Orthodate
Open Orthodate

Marriage

Who cannot marry in the Orthodox Church: relatives, godparents, earlier marriages and other impediments

Which family ties, godparent bonds, earlier marriages, vows and baptism questions can stop an Orthodox wedding, the canons behind each, and how to ask early.

By Orthodate Editorial18 minute read

Most couples preparing for an Orthodox wedding will never hit an obstacle. A handful will, and they tend to find out at the worst possible moment: after the venue is booked, the invitations have gone out, and the priest says that something in the family tree, in a baptism twenty years ago or in a previous marriage needs to go to the bishop. The Church’s discipline on who may marry is old, partly strict and partly flexible, and it is rarely explained in advance. This guide lays it out from the primary sources. It shows what the canons actually say, in their own words where that helps; separates what is settled from what varies by jurisdiction; and gives you a simple way to put your own situation in front of a priest early, when there is still room to respond.

At a glance

Key takeaways

  • The Church’s impediments fall into a few families: baptism and faith, blood relationship, relationship by marriage, spiritual kinship created by baptism, earlier marriages, and vows or ordination already taken.
  • The canons set the principle, but modern practice is narrower than the old law in several places and varies by jurisdiction, so the answer to any real case is a decision of the bishop and not a quotation.
  • The most useful thing a couple can do is to draw a family tree, list every baptismal sponsor and every earlier marriage, and take it to a priest at the start of the engagement rather than the end.

1. What an impediment is, and what it is not

It helps to separate three things that are often confused. An impediment is a circumstance that, according to the Church’s canons, prevents a marriage from being blessed: a degree of kinship, a previous marriage that has not been dealt with, a vow already taken. A requirement is a piece of preparation that has to be in place, such as a baptismal certificate, a civil licence or a premarital meeting. And a pastoral concern is a judgment by the priest or bishop about whether the couple is ready, which is real but is a different kind of thing, and which the checklists on preparation take up.

The distinction matters because the three are handled differently. A missing certificate is fixed by obtaining it. A pastoral concern is addressed by conversation and time. An impediment is addressed by the bishop, who may decline, may ask for a period of repentance or preparation, or may in appropriate cases allow the marriage by what the tradition calls economy, a pastoral departure from strict observance.

The Council in Trullo, whose canons the Orthodox Church receives, sets out the balance in its hundred and second canon, which tells those with the power to bind and loose that they must know two things: what belongs to strictness and what belongs to custom, and follow the traditional form for those who are not fitted for the highest things. That is the vocabulary a priest will use, if he explains his reasoning: akriveia, strictness, and oikonomia, economy. The canons set the first. The bishop’s judgment supplies the second, and the same couple can receive different answers from different bishops without either being wrong.

2. Baptism and communion: the first question of all

The Orthodox Church in America states the basic rule in its teaching on marriage: the Christian sacrament of marriage is available only to those who belong to the Church, that is, to baptised communicants. That is the strict teaching and practice, it says, and it remains so today. It then states the exception that applies in the modern world. Because of the tragedy of Christian disunity, an Orthodox Christian may be married in the Church to a baptised non-Orthodox Christian, on the condition that both sincerely work and pray for their full unity in Christ, without coercion or domination by either. An Orthodox Christian who enters such a marriage must have the Church’s prayers and blessings in order to remain a member and a participant in holy communion.

In practice that sorts people into three groups. Two baptised Orthodox Christians in good standing face no issue of faith. An Orthodox Christian and a baptised Christian of another confession, whose baptism was in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, can marry with the bishop’s blessing under the conditions above, and the guides on Catholic and Protestant partners set out how that works. An Orthodox Christian and someone who is not baptised, whether an unbeliever, an adherent of another religion or a person who has never been baptised, cannot be married in the Church as things stand. The route open to that couple is for the partner to be received into the Church, which should be an honest conversion rather than a convenience, or for the couple to marry civilly without the Church’s blessing, with consequences for the Orthodox partner’s place in the sacraments that a priest will need to explain.

The older canons were considerably stricter. The seventy-second canon of the Council in Trullo forbids an Orthodox man to marry a heretical woman and an Orthodox woman to be joined to a heretical man, and calls such a marriage null. But the same canon preserves something important. If two unbelievers were lawfully married and one comes to the faith while the other remains in unbelief, and the unbeliever is content to live with the believer, they are not to be separated, since the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife by the husband. That is the principle behind every later pastoral approach: the Church does not dissolve a lawful marriage because one of the spouses has come to faith.

3. Blood relatives

The Church has always restricted marriage between close relatives, and the restriction rests on Scripture, on the canons of Saint Basil and on the fifty-fourth canon of the Council in Trullo. That canon begins by quoting the book of Leviticus, that none shall approach any who are near of kin to uncover their nakedness, and observes that Basil enumerated some prohibited marriages and passed over the greater part in silence, so that the matter had become confused. It then sets out more clearly what was forbidden. A man may not marry the daughter of his father’s brother. A father and son may not marry a mother and daughter. A father and son may not marry two sisters. A mother and daughter may not marry two brothers, and two brothers may not marry two sisters. Those who do fall under a canon of seven years of penance, provided that they openly separate from the union.

That is the text, and the first item in it is worth noticing: a first cousin on the father’s side is named explicitly. It is the point at which modern practice and ancient law part company, because the Church’s practice with regard to cousins has varied widely over the centuries and still does. In some periods and places the prohibition was extended to remote degrees of kinship. In the modern period it has been narrowed, and different jurisdictions, and different bishops within them, take different positions on first cousins in particular. Some require a dispensation. Some regard the matter as settled against the marriage. Some treat it as a pastoral question for the bishop alone. An article cannot tell you which of these applies to you, and the fact that a state permits cousin marriage does not answer it.

The practical rule is simple. If you and your intended share a common ancestor within the last few generations, say so to a priest at the beginning, name the relationship exactly, and let him take it to the bishop if it is necessary. A priest who knows early can usually find the answer in an afternoon. A priest who finds out three weeks before the wedding has to decide under pressure, and that rarely serves the couple.

4. Relationship by marriage

The second family of restrictions concerns relationships created by marriage rather than by blood. The underlying idea is that when a man and a woman become one flesh, each becomes related to the other’s family, and that certain combinations of marriages within two families confuse the relationships that the Church wants to keep clear. The patterns in Trullo’s fifty-fourth canon are exactly of that kind: a father and son cannot marry a mother and daughter, because it would make the same people each other’s step-relatives and spouses at once. Two brothers cannot marry two sisters, for the same reason.

The older canons go further than these, and Saint Basil’s letters and canons catalogue many more cases. Which of them are still applied, and how strictly, varies. The practical position is that a person in a situation involving marriages within two families, such as marrying the sibling of a former spouse or the relative of a spouse’s relative, should assume the question will arise and ask a priest to look at it rather than relying on what a civil registry permits.

5. Spiritual kinship: godparents and godchildren

The impediment that most often surprises people is the one created by baptism. The fifty-third canon of the Council in Trullo opens with a sentence that is the foundation of the whole subject: the spiritual relationship is greater than fleshly affinity. It goes on to say that it has come to the Council’s attention that persons who have become sponsors to children in holy baptism afterwards contract marriage with the mothers of those children, who were widows, and it decrees that this is not to be done in future. Those who do so are to separate from the union and are subject to the penalties of fornicators.

The point of the canon is to treat sponsorship as a real kinship. A godparent is not a ceremonial figure, but is, in the tradition’s language, a spiritual parent, and a godchild’s family stands in a relationship to him that the canon says is greater than one of blood. The consequence is that a godparent may not marry his godchild or the godchild’s parent, and the tradition has generally taken the canon’s logic to extend a little further, in ways that vary. Some jurisdictions apply it to the godparent’s own children in relation to the godchild. Some apply it to godchildren of the same sponsor, who are called spiritual siblings. Others apply it more narrowly. The pattern that does not vary is that the closest relationships, the godparent and the godchild and the godchild’s parents, are the ones in which the impediment is firmest.

This matters in a way that it did not in the seventh century because Orthodox communities are often small, tightly knit and bound together by sponsorship. A couple in a Greek, Serbian, Romanian or Georgian parish may find that their families have been connected through one baptism or another for decades. The guides on baptism and on wedding sponsors explain who stands in what relationship, and they are worth reading together. If your intended is the godchild of your godfather, or your sister’s godparent, or the child of someone you sponsored, you should tell the priest at once and let him check.

6. Earlier marriages

The Orthodox Church in America sets out the Church’s teaching on this in a sentence that explains the rest: only one marriage can contain the perfect meaning and significance that Christ gave to marriage. For that reason the tradition encourages widows and widowers to remain faithful to a spouse who is dead to this world and alive in Christ. At the same time, the Church has a service for second marriage, which is penitential in character, for those who have been unable to fulfil the ideal conditions of marriage as Christ taught them, and it does not exclude members of second marriages from communion if they sincerely desire to be in eucharistic fellowship with God and fulfil all other conditions of participation in the Church.

Three practical points follow. First, a previous marriage that ended in civil divorce is not, for the Church, thereby ended. A person who was married in the Church and divorced civilly will ordinarily need a decision from the Church before a new marriage can be blessed, and that decision is made by the bishop or a diocesan body, not by a parish priest. The guide on divorce and remarriage goes through what is involved, including the preparation and the documents. Second, a widowed person needs the death certificate and the usual evidence, and a priest will often want to speak about the loss and about what the new marriage will mean for children and for the memory of the first spouse. Third, the tradition has long treated a third marriage as an exceptional concession and a fourth as something the Church does not bless, so a person who has been married more than twice should speak to a priest before anything is planned, and should be prepared for a careful conversation.

There is also a quieter version of the same issue. The canons treat betrothal as a real bond. The ninety-eighth canon of Trullo says that a man who brings to the intercourse of marriage a woman who is betrothed to another man who is still alive is guilty of adultery. In modern practice, what this means is that an earlier commitment, such as a prior engagement that was never properly dissolved, or a marriage contracted elsewhere, is something the priest will ask about, and is something to disclose rather than hope he will not find out.

7. Vows and ordination already taken

A person who has been tonsured a monk or a nun has made vows that are incompatible with marriage. The forty-fourth canon of Trullo says that a monk who is convicted of fornication or who takes a wife for the communion of matrimony is subjected to the penalties of fornicators. A person who has left a monastery has to be released from the vows in the way the Church provides, which is a conversation with a bishop, and a priest will need to see the evidence.

The rule for the ordained is the one set out in the guide on marrying a priest or a seminarian: a man who has been ordained a subdeacon, deacon or priest may not marry afterwards. It is a rule that applies to the man, and an unmarried clergyman who is dating should ask his bishop about it before he takes a step he cannot undo. For everyone else, ordination and monastic vows are simply not in the picture, and nothing further needs to be established on this point.

9. The civil law is separate

Nothing in this guide is a substitute for the civil requirements of the place where you marry, and nothing in civil law substitutes for the Church’s requirements. States and countries set their own rules about marriage between relatives and about previous marriages, and they differ widely. The Church’s limits are separate, and in some respects wider. A couple who are legally free to marry can still be unable to marry in the Church, and the reverse is occasionally true as well.

In the United States, the civil side is handled by a county or state office, and the guide on the civil requirements explains the licence, the waiting periods and the paperwork. The sensible order is to ask the priest about the Church’s requirements first, because the civil date is flexible and the Church’s answer may not be.

10. How to put your case to a priest

A priest cannot do much with a vague question. If you say that you think there might be a problem with a relative, he can only ask more questions. If you hand him a page with names, relationships and dates, he can usually tell in a few minutes whether there is anything to take further. That is the reasoning behind the exercise below. It is not an interrogation of your family. It is a way of making it easy for a busy priest to say, quickly and with confidence, that there is nothing to worry about.

If there is something, ask what the options are. They are usually to continue with a dispensation granted by the bishop, to wait for a period of preparation or repentance, or, in some cases, not to marry. All three are real outcomes, and a couple that has been open from the start can accept any of them with more grace than one that has been surprised. Do not treat a civil wedding as a workaround. An Orthodox Christian who marries outside the Church without its blessing has a pastoral situation that the priest will have to address, and that is a more difficult conversation than the one you were trying to avoid.

The one-page check to hand a priest at the start of your engagement

Fill this in together, in an evening, and take it to the first meeting. Almost every item will turn out to be irrelevant, and the point is to be able to say so confidently.

  1. Step 1

    Draw both family trees as far as your great-grandparents

    Each of you should draw your parents, their siblings, your grandparents and their siblings, and where possible your great-grandparents. Mark any place where the two trees touch. If they do not touch at all within four generations, write that down; it is useful for the priest to read.

  2. Step 2

    List every baptismal sponsor, in both directions

    Write down who sponsored each of you, and whom each of you has sponsored. Include your siblings’ sponsors and the sponsors of any children in either family. If a godparent, a godchild or a godchild’s parent appears on the other person’s side of the page, mark it.

  3. Step 3

    Record every earlier marriage and betrothal

    For each person, list any previous marriage or engagement, with the dates and where it took place. Note whether it was in the Church, whether there has been a civil divorce, and whether there has been an ecclesiastical decision. Gather the documents: decrees, death certificates, church records.

  4. Step 4

    Check baptism and communion on both sides

    Write down where and when each of you was baptised, and in which church, with the certificate if you have it. Note any chrismation and the date of your last communion. If one of you is not baptised or was baptised outside the Orthodox Church, say so explicitly.

  5. Step 5

    Note any vows or ordination

    If either of you has been tonsured, ordained to any order or left a monastery, put it on the page. If the answer is no for both, write that too. A page with a clear no is just as valuable as one with a question.

  6. Step 6

    Ask your three questions

    At the meeting, ask whether anything on the page needs to go to the bishop, how long it would take if it did, and what the options would be if the answer were no. Write down the answers, send the priest a short email afterwards confirming what was said, and keep the reply.

Common questions

Can first cousins marry in the Orthodox Church?

The canons name the daughter of a father’s brother as a prohibited marriage, and the Church’s practice regarding cousins has varied by place and period. Modern practice is narrower than the old law and differs between jurisdictions and bishops, so the answer depends on your bishop. The fact that civil law permits cousin marriage does not settle the question for the Church.

Can a godparent marry their godchild?

No. The Church treats the relationship between a sponsor and the person sponsored as a spiritual kinship that is greater than a bond of blood, and the canons forbid a sponsor to marry the mother of the child he sponsored. The same logic applies between a godparent and the godchild, and many jurisdictions extend it further, so anyone connected through sponsorship should raise it with a priest at the start.

Can two people who share a godparent marry each other?

It depends on the jurisdiction. Some Orthodox churches apply the impediment of spiritual kinship to godchildren of the same sponsor, who are called spiritual siblings. Others apply it more narrowly or leave it to the bishop. If you and your intended share a sponsor, tell the priest and let him take it to the bishop if necessary.

Can an Orthodox Christian marry someone who is not baptised?

Not in the Church. The sacrament of marriage is available only to baptised communicants, with an allowance for a baptised non-Orthodox Christian under conditions. A partner who is not baptised may be received into the Church, which should be an honest conversion and not a convenience, and the couple can then be married.

How many times can a person marry in the Orthodox Church?

The Church’s ideal is one marriage. It has a penitential service for a second marriage and does not exclude those in a second marriage from communion. The tradition has long treated a third marriage as an exceptional concession and a fourth as something the Church does not bless, so anyone who has been married more than once should speak to a priest and the bishop at the start.

Can a monk or nun marry?

Not while under monastic vows. The canons assign the penalties of fornication to a monk who takes a wife. A person who has left a monastery has to be released from the vows through the bishop, and a priest will ask for the evidence before any wedding can be planned.

What should I do if an impediment is discovered after the wedding is planned?

Speak to your priest immediately and let him raise it with the bishop. Many impediments can be addressed by a dispensation or by a period of preparation, and the sooner the bishop knows the more options he has. A civil wedding as a workaround raises a separate pastoral difficulty and should not be treated as a way round.

Sources and further reading

Pastoral practice can vary by diocese and jurisdiction. For questions about your circumstances, speak with the priest responsible for your pastoral care.