Church marriage
In Russia, according to Rosstat, a terrifying number of divorces was recorded for 2021 (58%). Thus, in the Magadan region, out of 100 registered marriages, 86 break up, and in the Leningrad region, 80. Even the Sacrament of Wedding in modern realities is not the key to a long and happy family life. The wedding turns into a beautiful ceremony, a ritual incomprehensible to the participants. Vows made before God are not taken seriously. This means that unchurched people consider it possible to get married without an official marriage. Therefore, to the question “is it possible to get married without registering with the registry office?” The priests answer unequivocally in the negative. Except in exceptional cases.
Sacrament of Wedding in an Orthodox Church
Wedding is a special Sacrament of Marriage. The Church blesses the union of a man and a woman in the likeness of the union of Jesus Christ and the Church. The Apostle Paul writes in his letters:
“The husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church, and He is the Savior of the body... Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her” (Eph 5:25).
Metropolitan Anthony (Sourozh):
“The Sacrament of Marriage, celebrated in the community of Christians, is not a religious form of “registration,” but a deep, instructive way in which the Church wants to reveal to us what love is and how deep human relationships are.”
Is it possible to get married without registering with the registry office?
In pre-revolutionary Russia, marriage was concluded and recorded only in the Church. State registration of marriage appeared in 1917 with the establishment of a secular state, separated from the Church. Before the revolution of the Church, not only the sacrament of Marriage took place. The priest had to ensure that the couple entering into marriage were not related. It was also necessary to establish whether they were adulterers while married. Now these functions lie with the state. And this is one of the reasons why you can’t get married without painting.
Archpriest Andrei Tkachev said:
“A couple comes to one priest and says: “We’ve been coming to your church for six months now. We don’t trust the state, we don’t love it. We are spiritual! And we want to get married. Can you get us married, but without all these stamps in the passport?..” You can soften the priest, influence him in some other way: “Is it possible?..” - “Well, you can, you can...” He got married.
And a month later, a woman comes to this priest, shows her passport and the man whom he recently married, and says: “On what basis did you marry my husband to some woman?” It turned out that this “very spiritual” man sang songs to the priest and got married to his mistress, although he himself was married and not divorced from his legal wife, with whom he lived for 15–20 years. I don't believe in "super-spirituality" - especially the modern deceitful person. Sign and then get married.”
Registration with the registry office also legally records the seriousness of the intentions of people getting married. It secures for the husband and wife their rights and responsibilities in the event of divorce. A wedding in our time has no legal force.
How to get married in a church without registering a marriage at the registry office?
If there are no stamps in the spouses’ passports, but the couple still really wants to get married, then this is possible, but only under one condition.
A man and a woman must prove to the clergyman the absolute sincerity of their feelings. Young people in love can get married if they are parishioners of the church where they plan to enter into a holy marriage, and the rector of the temple has known them for many years and sees their relationship to each other.
By blessing such a couple to perform the rite of the Sacrament without entering into marriage in the registry office, he thus takes upon himself full responsibility for their union.
An example of such a marriage in Russia is a celebrity couple who got married without a signature in the registry office - Anton Makarsky and Victoria Morozova. However, this case is rather an exception to the rule.
In fact, a wedding has no legal consequences and legal status in the legislative framework of the Russian Federation.
In addition, young people can get married without prior registration by the registry office if there are special, extreme conditions that threaten the life of one of the spouses.
For example, this could be a life-threatening operation or serving a life-threatening job. In such a case, the possibility of holding a church ceremony is decided on an individual basis.
If clergy of the highest hierarchy give their permission, then the wedding ceremony will be carried out without a marriage certificate. For all exceptional cases, you must obtain permission to perform a wedding from the diocesan bishop.
Note! The wedding ceremony can be held on the same day as the painting at the registry office.
In the event that the marriage procedure is scheduled later, the priest must be notified in advance, or even better, present a document from the registry office confirming this fact.
In accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, a church marriage does not have legal force.
But in exceptional situations, a church certificate can prove the existence of a marriage relationship (civil marriage) in fact. This concerns mainly issues of property and inheritance nature, as well as children’s rights.
It is important to understand that from the point of view of the law, a church union is not considered a marriage, therefore the state, in particular the court, cannot guarantee compliance with the rights and obligations of members of such a family, since this “unit of society” simply does not exist according to documents.
Does the Church recognize state marriage?
It is necessary to immediately separate such concepts as “civil marriage” and “prodigal cohabitation”. Cohabitation without registration in the registry office is mistakenly considered to be a civil marriage. This is fundamentally wrong. Civil marriage, also known as state marriage, is a normal marital union between a man and a woman. It is registered by the state in the registry office. Such a marriage is recognized by the Church as legal. Prodigal cohabitation is a sin, is considered unacceptable and is not recognized by the Church.
The Church also does not recognize a registered union of people of the same sex concluded in other countries. Unmarried marriage is not considered fornication
“Insisting on the need for church marriage, remind pastors that the Orthodox Church respects civil marriage” (journal of the meeting of the Holy Synod of December 28-29, 1998).
Are exceptions possible?
There is no canonical ban on holding a wedding ceremony without an official marriage. However, the mere desire of future spouses is not enough.
Since not only the young, but also the clergy bear responsibility, each such case is considered individually by the bishop of the corresponding diocese. Only the diocesan bishop gives permission to get married bypassing the rules. Three common reasons for exceptions:
- State registration and the wedding ceremony are scheduled for the same date, several hours apart. If you show the priest an invitation card to the registry office for a certain date indicating the names, he will probably give in and allow the wedding to be held first, and then the painting ceremony at the registry office;
- If there are extenuating circumstances, for example, during an upcoming operation with a risk to life or before the spouse travels to a “hot spot,” the local diocesan administration will most likely give the go-ahead for the wedding without a state marriage;
- A couple who wants to get married without a stamp in their passport have been obedient parishioners of the church for many years, and the rector of the temple sees their sincere attitude towards each other, he can make an exception. In this case, he takes full responsibility for their union.
Interesting! In Russia, the star couple Anton Makarsky and Victoria Morozova are known, who were married without a wedding ceremony precisely because of the last reason on the list.
Modern features of weddings
– To perform the Sacrament of Marriage, you must have a marriage certificate. The certificate confirms the legality of the marriage. So the answer to the question whether it is possible to get married without registering with the registry office is negative.
– People who remarry are also allowed to get married. However, in the case of third marriages, the wedding is not celebrated (according to the Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church).
– There is no such thing as “debunking.” If married couples divorce, the church marriage is not dissolved. It is impossible to cancel a perfect Sacrament. But when you remarry, in some cases you can receive a wedding blessing. For example, if one of the spouses died. If the marriage was dissolved through no fault of the person wishing to remarry. Also in the event that the second spouse is declared mentally ill or is subject to long-term imprisonment.
– Marriage between Christians of different confessions is possible if one of the spouses belongs to the Old Believers, Catholics, Protestants or members of the Ancient Eastern Churches. But at the same time, a mandatory condition must be met: children born in marriage must be raised in Orthodoxy. True, no one can guarantee the fulfillment of the above conditions. So such a marriage requires permission from the local ruling bishop.
Ritual of debunking in the Orthodox Church
So, there is no debunking, there is only the opportunity to receive a blessing for marriage. If the reasons for divorce do not seem significant to the clergy, permission will not be given. What is needed for this?
The second wedding proceeds in much the same way as the first. The only difference is that now no one holds crowns over the heads of the newlyweds. In this case, it does not matter that, for example, the second spouse is participating in the sacrament for the first time.
For the ceremony to take place, you need to provide the following documents:
- general passports of both newlyweds;
- divorce certificate;
- marriage certificate (second);
- an application submitted to the ruling bishop to remove the crowns.
The wedding is paid for by a voluntary donation. Its size can be named in the temple or determined by the couple themselves.
Remember that the dissolution of a union concluded in the church is possible only in the extreme impossibility of saving the family. Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman. They become one, therefore, from the point of view of Christianity, divorce is unacceptable.
The combination of a man and a woman was intended by God to be an eternal union. The Lord created a family for two people for the rest of their lives: “I say to you: whoever divorces his wife for reasons other than adultery and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9). A very clear command.
Debunking is not carried out in the church. If you look at the statistics of second church marriages while the first spouse is alive, it will seem very disappointing - the number of divorces exceeds 70%, and the remaining couples do not live very well.
How to prepare for a wedding
Family life must begin with spiritual preparation. Before marriage, the bride and groom bring repentance to God for their sins, confess and receive communion. Confession and Communion are the fundamental components on which family happiness and well-being will be built.
“When approaching such an important Sacrament as marriage, one must prepare oneself by cleansing oneself by confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries, and prayer, but not by balls, music and dancing, for this step extends not only to this life, but even to eternity ”(Reverend Macarius of Optina).
Wedding without marriage registration: exceptions
A wedding in a church without registration with the registry office is still possible in exceptional cases. If young believers want to get married, but due to objective insurmountable circumstances they cannot register their union in the registry office, a wedding is possible.
“Several times in my life I agreed to get married without state registration. And this was always due to the impossibility of registering it for one reason or another. So whether it is possible to get married without registering with the registry office must be decided according to the circumstances. One striking example comes from the 1990s. The man, being a citizen of Kazakhstan, spent four years restoring his passport, but he never succeeded. And of course, I married him. There was a real wedding with a bunch of family and friends, cars and restaurants. And my conscience doesn’t blame me one bit.
For example, several times I had to deal with the fact that quite elderly people with children did not want to register their marriage so as not to “strain” their children with problems related to inheritance. And recently we had a secret service employee get married. He did not register his marriage so as not to endanger his family” (Archpriest Maxim Pervozvansky).
Getting married before registering a marriage is a debatable issue, according to the Russian Orthodox Church
The theme of the wedding also received special resonance in connection with the recent statement by the leader of the LDPR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, about his refusal to declare his wife’s income, since their marriage is only a church one.
Christian responsibility
- In accordance with the established practice in the Russian Orthodox Church, clergy before the wedding, which is one of the seven church sacraments (“sacrament of marriage”), must familiarize themselves with the marriage certificate.
- “There are situations in which people sometimes perceive a wedding as something non-binding, not entailing serious consequences, and therefore they think that it is easier to dissolve a married marriage than one registered with government agencies - this is a completely wrong approach,” says the head Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin of the Synodal Department for Relations between Church and Society.
- When asked how he feels about the measures proposed in the concept of family policy, the clergyman notes that “this is a debatable issue.”
“If the state begins to take into account weddings as additional evidence of the seriousness of the intentions of those entering into marriage, this would be greatly welcomed. But I am convinced that a wedding, divorced from state registration of marriage, in no way corresponds to the Christian responsibility for marriage,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.
The head of the synodal department recalled that in some countries churches and other religious communities already have the right to register marriage. “I’m not sure that modern Russian religious organizations need this, but the fact of a wedding should be appreciated in our society,” he added.
There are no hasty weddings in the church
The rector of the Tatian Church at Lomonosov Moscow State University, the ex-head of the patriarchal press service, Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky, in turn, told RIA Novosti that he “did not notice the trend” that Deputy Mizulina is talking about - for believing spouses to get married without prior registration at the registry office.
“Priests never marry and should not marry strangers.
Moreover, their acquaintance, the bride and groom, lasts a long time, and the test that is given in government offices is two to three months, for the Church, on the contrary, a very short period.
It takes about a year for people to get to know each other. There are no hasty weddings in the Church,” Vigilyansky said.
It. According to the rector of the Tatian Church, clergy marry only believers, churchgoers who regularly participate in other sacraments of the Church - the sacraments of confession and Communion, and who are “in front of the priest.”
“They don’t marry other people in the Church. Or rather, they shouldn’t get married. I don't know what's really going on. In my practice, I have not married such people, and this does not happen in our church,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.
As Vigilyansky recalled, before the 1917 revolution, church practice in the field of marriage was even more strict: in addition to weddings, in Russia there was also betrothal, “and after betrothal, people sometimes waited for years for a wedding.” Nowadays, betrothal and wedding rites are combined in one wedding ceremony.
Commenting on the draft concept of family policy, the former head of the patriarchal press service suggested that, apparently, the developers take into account the fact “that the Church takes this act, this sacrament (of marriage) more seriously.” “Therefore, what is written in the concept is a completely acceptable thing, it can exist,” Vigilyansky said, adding that the priest “should never indulge” human cunning.
The idea of the concept is “quite reasonable”
The Chairman of the Moscow Diocesan Commission for Social Ministry, Archpriest Mikhail Potokin, for his part, clarified to RIA Novosti that there are no canonical prohibitions on the wedding of young people who have not registered their marriage in the Church.
“We have been having weddings and church marriages for thousands of years, but state registration has been taking place for the last hundred years; before the revolution there were no registry offices. Another thing is that there is an established practice, which is due to many reasons and implies certain conditions under which people can be married,” Potokin said.
According to him, one of such conditions is state registration of marriage.
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As Potokin noted, it would be strange if a person, expressing a desire to get married and take on certain spiritual obligations, would not be ready to accept material obligations in relation to his future family, which “are still less significant, than obligations associated with decency, with maintaining the purity of marriage relations.”
“The question arises: why did you decide to get married then? Why did they start “from above” and not “from below”? I cannot accept some obligations and not others - I accept everything,” Potokin explained.
In addition, he added, it is typical for megalopolises and big cities that the priest may simply not know well the people who decided to get married in his church, they may not be among the regular parishioners, and in this case, the marriage registration document in the registry office may be additional evidence of the seriousness of the intentions of the two spouses.
Speaking about the ideas for the concept of family policy until 2025, the head of the diocesan commission for social service noted that in some countries there is already a practice where the state recognizes a marriage as valid after its church registration. “I think that this is not a new practice, and it is probably quite reasonable,” Potokin concluded.
Who to pray for happiness in the family
Most often, newlyweds turn for prayerful help to saints, whose family relationships set an example of righteous life, wisdom and Christian love between spouses. The patron saints of the family are the holy faithful Prince Peter and Princess Fevronia. Their love was able to survive difficult life trials. Those close to him tried to separate Peter and Fevronia, believing that a princely wife could not come from the common people. But Prince Peter did not leave his wife and was ready to give up power and wealth for her sake.
They pray for family well-being and to the royal passion-bearers Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra - a true example of pure, sacrificial love between spouses. They supported each other and encouraged each other in the most difficult times. Their letters are a real treasure trove for newlyweds. Here you can learn a lot of practical advice and avoid mistakes on the path to family happiness.
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