Orthodox weddings
The Orthodox Church in America wedding service
An OCA wedding is the same Betrothal and Crowning, celebrated in English, in a church whose own teaching document says outright that the sacrament of marriage contains no vows or oaths.
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What is different here
The same rite, celebrated this way
The Orthodox Church in America, an autocephalous church with its primate in New York.
The OCA descends from the Russian mission to Alaska and its service books come from that line, so an OCA wedding follows the Slavic shape: the priest asks the questions of consent, the crowns are the closed metal kind, and the witnesses stand behind with their arms up. What is different is that all of it is in English, and that the OCA has been unusually direct in print about what it thinks the service is.
The relevant sentence is worth quoting because so much English-language writing about Orthodox weddings talks around it. The OCA’s own catechetical volume on worship says that in the sacrament of marriage there is no legalism, that “it is not a juridical contract” and that “it contains no vows or oaths.” It goes on to describe the service as patterned on baptism and chrismation: the couple are led into the church in procession, prayed over, blessed, read to, and crowned as witnesses — the word it uses is martyrs — of God’s kingdom.
That framing explains the small choices a couple will run into. There is no place for written promises because the service does not run on promises. There is no unity candle because two lamps are the image. And the priest will usually resist adding a reading, because the Epistle and Gospel are not slots.
The witnesses, or sponsors
OCA parishes generally use two witnesses in the Slavic manner, one standing behind each of the couple to hold a crown, and the words best man and maid of honour are used for them without embarrassment. Because the OCA has no single ethnic inheritance, there is no fixed expectation that the witnesses become godparents or acquire a permanent title, which is a real difference from Greek or Serbian practice and one that spares a lot of negotiation. The expectation that remains is the substantive one: a witness should be an Orthodox Christian who will actually be around afterwards.
Metal crowns, parish property
Most OCA parishes own a pair of closed metal crowns in the Russian pattern, frequently gilded, often quite old, and sometimes given to the parish by a family generations back. They are held above the couple rather than worn. Some parishes have a lighter set as well for couples who prefer them, and a few use wreaths. The crowns are not taken home and there is no equivalent of the Greek stefanothiki in this tradition, so a couple who want a keepsake should plan for a photograph rather than an object.
The language of the service
English, essentially everywhere. The OCA has been an English-language church for two generations and its wedding service will be fully intelligible to any guest. Individual parishes keep some Slavonic, Romanian, Albanian or Bulgarian depending on which diocese and which community they belong to — the OCA contains ethnic dioceses as well as territorial ones — and Alaska keeps a body of hymnody in Yup’ik, Tlingit and Aleut that exists nowhere else in world Orthodoxy.
Mostly Revised Julian, with a real Julian minority
Most OCA parishes keep the Revised Julian calendar and celebrate the Nativity on the twenty-fifth of December. A genuine minority keeps the old calendar, including much of the Diocese of Alaska and a scattering of parishes elsewhere, so the Nativity there falls on the seventh of January and the Nativity Fast closes a longer stretch of the winter. This is the one jurisdiction where you cannot infer the calendar from the name of the church, and it matters for a wedding date. Ask the specific parish rather than the diocese.
The calendar
When a wedding cannot be held
The OCA applies the standard fasting calendar, which its own liturgical department publishes in a single page that is the clearest statement of it in English. Parish practice on the weekly rule is more relaxed than in a Russian parish.
Every list of closed dates is applied by a parish priest, and a bishop can dispense. Treat this as the shape of the year, not as your parish’s answer.
- Great Lent and Holy Week
- From the first Monday of Great Lent through Great and Holy Saturday. Because Pascha is on the Orthodox reckoning, the closure moves each year and can extend well into May.
- The Nativity Fast
- The fifteenth of November through the twenty-fourth of December on the new calendar, and thirteen days later where a parish keeps the old one.
- The Dormition Fast
- The first through the fourteenth of August. On the old calendar that becomes the fourteenth through the twenty-seventh, which is worth checking if your parish is one of the Julian ones.
- The Apostles’ Fast
- From the Monday after All Saints Sunday to the twenty-ninth of June. Its length depends entirely on when Pascha fell, so in one year it is a few days and in another it is several weeks.
- The standalone fast days
- The Eve of Theophany on the fifth of January, the Beheading of St John the Baptist on the twenty-ninth of August and the Elevation of the Cross on the fourteenth of September.
- Saturday, sometimes
- Some OCA parishes keep the Slavic avoidance of weddings on the eve of the Sunday Liturgy and some do not. A Saturday wedding is much more commonly available here than in a Russian parish, but it is not universal. Ask before you book.
Before the date
What has to be arranged first
Procedure sits with the diocese, and there are more than a dozen of them, so the specifics differ. What every parish will ask for is the same short list.
- At least one party Orthodox, in good standing
- Meaning an active communicant of a parish rather than someone whose name is on a list. If you have moved recently, sort out your membership before you start the conversation about a date.
- The other party baptised in the name of the Trinity
- The OCA follows the general rule: a marriage between an Orthodox Christian and a baptised non-Orthodox Christian may be celebrated with the diocesan bishop’s permission. Where the other party is not baptised, the Church cannot celebrate the marriage as a sacrament, and it will say so plainly rather than looking for a way round.
- The bishop’s permission for a mixed marriage
- Sought by the priest, not by the couple, but it takes time and it is one of the things that determines how early you need to start.
- Premarital preparation
- Required in every diocese, with the content set locally. Expect several sessions.
- The civil licence
- The priest signs as the officiant. State rules on waiting periods and expiry vary, and the OCA spans the United States, Canada and Mexico, so check the jurisdiction you are actually marrying in.
Around the service
Customs a guest will actually meet
None of these is part of the rite. They belong to the families, the diaspora and the reception, and they are what makes one Orthodox wedding feel unlike another.
There is often no ethnic overlay at all
A great many OCA parishes are majority convert and a great many OCA weddings have no inherited customs attached to them. This is not a deficiency. It tends to produce weddings where the service is the centre of attention because nothing else is competing with it, and where guests who have never been in an Orthodox church are actually able to follow what is happening.
Where there is one, it is Slavic, Carpatho-Rusyn or Romanian
The OCA’s historic communities brought the bread and salt, the embroidered cloth, the shouting at the reception and the long tables. Parishes in Pennsylvania, Ohio and the industrial Midwest still carry those in strength, because that is where the coal and the steel and the churches were.
Alaska is its own world
Orthodoxy in Alaska is two hundred years old and indigenous, and a wedding in a village parish carries Yup’ik, Aleut or Tlingit custom and hymnody rather than anything from Europe. It is the oldest continuous Orthodox practice in North America and it looks nothing like a wedding in New Jersey.
The parish hall reception
Common enough in the OCA to count as a custom. The service ends, the guests walk fifty feet, and the celebration happens in the building. It is cheap, it is unpretentious, and it keeps the wedding inside the community that will actually be supporting the marriage.
The service itself
Read it moment by moment, with the prayers
Orthodox Church in America parishes celebrate the Betrothal and the Crowning in the order below. Every moment is set out in full on the main page, with the prayer said at that point printed underneath it.
The full service, with every prayerQuestions
Good to know
Does the Orthodox Church in America use English at weddings?
Yes, as the working language, and a guest can expect to understand the service without a translation. Individual parishes keep some Slavonic or another heritage language in the hymns, and Alaska has its own body of hymnody in the indigenous languages, but the wedding itself will be in English.
Does the OCA teach that there are no vows in marriage?
It states it directly. The OCA’s volume on worship says the sacrament of marriage is not a juridical contract and contains no vows or oaths, and describes it instead as the blessing of a couple’s love by Christ in the Holy Spirit, with the couple crowned as witnesses of the Kingdom. That is why an OCA priest will not add written promises to the service.
Does the OCA follow the old calendar or the new one?
Mostly the new one, with a real old-calendar minority that includes much of the Diocese of Alaska. You cannot tell from the name of the parish, and it changes which winter dates are available, so ask the parish directly.
Can we be married in the OCA if one of us is not Orthodox?
If the other party is a baptised Christian, yes, with the permission of the diocesan bishop and on the usual understanding about children being baptised and raised Orthodox. If the other party is not baptised, the marriage cannot be celebrated as an Orthodox sacrament. The priest asks for the permission on your behalf; allow time for it.
Can we have the wedding on a Saturday?
Much more often than in a Russian parish. Some OCA parishes keep the older Slavic avoidance of weddings on the eve of the Sunday Liturgy and some have let it go. It is entirely a parish-level answer, so confirm it before anything is booked.
What makes an OCA wedding different from a Greek one?
The order of service is the same. In practice: the OCA asks the questions of consent and the Greek Church does not; OCA crowns are closed metal ones held aloft by two witnesses rather than wreaths joined by a ribbon and exchanged by a sponsor; the crowns stay with the parish rather than going home; and the whole thing is in English by default.
Keep exploring
Related guides
- The Russian Orthodox wedding serviceThe Russian Orthodox wedding: venchanie, the questions of consent, crowns held by witnesses, the Julian calendar and which days are closed.
- The Antiochian Orthodox wedding serviceThe Antiochian Orthodox wedding: what is said in English, the role of the sponsor, the zaffe, closed dates and what the Archdiocese asks of a couple.
- Dating in the Orthodox Church in America traditionWhat the jurisdiction tells you and what it does not, before anybody is planning a wedding.
- The Orthodox wedding service, from beginning to endEvery moment of the rite in order, with the prayers printed in full.
Church: The Orthodox Church in America, an autocephalous church with its primate in New York
Reviewed: · Editorial standards
Sources: OCA — Marriage, in The Orthodox Faith · OCA — Fasting and fast-free seasons of the Church · St Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary
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