Sacrament of wedding. Monastic tonsure: second baptism, or marriage of the soul with Christ

I have a long-standing dream - to get married in the Holy Iversky Monastery in Valdai. Is this possible from the point of view of the Orthodox Church? At the same time, I know that weddings in monasteries are prohibited by the charter. But, despite this, such rituals are carried out in this monastery.

Victoria

Saint Petersburg

Dear Victoria (in Nick’s baptism, probably), your question contains some kind of internal contradiction. On the one hand, you know that according to the statutes of the Orthodox Church, weddings do not take place in monasteries. It is clear why, a monastery is a community of people, among other things, who have renounced such an aspect of earthly life as marriage, family ties, and the consolation of a husband or wife. So the logic of not having weddings in monasteries is clear. On the other hand, you continue to internally insist on your desire to get married in the Valdai Monastery on the basis that you have such a long-standing dream. But you must admit, you never know how many of us had any childhood desires; For example, as a child I wanted to be, like many others then, an astronaut. But it would be strange to try to realize these aspirations now. Or we had some other dreams when we were young - whatever came to mind! Therefore, it would probably be reasonable to do this: get married somewhere in your beautiful city, our beautiful northern capital of St. Petersburg. What magnificent cathedrals, what solemn weddings can be held there! The heart is not looking for something solemn - go to a country church, and everything there will be quiet and modest. If you have a pious desire to visit the St. Valdai Monastery - it’s good, say, before the wedding, you and your fiancé go there to talk, confess, receive communion, take a marriage blessing and then get married. Or go there a little later, just not for a wedding, of course, but for a pilgrimage, in order to pray in this glorious monastery. This would probably be more in keeping with an Orthodox Christian.

A monastery is a place of monastic service to God. He who lives in it renounces the world. The great teachers of monastic life saw this as a necessary condition for achieving the main goals of monasticism.

“Let him who came from the world in order to get rid of the burden of his sins imitate those who sit over the tombs outside the city, and let him not cease to shed warm and hot tears, and let him not interrupt the silent sobs of his heart, until he He will not see Jesus, who came and rolled away the stone of bitterness from the heart, and our mind, like Lazarus, loosed the bonds of sin, and commanded His servants, the angels: release him from passions and leave him to go (John 11:44) to blessed dispassion. If not so, then (from removal from the world) there will be no benefit to him” (Venerable John Climacus. Ladder. 1:6).

That is why the first monasteries did not have their own priesthood. Yes, Rev. Pachomius the Great (c. 292 - 348; commemorated May 15) spoke out against monks taking ordination. Usually the Divine Liturgy was served by a priest from the nearest locality. Since inviting a priest to a monastery was sometimes accompanied by difficulties (especially when the monastery was located at a great distance), they began to ordain hieromonks from among the brethren. Thus, the Patriarch of Jerusalem Sallust in 491 appointed Rev. Savva the Sanctified († 532; commemorated December 18).

When monks were ordained priests, it was definitely assumed that their service would be only for the brethren, and not for the laity.

This followed from the 4th rule IV Ecumenical Council, who decreed: “Monastics, in every city and country, let them be subordinate to the bishop, let them observe silence, and adhere only to fasting and prayer, constantly staying in those places in which they have renounced the world, and let them not interfere with church, neither in everyday affairs, and let them not take part in them, leaving their monasteries: unless this is allowed by the bishop of the city, for necessary reasons" (Rules Orthodox Church. Volume 1).

Performing various services (weddings, baptisms, prayer services, etc.) would mean a direct violation of this rule. In subsequent centuries, many concessions were made to the world in contradiction to the demand: let them observe silence, and only adhere to fasting and prayer. The most serious deviation from this rule is the appearance of parishes at monastery churches, which inevitably necessitates daily confession for numerous parishioners.

Along with other non-monastic cares, all this cannot but affect the spiritual and prayerful life of modern monasteries. However, failure to do so would deprive many suffering people of needed spiritual help.

Father Job Gumerov

Speaking about the holy sacraments, I want to talk about the sacrament of tonsure. Is monastic tonsure a sacrament? Of course it is a sacrament! Just as for a young man and a girl who want to start a family, the Church performs the sacrament of marriage, so for a young man or girl who wants to devote themselves to God and live in chastity, the Church performs another sacrament - monastic tonsure! And how wonderful is the rite of this sacrament! If you find out that a monk or nun is being tonsured in a monastery, go there to admire not only what you see, but also what you hear!

Essentially, monastic tonsure is a repetition of baptism. You and I have all been baptized and made a vow that we will belong to God. We said: “I have renounced Satan” and “I am joined to Christ,” we dedicated ourselves to God through cutting our hair, but we forgot all this. Indeed, by our baptism we have committed ourselves to belong to God. With the word “I renounce,” which we then uttered (through the lips of our receiver), we expelled Satan from our lives, also spat on him three times and lost all contact with him. With the word “I unite”, in the presence of angels and people, we signed a sacred agreement that we now completely belong to God. “Who wants to follow Me...” the Lord called upon the unbaptized. We, the baptized, must say: “Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.” It is a great thing, my brothers, that we were baptized and became Christians. The bad thing is that we forget our baptismal vows and because of this we now lose the grace of holy baptism.

But chosen souls come - women and men, boys and girls, who wish to renew the vows of holy baptism, to say consciously that they renounce the works of Satan and belong completely to God, and again repeat the cutting of hair that was performed at baptism. Cutting our hair, firstly, symbolizes an offering from the very top of our body to God, and secondly, it means abandoning bad thoughts and dedicating our mind to God.

So, monastic tonsure is, first of all, a repetition of baptismal vows. But not only that. I will now call monastic tonsure a marriage. The soul of a monk or nun enters into marriage with Christ, and angels are present at this moment and testify to the sacredness and indissolubility of this union.

During the wedding of a man and a woman, the priest reads one prayer, where he turns to God and calls Him “like the secret and pure marriage, the Priest, and the physical Lawgiver.” We know what “physical” marriage is, which the Lord “ordained.” This is the marriage of our parents, from which we were born. But what is this other marriage, “secret and pure,” which God “sacredly officiates,” as the above-mentioned prayer says? This is the marriage of monks and God, monastic tonsure. This is a very beautiful and sweet marriage of the soul with Christ. The nun knows that the Heavenly Bridegroom Christ will never hit her or divorce her. Christ was beaten and crucified for His bride, and He is preparing for her a palace in heaven, His Kingdom of Heaven! At monastic tonsure, the love of God is abundantly poured out. “Thou hast sweetened me with love, O Christ, and changed me with Thy Divine care!”

I also want to say that this “secret and pure” marriage is not the natural state of man. Marriage is natural for a person after the fall, when a woman gets married and a man gets married. Virginity is not natural state, but supernatural. I ask: how does a monk or nun, having a body, manage to overcome the natural and live supernaturally? Very simple! They achieve the supernatural because they have constant communication with God, Who is above all nature. Reverend John Climacus says this: “We need to know that where we see that the natural is defeated, the supernatural God will appear there.”

Monks and nuns have their own world. They always live “woe are our hearts”! An example of how they are cut off from the world is when they are blindfolded. By blindfold I mean a scarf (in the Russian Orthodox Church - apostolnik. - Note per.), which is worn by nuns, and the hood, which is worn by monks and hieromonks. Therefore, my dear Christians, be very careful when you meet monks and nuns. Watch what you say. Your conversations with them should not be about the worldly, but about the divine. Because when you talk to them about worldly things, you take them out of their world, out of “their water,” as we say. You are harming them. And, in the end, you will be harmed too. After all, if a monk interrupts his communication with Christ, which should be unceasing, and chats and engages in worldly things, then when you ask him to pray about your family problems, his prayer will not have power and will not be heard. When you go to monasteries, interact with monks and nuns as if you were monks and nuns yourself. Thus, visiting the monastery will bring you grace from God and the Mother of God.

And in conclusion, I want to tell you the most important thing: if your child, a boy or a girl, tells you: “Mom, dad, I want to devote myself to God and go to a monastery,” do not interfere with him and do not go against the desire that you put into him. him God. You will commit the greatest sin if you interfere with him, even greater sin than if you destroyed the temple. And tell you why? If you destroy the temple, we will collect the money and build a new one. But if you hinder a child in his sacred calling, then the evil cannot be undone. It is a great honor and a great blessing for a family to give their child to God to become a monk or nun.

Translation from Greek by Ekaterina Poloneichik

Based on portal materialsPemptousia. gr

It is necessary to remind once again that in the Sacrament of Wedding a special grace is given for creating a family and bearing children, and for Christians it is unacceptable to evade this great Sacrament. Unfortunately, many now not only avoid weddings, but also allow themselves to cohabitate without registering with the registry office. Thus, they do not give credit to “Caesar” or to God.

When deciding to marry according to all laws, both divine and secular, one must take into account that everything in God's peace there is its place, its time and its order. Including such a good cause as marriage. The Charter of the Orthodox Church has its own canon, according to which the great Sacrament of Marriage is regulated. It discusses the procedure and conditions under which one can or cannot get married. And of course, there are special rules according to which the times and days are stipulated on which the Sacrament of Wedding is performed and on which it is not.

According to the church calendar, marriages are not allowed: from the week of Meat Empty (that is, the Sunday before Maslenitsa) to the week of St. Thomas (the first Sunday after Easter); during the entire Peter's Lent (from the first Sunday after Trinity Sunday until July 12); during the entire Assumption Lent (from August 14 to August 28); throughout the entire Nativity Fast, including the holy days of the holiday - Christmastide (from November 28 to January 19).

Marriages are not performed on the eve of one-day fasts (that is, on the eve of Wednesday and Friday - on Tuesday and Thursday). In addition, marriages are not celebrated on the eve of Sundays (Saturday) and twelve holidays (the main twelve holidays of the Orthodox Church). And also on the eve and on the days of the feasts of the Beheading of John the Baptist - September 11 and the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord - September 27.

They also refrain from Weddings on the eve of the patronal feasts of those churches whose parishioners are the bride and groom, and on the eve of the days of their Angels.

Keeping the Lord's commandments and obedience to the church charter is the key to success in any business. Since a person walking along the path that God has blessed him with is always protected and guided by Him in every good undertaking.

Archpriest Oleg Kitov

Establishment of the Sacrament of Marriage

God blessed the marriage of the first people in Paradise and told them: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:28), giving them one of His first covenants. In the same book of Genesis, on its first pages, the secret of the marriage union of a man and a woman is revealed: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife; and the two will become one flesh (Gen. 2:24). Marriage was one of those two Divine institutions that the ancestors carried beyond the gates of heaven after the Fall.

In the Gospel, marriage is compared to the mysterious union of Christ with the Church, which is why the Apostle Paul calls it “a great mystery” (See: Eph. 5; 32,33). The Lord Jesus Christ sanctified with His presence the marriage in Cana of Galilee and blessed it. There He performed His first miracle, turning water into wine at a poor wedding (See: John 2: 1-11).
How high the union of a man and a woman is in the eyes of God is shown by the fact that Christ constantly compared the way of life in the Kingdom of Heaven with a marriage celebration. The Lord did this not by chance - the pictures of the wedding feast were well known to those who listened to His sermon. And that’s why they evoked a lively response.

Church-canonical obstacles to Marriage

The Orthodox Church clearly defines the reasons why the Sacrament of Marriage cannot be performed. They are as follows.
1. Marriage is not allowed more than three times.
2. It is prohibited for persons who are in close degrees of kinship, up to the fourth degree (that is, with a second cousin) to enter into Marriage.
3. Church Marriage is impossible if one of the spouses (or both) declare themselves atheists and want to get married, guided by extraneous motives.
4. A couple is not married if at least one of the future spouses is not baptized and is not ready to receive Baptism before the wedding.
5. A marriage is not celebrated if one of the parties is actually married to another person. If this marriage is civil, then it must be dissolved in accordance with the procedure established by state law. If it is church, then the bishop’s permission is required for its dissolution and blessing for entering into a new Marriage.
6. An obstacle to marriage is the spiritual relationship between godfathers who baptized one child and between godparents and godchildren.
7. Marriage will not be celebrated if at least one of the spouses professes a non-Christian religion (Muslim, Judaism, Buddhism). But a marriage performed according to a Catholic or Protestant rite, as well as a non-Christian marriage, if even only one of the spouses has joined the Orthodox Church, can be considered valid at their request. When both spouses, whose marriage was concluded according to a non-Christian rite, convert to Christianity, it is not necessary to perform a wedding, since their marriage is sanctified by the grace of Baptism.
8. You cannot marry those who have taken monastic vows, as well as priests and deacons after their ordination.

The age of majority, the mental and physical health of the bride and groom, and the voluntariness of their marriage are mandatory conditions for registering a civil marriage. Therefore, the Church does not take part in clarifying these circumstances, but requires from those who come to the Sacrament of Wedding a certificate of state registration of marriage.

The absence of parental blessing for the wedding (especially when they are atheists) in the event of the age of majority of the bride and groom cannot prevent the wedding.

Days when the Sacrament of Wedding is not performed

The wedding does not take place:
1) during all four multi-day fasts;
2) during Cheese Week (Maslenitsa);
3) on Bright (Easter) Week;
4) during the Christmastide period: from the Nativity of Christ (January 7, according to the current style) to the Epiphany of the Lord (January 19, according to the current style);
5) on the eve of the twelve and great holidays;
6) the day before fast days- Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as on Saturdays throughout the year;
7) on the eve and on the day of the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (September 10 and 11 according to the present day);
8) on the eve and on the day of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 26 and 27 according to the present day);
9) on the eve of the patronal feasts of the temple in which they plan to perform the Sacrament.
An exception to these rules can be made only with the blessing of the ruling bishop, and then in the presence of emergency circumstances.

Who and where performs the Sacrament of Wedding?

The sacrament can only be performed by a legally appointed “white” priest who is not under canonical prohibition. The monastic priesthood, according to custom, does not perform weddings. The son or daughter of a priest must be married by another priest, but if this is not possible, the father can do it.

Each couple must be married separately. Canonical regulations do not allow the simultaneous wedding of several couples. Unfortunately, this is the rule in modern conditions (due to large quantity couples getting married in the same church) is often not observed. The marriage is performed by one priest and, if there is a full-time deacon in the church, he will co-serve with the one performing the Sacrament.

The place where the Sacrament is performed is any Orthodox church. A wedding, as a moment of great celebration, is shared with the newlyweds by parents, relatives, friends and, in general, all people close to them.

What should the wedding couple do before performing the Sacrament?

There is no question about a specific wedding venue for people who are regular parishioners of a particular church. Of course, the Sacrament must be performed in “one’s” temple; if for any reason the confessor serves in another church, then the wedding can take place there. Those who do not belong to one or another parish must decide where the wedding will take place. After the choice is made, some organizational issues need to be resolved.

Many temples have pre-registration, and the problem with it must be resolved in advance. Any relative can do this; the presence of the bride and groom is not necessary. If there is a desire for a specific priest to perform the wedding, it is necessary to discuss this issue with him, otherwise the Sacrament will be performed by the priest whose “turn” falls on that day.

Since the separation of the Church and the state, Church Marriage has no civil legal force, therefore, the wedding is performed on those who have registered a civil marriage, this means that you need to “sign” before you come to the temple. If there are canonical obstacles to marriage, you must personally contact the office of the ruling bishop or his vicar. If your question is resolved positively, he will put forward a resolution according to which the wedding can be performed in any church in the diocese.

The most important question facing a couple who wants to get married is sharing Communion before performing the Sacrament of Marriage. This tradition has been preserved since the first centuries of Christianity, when the Sacrament of Marriage was performed during the Divine Liturgy. To prepare for Communion on the wedding day, several conditions must be met.

1. Fast (that is, do not eat meat and dairy foods, and if possible, then fish) for three days or at least one day before the wedding.

2. Do not eat, drink or smoke anything the day before, from 12 o’clock at night.

3. If intimate life before the Wedding already takes place, it is necessary to abstain from marital relations for three days, or do this at least on the last day before the Wedding.

4. It is very advisable to read the prescribed prayers before Communion: three canons (Lord Jesus Christ, Mother of God and Guardian Angel) and Follow-up to Holy Communion.

If fulfilling these conditions for some reason is impossible, you need to go to the priest and take a blessing on how to prepare for the Sacrament in your life circumstances.

Some time before the wedding, you need to prepare:
1) wedding rings, which must be given in advance to the wedding priest or to the candle box;
2) the so-called wedding pair of icons:
a) with the image of the Savior;
b) with the image of the Mother of God;
3) wedding candles;
4) towel (towel).

On the wedding day, the bride and groom must come to the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, where they will pray, confess and receive Holy Communion. It is advisable for friends and relatives of the newlyweds to be present at the Liturgy, but, as a last resort, they can come at the beginning of the Wedding

It is better for the bride to wear comfortable shoes rather than high-heeled shoes, which are difficult to stand on for a long time. Before the wedding, you need to find out whether this temple allows you to take photographs and film the wedding with a video camera in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Since women must have their heads covered during worship, the bride also needs to have some kind of headdress. In addition, for the duration of the Sacrament, it is better for her to do without makeup (or with a minimum amount of it) and unnecessary jewelry. The wedding couple must have crosses.

The best men, whose presence during the Wedding is explained by tradition, are not persons participating in the Sacrament sacramentally, like, for example, the recipients of Baptism. Previously, both best men, or, as they were called, “friends of the groom,” were in accordance with the rules of church life of the same gender - male. The fact that the current tradition instructs groomsmen to hold crowns over the bride and groom does not correspond to church practice. This, for the most part, only indicates that the bride or groom are afraid of damaging their hair or headdress with crowns and therefore find it inconvenient to put them on their heads. It is clear that such motivations of the newly created tradition have nothing to do with the essence of the Sacrament. If, after all, those getting married want groomsmen to hold crowns over their heads, they must at least be of the Orthodox faith.

Superstitions associated with the Sacrament of Wedding

There are many superstitions associated with the Wedding, as well as with the Sacrament of Anointing, but their nature is somewhat different. More precisely, their nature is the same - pagan fables; simply “wedding” prejudices are “more recent,” that is, some of them arose in a not so long ago period.

Such beliefs include that an accidentally dropped ring or an extinguished wedding candle portend misfortunes, sorrows in marriage or early death one of the spouses. There is a widespread superstition that, from the first steps of a new family, provokes its members to display pride and resist the will of God. It lies in the fact that the one of the couple who first steps on the spread towel will dominate the family all his life. Therefore, sometimes even at weddings of more or less church-going youth you can see the bride’s desire to have her foot there first.

Another fable says: whose candle after the Sacrament turns out to be shorter will die earlier. “Philologists” did not stand aside either: basing their “theological opinion” on the similar sound of the roots of different words, they convince that you cannot get married in May, “then you will suffer all your life.” All these pagan notions expose the lack of faith, disbelief, dense ignorance of their followers, and simply a reluctance to think.

On the dissolution of a church marriage

The Church condemns divorce for the reason that the divinely established order of marriage did not imply it. In a conversation with the Pharisees, the Lord Jesus Christ answered them: have you not read that He who created in the beginning made man and woman? And he said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.” So, what God has joined together, let no man separate. They say to Him: How did Moses command to give a letter of divorce and divorce her? He says to them: Moses, because of your hardness of heart, allowed you to divorce your wives, but at first it was not so (Matthew 19: 4-8). But the weakness of human nature is such that some believers cannot “accept” this prohibition.

Divorce in Orthodoxy is condemned, but is recognized as an expression of church economy, as condescension to human weakness. At the same time, the right to dissolve a church marriage and permission to enter into a new marriage belongs only to the bishop. In order for the diocesan bishop to remove the previous blessing and give permission to enter into a new church marriage, a certificate of divorce and the absence of canonical obstacles to a new marriage are required. The Orthodox Church allows no more than three marriages.

The list of motives for church divorce was quite wide, despite the fact that in the Gospel the Lord indicates only one such reason: adultery (See: Matt. 5; 32). Thus, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1918, in its “Definition on the reasons for the dissolution of a marriage consecrated by the Church,” names the following:

1. Adultery by one of the parties.
2. Entry of one of the spouses into a new marriage.
3. The falling away of a spouse from Orthodoxy.
4. Unnatural vices.
5. Inability to cohabitate in marriage, occurring before marriage or resulting from intentional self-mutilation.
6. Disease of leprosy or syphilis.
7. Long unknown absence.
8. Conviction to punishment accompanied by deprivation of all rights of the estate.
9. Encroachment on the life or health of the spouse or children.
10. Snitching or pimping.
11. Taking advantage of your spouse's indecencies.
12. Incurable serious mental illness.
13. Malicious abandonment of one spouse by another. This list of grounds for divorce is basically valid even now, except for some exotic nuances for us (for example, deprivation of rights to a state). In the document “Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church”, adopted by the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000, the following reasons are added to those listed.
1. AIDS disease.
2. Medically certified chronic alcoholism or drug addiction.
3. A wife committing an abortion with her husband’s disagreement.