06 — Marriage and Pastoral Theology

Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective (1970) is Meyendorff’s shortest important book and, measured by influence on ordinary Orthodox pastoral practice in the English-speaking world, possibly his most consequential. It argues that Christian marriage is unintelligible apart from the Eucharist, that the marriage bond is eternal and eschatological rather than a contract “until death,” and that the Church’s discipline of divorce and second marriage is an economy exercised against that ideal, never a rule replacing it.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration) / Orthodox Church in America

What This Section Covers

• Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective — the book: the eucharistic thesis, the historical argument from Judaism, the New Testament, the early Church and Roman law, the theology of the crowning, and marriage as an eternal bond.
• Divorce, Remarriage, and the Pastoral Questions — the second half of the book and the questions that drew criticism: divorce and second marriage, mixed marriages, abortion, family planning and responsible parenthood, married clergy and celibacy — and the debate over where Meyendorff drew his lines.

Publication Data

Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1970; 2nd expanded ed. 1975; 3rd rev. ed. 1984; current printing 2000, 131 pp. French: Le Mariage dans la perspective orthodoxe (1986) (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, “Protopresbyter John Meyendorff,” svots.edu, and OrthodoxWiki, “John Meyendorff,” for the edition sequence; SVS Press catalogue for the current printing). The repository elsewhere cites both the 1975 and the 2000 printings (Marriage; The Mystery of Crowning).

A short catechetical version, “The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony,” was issued by the OCA Department of Religious Education (1975, 1978, 1989) and circulates widely as a parish text (Meyendorff, “The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony,” OCA Department of Religious Education, holy-trinity.org).

The §4.1/§4.2 Line in This Section

The Church’s teaching on marriage as a mystery, on the crowning, on the ideal of one lifelong union, and on the canonical limit of three marriages is the Church’s, and is reported as such (METHODOLOGY §4.1; see Marriage, Divorce and Oikonomia and Marriage and Divorce Law).

Meyendorff’s particular formulations — the strong eucharistic thesis, the eternity of the bond after death, the historical account of how the Byzantine rite separated from the civil act, the handling of family planning — are his theology, and some of them are contested within Orthodoxy. Those disputes are given both-sides treatment in the second file (METHODOLOGY §4.2).

See Also

• The Holy Mysteries: Marriage — the repository’s doctrinal treatment
• Marriage and Divorce Law — the canonical framework
• Neuilly, Paris, and the Emigration — the married priest who wrote it

References

• Meyendorff, John. Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1970; 2nd expanded ed. 1975; 3rd rev. ed. 1984; repr. 2000.
• Meyendorff, John. “The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.” OCA Department of Religious Education, 1975, 1978, 1989.
• St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. “Protopresbyter John Meyendorff.” svots.edu.
• SVS Press. Catalogue entry for Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective. svspress.com.