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Marriage

1,010 bytes added, 16:13, July 13, 2018
Holy Matrimony: added quote from Chrysostom
The Orthodox Church teaches that man is made in the image of the [[Trinity]], and he is not intended by God to live alone, but in a family, except in special cases. And just as God blessed the first family, commanding [[Adam and Eve]] to be fruitful and multiply, so the Church now gives its blessing to the union of man and woman. The mystery of marriage, in the Church, gives a man and a woman the possibility to become one spirit and one flesh in a way which no human love can provide by itself. The Holy Spirit is given so that what has begun on earth is fulfilled and continues most perfectly in the Kingdom of God.
 
St John Chrysostom held that procreation is a normal feature of marriage, but not essential to it.
 
:Marriage does not always lead to child-bearing, although there is the word of God which says, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." We have as witnesses all those who are married but childless. So the purpose of chastity takes precedence, especially now, when the whole world is filled with our kind. At the beginning, the procreation of children was desirable, so that each person might leave a memorial of his life.... But now that resurrection is at our gates, and we do not speak of death, but advance toward another life better than the present, the desire for posterity is superfluous. If you desire children, you can get much better children now, a nobler childbirth and a better help in your old age, if you give birth by spiritual labor.
 
:So there remains only one reason for marriage, to avoid fornication, and the remedy is offering for this purpose.<ref>Chrysostom, pp. 85-86.</ref>
==Marriage service==
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