The Sacrament of Marriage

The blessing of Marriage is one of the great mysteries and blessings of our lives. The marriage of

The sacrament of marriage, or crowning, is performed by the bishop, or priest, to a man and a woman who – being blessed with love and mutual respect – want to share their lives as husband and wife. Their commitment is expressed by the rings they exchange and by partaking from the ‘common cup’. In the scriptural readings within the service, wedding appears as endowed with mystical character, taking place ‘in the Lord’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:39). Thus, the apostolic pericope (Ephesians 5:20-33) asserts the sanctity of marriage by assimilating it to the communion between Christ and his Church. In turn, the gospel reading (John 2:1-11), of the change of the water into wine, suggests marriage’s dimension of spiritual transformation.

According to the first prayer of betrothal (preceding the sacrament of crowning), God is the one who calls people together into union and blesses them with love. In our tradition, consequently, love is never treated lightly as merely ‘natural’ or an ephemeral event of chemical reactions. The synaxis of love manifests a mystery of divine-human interaction, on the one hand through the mutual affection and agreement of the groom and the bride, and on the other hand through the blessing they receive from above. In addition, there is a related aspect indicating the significance of marriage: the whole ritual points to the Christian wisdom and sacrificial spirit to which the two are called together. This aspect is suggested by the remembrance in the ceremony of a series of saintly families – icons of wisdom, commitment and blessed life. Also, by the crowns bestowed upon the groom and the bride, crowns of martyrs, indicating the spiritual, or ascetical, dimension involved with living together in Christ (as further suggested by the mystical dance around the book of the Gospels and the holy cross).