The Eastern Churches and the Indissolubility of Marriage (Part 1 of 2)

Since the Gospel reading from the Roman lectionary yesterday (Matthew 5.27-32) broached the subject of divorce, I thought to open this can of worms in two parts. I invite you to read the following text carefully, and hold your comments until after the second part is published on Monday.

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Archbishop Elias Zoghby, A Voice from the Byzantine East, R. Bernard trans., (Newton, MA: Eparchy of Newton, 1992), pp. 163-169.

The Indissolubility of Marriage

The problem which probably causes more anguish to young married people than birth control is that of the innocent spouse in the prime of life (usually the young lady, so we shall use the feminine form throughout this chapter to denote the wronged spouse) who is deserted by her partner and contracts a new union. The innocent party goes to her parish priest or bishop for a solution but hears: “I can do nothing for you. Pray and resign yourself to living alone for the rest of your life because you cannot marry again and expect to remain in the good graces of the Church.”

Such an unrealistic response is an insult to the young person’s inherent dignity! Furthermore, it presupposes an heroic virtue, a rare faith and an exceptional temperament. This almost abnormal way of life is not for everyone. After all, the young person was married in the first place because she didn’t feel called to perpetual continence. Now she is being cornered into contracting a new and illegitimate union outside the Church so as to avoid physical and emotional pressure. This good and normal Catholic now “officially” becomes a renegade and is even tortured by her own conscience. Only one course of action is left open: either become an exceptional soul overnight or perish!

Nothing but common sense tells us that perpetual continence is not the answer for the majority of Christians in such a predicament. In other words, we Church officials know that we are leaving these young and innocent victims without an answer. We ask them to depend upon that faith which works miracles, but we forget such faith is not given to everyone. Many of us, even we who are priests and bishops, still have a long struggle and a great amount of prayer ahead of us before we will even be able to approach it, let alone attain it!

The question presented us today by these disturbed people is, therefore, the following: “Does the Church have the right to tell an innocent member of the laity, whatever the nature of the problem disturbing him: ‘Solve it yourself! I have no solution for your case,’ or indeed can the Church provide in this case an exceptional solution which she knows to be suited only for a tiny minority?”

The Church has certainly received sufficient authority from Christ, its founder, to offer all its children the means of salvation proportionate to their strength. Heroism, the state of perfection—these have never been imposed by Christ under pain of eternal perdition. “If you wish to be perfect,” Christ says, but only “if you wish…”.

The Church, therefore, has sufficient authority to protect the innocent party against the consequences of the other partner’s wrongdoing. It does not seem normal that perpetual continence, which belongs to the state of perfection alone, can be imposed upon the innocent spouse as an obloigation or a punishment simply because the other spouse has proven to be false! The Eastern Churches have always known that they possessed the authority to help the innocent victim and, what is more, they have always made use of it.

The marriage bond has certainly been rendered indissoluble by the positive law of Christ. Yet, as the Gospel of St. Matthew points out: “except in circumstances of adultery” (cf. Matthew 5.32, 9.6). It is the duty of the Church to make sense of this parenthetical clause. If the Church of Rome has interpreted it in a restrictive sense, this is not true in the Christian East where the Church has interpreted it, from the very first centuries of its existence, in favor of possible remarriage for the innocent spouse.

It is true that the Council of Trent, in its twenty-fourth session (canon 7 of De Matrimonio) sanctioned the restrictive Roman interpretation, but it is well known that the final formula adopted by Trent for this canon had been purposely altered so as not to exclude the Eastern Christian tradition. This tradition followed (and still follows) a practice contrary to that of the Church of Rome. History gives credit for this act to the representatives from the area of Venice [1] who were well acquainted with the Greek tradition, which was founded upon the interpretation of the Greek Fathers and even of some Western Fathers, such as St. Ambrose of Milan.

We know how the Eastern Fathers tried to discourage widows and widowers from contracting second marriages, following in this the counsel of the Apostle Paul; but they never intended to deprive the innocent spouse, who had been unjustly abandoned, of the right to remarry. This tradition, preserved in and exercised by the East, was in no way dissolved in the six centuries of union. There is no reason why it could not be brought back into use today and adopted by Western Catholics. The progress of patristic studies has, in effect, put in bold relief the doctrines of the Eastern Fathers who were no less competent moralists and exegetes than the Western Fathers.

Pastoral solicitude for the wronged is suggested in another way by Western canonists. By means of a subtle casuistry, which sometimes borders upon acrobatics, they have devoted themselves with diligent application to uncovering every impediment capable of vitiating the marriage bond. This is done because of their pastoral concern. Sometimes, for example, it happens that somebody suddenly discovers an impediment of affinity after ten or twenty years of marriage (one which was unsuspected all the while!) and now this impediment is permitted to afford a complete resolution of the “problem” as if by magic! Though canon lawyers find this state of affairs both natural and normal, those of us who are pastors have come to realize that our people are very often confused and scandalized by this.

It is not the tradition of the Eastern Fathers, as outlined above, more suitable than the impediments to marriage in extending Divine Mercy toward some Christian spouses? [2] Undoubtedly, inconsiderate action cannot be tolerated here either; abuses are always possible. But, the abuse of authority does not destroy authority.

During this age of ecumenism and dialogue, can the Catholic Church recognize this longstanding tradition of the Eastern Churches? Or, what is more important to it: Can its theologians apply themselves to the study of this problem and provide a remedy for the anguish of the innocent party, permanently abandoned by his or her spouse, and to deliver this person from a danger constituting a grace menace to the soul?

NOTES

1. There is still a somewhat large and visible Orthodox population in Venice and its vicinity.

2. Father David Kirk, a Melkite Greek Catholic priest (founder of Emmaus House in Harlem, New York City) has recently said: “The tradition of Eastern Christianity is essentially one of compassion. People must be given a second chance. The absolute value of the human person must be underlined. Just as the monk can abandon his state in the name of his person, so the same freedom exists [in the Eastern Churches] for a married person. We are not free if we can only say ‘yes’ at one moment and cannot say ‘no’ at another moment.” (Cf. Rev. David Kirk, “An Eastern Catholic Understanding of Sexuality,” in U.S. Catholic-Jubilee, March 1970, pp. 39-42.)