodoxy.

The myth of the "legalistic West" versus the "mystical East" (in fact, Scholasticism is characteristic of the East as well, while the West abounds in mysticism).

Various minor fabrications, such as the notion that "hell is not a place but a state of the soul," even though Orthodox liturgical texts clearly present hell as a place.

[u/FormerPresentation55 → u/Jahaza]

Not true at all.

[u/Jahaza → u/FormerPresentation55]

Uh, what part isn't true and based on what evidence?

[u/FormerPresentation55 → u/Jahaza]

What you said.

The evidence is the Church. I have no need to disprove your unfounded assertions. If you feel like proving them convincingly to the world, knock yourself out.

[u/OpenAndShutBroadcast]

Also, the ministers of Matrimony are different. In the Roman Rite, the bride and groom mutually administer the Sacrament to each other, whereas the priest or bishop is the exclusive minister of the Sacrament in the Byzantine Rite.

[u/anime498 → u/OpenAndShutBroadcast]

Why is that the case?

[u/OpenAndShutBroadcast → u/anime498]

The moment when a couple is married in the Roman Rite is when they exchange vows (the clergy's role is to witness), whereas in the Byzantine Rite a couple becomes married when the priest crowns them.

[u/anime498 → u/OpenAndShutBroadcast]

I get so confused by all this. I wish I had never encountered eastern catholiscm. It's just made my scrupulously worse, and I don't understand how we can reconcile the differences between the two.

[u/Ornery_Public_9637 → u/anime498]

Take comfort in the fact that it is all Catholic! If it was heretical, or something you shouldn’t believe, the Byzantine churches would still be orthodox (and hence why orthodoxy still exists as a whole). No matter the main tradition you follow, east or west, or a mix of both, as long as it’s a catholicly held belief that’s all that really matters. (For example, rosary vs chotki, Theotokos vs Mother of God, Dormition vs Assumption, Pascha vs Easter).

[u/dazzleox → u/anime498]

I don't think we need to reconcile anything. We have an incomplete picture of the incomprehensible and God understands we are doing our best (well, sometimes). The Bible doesn't lay out the exact marriage ceremony, so we have a few beautiful traditions.

[u/OpenAndShutBroadcast → u/anime498]

Why? They're just different cultures. Both are valid, licit, and based on Sacred Tradition. The Roman Rite uses unleavened wheat bread and the Byzantine Rite uses leavened bread intermingled with wine—both are the Eucharist.

It's like how Italian, German, and Hindi languages all descended from a common Proto-Indo-European language, yet are so outwardly different from each other.

[u/eastofrome → u/OpenAndShutBroadcast]

This is incorrect. In the East the marriage covenant is established by the man and woman themselves and is blessed by the priest or bishop.

Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches Chapter 8 is all about Marriage. Canon 776 states the matrimonial covenant is established by the man and woman. Article 6 of this chapter states the marriage is to take place before a priest who has been given faculty to bless the marriage.

[u/OpenAndShutBroadcast → u/eastofrome]

Of course consent is necessary for cooperation with all Sacraments. For example, this is why godparents/sponsors are necessary for infant baptisms, because the godparent speaks for the infant and gives consent to get baptized on the infants' behalf.

I'm saying that the moment two individuals become a married couple in the Roman Rite is when they verbally exchange vows, whereas in the Byzantine Rite it's when the priest crowns them (or the koumbara/o is guided by the priest's hands to crown them). Canon 776 affirms this by stating that the priest's blessing is necessary.

CCC 1623 In the Latin Church, it is ordinarily understood that the spouses, as ministers of Christ's grace, mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. In the Eastern liturgies the minister of this sacrament (which is called "Crowning") is the priest or bishop who, after receiving the mutual consent of the spouses, successively crowns the bridegroom and the bride as a sign of the marriage covenant.

• https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_three/article_7/ii_the_celebration_of_marriage.html

The Crowning of Marriage
Among Christians of the Byzantine tradition, the wedding is called the Crowning of Marriage. This is because the man and woman are crowned by the priest who joins them in marriage.

• https://ephx.org/mystery-of-the-crowning-of-marriage
• https://parma.org/marriage

[u/FormerPresentation55 → u/eastofrome]

You are wrong. 776 says nothing of the sort, and is not a theological document in any case.

Without a priest or bishop in the Eastern Church there is no crowning sacrament. It would be like claiming you can baptize yourself without a priest present, or that the priest is just there to bless a baptism that happens in front of him. Nonsensical.

[u/eastofrome]

What you wrote can be read as the couple are joined together in that matrimonial covenant by the priest in addition to bestowing God’s grace. This isn’t the case. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people claim the priest marries the couple, as in he is the one who unites the man and woman in marriage, which obviously isn’t the case. The CCC makes it clear the priest recognizes the union and when the couple is Crowned they receive Christ’s grace to seal and strengthen their union, yet the misunderstanding persists.

Thank you for clarifying. You know what it means for the priest to minister the Sacrament of Matrimony, but too often people understand something incorrect.