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21 questions before an Orthodox relationship gets serious

Twenty-one thoughtful questions about Orthodox faith, marriage, children, money, family and conflict to discuss before a relationship becomes serious.

By Orthodate Editorial10 minute read

Before an Orthodox relationship becomes serious, discuss how each person understands faith, marriage, children, money, family and conflict. The goal is not identical answers. It is to discover whether you can tell the truth, understand your differences and make important decisions together.

At a glance

Key takeaways

  • Serious conversations should unfold across time, with each person offering honest answers rather than administering all twenty-one questions as a compatibility examination.
  • Discuss lived faith, marriage, children, family, money, work, location and conflict before engagement turns unresolved differences into urgent wedding decisions.
  • Matching answers are not enough: observe whether promises remain consistent during disappointment, changed plans, financial choices, boundaries, apologies and ordinary responsibilities.

How to raise any of this without sounding like a form

The questions are the easy part. What makes them land is the setting and the order, and both are usually got wrong in the same way: the subject is produced across a restaurant table, cold, with nothing offered first, and the other person correctly senses that they are being assessed.

Three habits fix almost all of it. Ask while doing something else — driving, walking, washing up — because a question asked side by side is much less confronting than one asked face to face. Answer first, and answer specifically enough to be embarrassing; nobody tells the truth to someone who has only asked. And ask one thing, then stop talking, rather than running a sequence.

Pace matters as much as delivery. A reasonable spread is intentions in the first few weeks, faith and family across the next couple of months, and money, children and conflict once the relationship is actually exclusive. Asking about a partner’s debt on date two is not thoroughness; it is a category error about what has been established.

Questions 1–4: faith and parish life

Listen for lived experience rather than a perfect vocabulary. A returning Christian may be sincere and still rebuilding habits; a lifelong parishioner may practise differently from you. The important questions are whether faith is genuine, growth is possible and differences can be discussed with humility.

  • What does being Orthodox mean in your daily life right now?
  • What kind of parish life do you hope to share as a couple?
  • How do you approach prayer, fasting, confession and spiritual guidance?
  • How would we handle differences in practice without judging or controlling each other?

Questions 5–8: marriage and commitment

Orthodox teaching treats marriage as more than a private lifestyle arrangement. That makes practical discussion more important, not less. Talk about service, fidelity, sacrifice, friendship and the ordinary work by which two lives become one household.

  • Why do you want to marry, and what do you believe marriage asks of you?
  • What did the marriages around you teach you—both positively and negatively?
  • How do you imagine responsibilities being shared at home?
  • What would make you seek counselling or pastoral help?

Questions 9–11: children and family life

These subjects can carry grief, medical uncertainty or family pressure. Ask with tenderness. Compatibility does not require predicting every circumstance, but it does require enough honesty to understand each person’s hopes and limits.

  • Do you hope to have children, and how would you respond if that becomes difficult?
  • How do you imagine raising children in the Church?
  • What roles should grandparents and extended family have in our decisions?

Questions 12–14: money, work and place

You do not need to exchange account numbers early in dating. You do need to notice whether each person can speak truthfully about financial habits and obligations before engagement. Hidden debt, gambling and financial control are not minor communication differences.

  • What does financial responsibility look like to you?
  • How should a couple make decisions about work, debt, saving and generosity?
  • Where could you realistically live, and what might cause you to move?

Questions 15–18: communication and conflict

Do not judge only the answer. Watch what happens during an actual misunderstanding. A mature partner can pause, return, take responsibility and hear the impact of their actions. Threats, contempt, surveillance, intimidation and spiritual manipulation are not conflict styles to accommodate.

  • What happens inside you when you are angry or overwhelmed?
  • How did your family apologize and repair conflict?
  • What boundaries help you feel respected during disagreement?
  • Which behaviours would make a relationship unsafe or impossible to continue?

Questions 19–21: culture, growth and the future

The final question brings abstractions into focus. Compare not only ideal holidays and major goals, but workdays, chores, parish commitments, rest and friendships. Marriage is built mostly from ordinary weeks.

  • Which cultural or family traditions are important for you to preserve?
  • How do you hope to keep growing—as a person, spouse and Christian?
  • What would a faithful, ordinary week together look like five years from now?

Answers that should end the conversation rather than start one

Most differences uncovered by these questions are workable. A few are not, and they are worth naming precisely, because the usual failure is not missing them — it is noticing them and then explaining them away because everything else was good.

The distinction that matters is between a position you disagree with and a pattern that will not be negotiated. Someone wanting four children when you want one is a serious difference to work through. Someone telling you that your reluctance is a spiritual failing is a different thing entirely, and no amount of further discussion improves it.

  • Any account of a past relationship in which the other person was entirely at fault, told about two or three different people.
  • Contempt for a former partner, a parent or a priest, particularly when it is fluent. Fluency means it has been rehearsed.
  • Using faith as leverage: that God has revealed the marriage, that a doubt is a lack of submission, that a priest’s guidance can be ignored because your relationship is exceptional.
  • Anger at the question itself. Not discomfort, which is normal — anger, or a fast pivot into accusing you of mistrust.
  • Vagueness about money that does not resolve. Debt is common and forgivable; a year of evasion about it is neither.
  • Anything about your movements, your friendships, your phone or your clothing being described as a legitimate object of their approval.
  • A description of marriage in which your role is settled and theirs is not, offered as though it were obviously Orthodox teaching.

What belongs with a priest rather than with each other

Some of what these conversations turn up cannot be settled between the two of you, and trying to settle it privately is how couples arrive at a wedding with a problem nobody has checked. A few categories should go to a priest early, and early means before an engagement, not during the planning.

The clearest cases are canonical. A previous marriage, a previous divorce, the requirements for a marriage where one party is not Orthodox, the status of a catechumen, godparent relationships and degrees of kinship, and what a particular diocese asks for — all of these vary by jurisdiction and none of them is safely resolved from a forum post. The second category is pastoral: how to handle a significant difference in practice, or a family situation that one of you cannot see clearly from inside.

Going separately at first is usually wiser than going together. Each of you can speak plainly about your own situation without managing the other’s reaction, and you can go together afterwards once you know what you are dealing with.

How to evaluate the conversation

Afterward, ask whether you felt free to be truthful. Notice where answers differ and decide whether the difference is negotiable, requires pastoral clarification or represents incompatible futures. “We will solve it later” is not a plan when the subject concerns children, faith or basic safety.

Return to difficult topics more than once. Consistency matters, and people sometimes need time to name what they believe. Serious discernment combines conversation with observation: promises should eventually be visible in conduct.

What to do with a difference you cannot close

Sort every unresolved item into one of three boxes, because they require completely different responses and treating them as one pile is what produces years of circling.

The first box is differences of preference — where to live, how often to host, how much to save. These are negotiated, and the negotiation is itself a useful test of the relationship. The second is differences of timing: one of you is ready and the other is not, or one still has a step to complete. These need a date, not a decision, and the date should be specific enough to be kept.

The third box is the hard one: a difference about something neither of you can concede without becoming someone else. Whether there will be children at all. Whether the household will be Orthodox. Whether one person will leave their country. The honest thing about these is that they do not usually dissolve, and that waiting rarely changes them; it mostly transfers the cost to whoever is more patient. It is better to name such a difference plainly at eighteen months than to discover at five years that both of you were waiting for the other to give way.

Two further points. Take some of this to someone outside the relationship — a priest, a spiritual father, an older couple who will not simply agree with you. And be suspicious of your own certainty when it arrives suddenly after a very good weekend; clarity that survives an ordinary Tuesday is the kind worth acting on.

Turn four conversations into evidence

Use a month to explore the subjects most relevant to your relationship, leaving enough space for observation and thoughtful follow-up.

  1. Step 1

    Choose one domain each week

    Select faith and parish life, marriage and children, money and location, then communication and conflict. Schedule one unhurried conversation weekly instead of releasing every consequential question in a single sitting.

  2. Step 2

    Offer your answer first

    Begin with a specific account of your present reality, hope and uncertainty. Ask one open question, reflect back what you heard and invite correction before moving to the next part.

  3. Step 3

    Add an ordinary-life check

    Pair each conversation with observable context: attend parish together, plan within a budget, handle a changed arrangement or resolve a small misunderstanding. Do not manufacture conflict; notice what real life already supplies.

  4. Step 4

    Classify and revisit differences

    Record agreements, negotiable differences, unanswered questions and possible incompatibilities. Set a date to revisit uncertainty, and take sacramental or jurisdiction-specific questions to the responsible priest before engagement plans are fixed.

Common questions

When should couples start asking serious questions?

Begin with intentions and basic values early, then discuss more personal subjects as mutual trust develops. Important incompatibilities should be known before engagement, not discovered during wedding planning.

What if we practise Orthodoxy differently?

Difference can be workable when both people are sincere, respectful and able to agree on a shared parish and family life. Ask a priest about sacramental or canonical questions that depend on jurisdiction.

Are matching answers enough to prove compatibility?

No. Answers show self-understanding and intention; conduct shows character. Evaluate whether the person’s choices remain consistent with what they say.

How do I ask serious questions without it feeling like an interview?

Ask while doing something else, answer first and specifically enough to be a little embarrassing, then ask one question and stop talking. A question asked side by side while driving or washing up lands very differently from one produced across a restaurant table.

Which answers should make me end a relationship?

Patterns rather than positions: contempt for a former partner or a priest, faith used as leverage, anger at being asked, sustained evasion about money, or any claim that your friendships, phone or clothing require their approval. A difference you disagree with is workable; a pattern that will not be negotiated is not.

When should we involve a priest?

Before an engagement rather than during the planning, and especially for anything canonical: a previous marriage or divorce, a non-Orthodox party, catechumen status, godparent relationships or diocesan requirements. Going separately first is usually wiser, then together once you know what you are dealing with.

What if we cannot resolve a difference?

Sort it. Preferences get negotiated, timing gets a specific date, and a difference neither of you can concede without becoming someone else needs naming plainly. Waiting rarely changes the third kind; it transfers the cost to whoever is more patient.

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.