Marriage and the Crowning

What you'll notice

You'll wait for the vows, and they won't come. The bride and groom stand in front of a small table holding lit candles. The priest does most of the talking, the choir does most of the singing, and the couple are mostly quiet. Then the priest lifts two crowns and puts them on their heads, and somebody standing behind them, the best man or maid of honor, the koumbaros or koumbara (the wedding sponsor), watches those crowns for the rest of the service.

Later the couple drink three times from one cup. Then the priest leads them three times around the table while everyone sings, the sponsor shuffling along behind holding the crowns on. That part is the one the photographers want. At the end the people come up to congratulate them, with kisses all around.¹

What it's called

The service is two services. The Betrothal blesses the rings. The Crowning, which Hapgood titles "The Order of Marriage, or of Crowning," is the marriage itself.² Hapgood's prayers call the sponsors "the groomsman and the bridesmaid"; Greek parishes say koumbaros and koumbara. The cup is the common cup.

What's actually happening

The rings

The rings have been lying on the Holy Table. The priest blesses the couple, hands them candles, and prays for them, remembering Isaac and Rebecca. Then he makes the sign of the cross over them with the rings, saying three times, "The servant of God, N., is betrothed to the handmaid of God, N.," and puts the rings on their right hands. A long prayer follows about rings in Scripture: Joseph's in Egypt, Daniel's in Babylon, Tamar's, and the one the father put on the prodigal son.³ The rubric calls for gold for the man and silver for the woman; by Hapgood's day both were usually gold. In the Russian Church the couple exchange the rings themselves; Hapgood notes that in the Greek Church they don't, and his order for a second marriage gives the exchange to the sponsor.⁴

The question

In the Russian rite the priest then asks each of them, "Hast thou, N., a good, free and unconstrained will and a firm intention to take unto thyself to wife this woman, N., whom thou seest here before thee?" and whether they've promised themselves to anyone else. The answers are "I have, reverend Father" and "I have not promised myself, reverend Father."⁵ That's consent, asked by the Church. It isn't a vow, and the couple make no promises to each other. There are no exchanged vows in this rite. God does the joining.

The crowns

Three long prayers ask God to bless this marriage as he blessed Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Joseph and Asenath, to remember the parents "for the prayers of parents make firm the foundations of houses," and to remember the groomsman and the bridesmaid. Then the priest crowns each of them, "The servant of God, N., is crowned unto the handmaid of God, N.," and blesses them three times: "O Lord our God, crown them with glory and honour."⁶ The readings are Ephesians 5 and the wedding at Cana.⁷

The cup

After the Lord's Prayer the priest blesses "this common cup" and gives it three times to each, husband first. Hapgood calls it the cup "of weal and woe": from now on they share equally "the cup of joy and sorrow." In Greece, he adds, they're given bread soaked in wine.⁸

The walk

The priest leads them three times around the lectern (in many parishes, a small table) where the Gospel book and cross lie, the groomsmen behind holding the crowns, while the choir sings three hymns: one that begins, in Hapgood's English, "Rejoice, O Isaiah! A Virgin is with child" (sung in many American parishes as "Dance, Isaiah"); "O Holy Martyrs, who fought the good fight and have received your crowns"; and "Glory to thee, O Christ our God, the Apostles' boast, the Martyrs' joy."⁹ Hapgood's appendix calls the circle eternity and the walk the couple's oath "forever to preserve their marriage bond."¹⁰ They promise with their feet.

Then the priest lifts off the crowns: "Be thou exalted, O Bridegroom, like unto Abraham," and to the bride, "Be thou exalted like unto Sarah."¹¹

Why it matters

"This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32, as Hapgood's book reads it).¹² Marriage here means a man and a woman joined in Christ, accountable to him and to his Church, on a shared road to salvation and, ordinarily, open to children; the prayers ask for children again and again. That's a long way from a romantic upgrade with incense, and it's why the Church doesn't rent itself out as a wedding venue.

The crowns carry both meanings at once. They're royal: a household is a small kingdom. And they're a martyr's crowns, which is why the hymn during the walk is addressed to the martyrs, and why the prayers remember the Forty Martyrs "sending down upon them crowns from heaven."¹³ Marriage crowns you for self-giving love, and self-giving love costs something.

Where it came from

The Church has blessed marriage since Cana, where the Lord "didst bless the marriage there," as the prayer says.¹⁴ Hapgood records older layers still visible in his day: the proper time for a wedding was the morning, right after the Divine Liturgy, so the couple came to it fasting; in the early Church the crowns were olive leaves, worn for a week, and the book keeps a prayer for taking them off on the eighth day. In Greece the crowns were woven of olive or laurel with flowers; in Russia they were metal, kept in the church, with an icon of Christ on the groom's and of the Mother of God on the bride's.¹⁵

Mixed marriages and second marriages

The canons are strict here, and the strict rule stays the rule. The Council in Trullo (692) says plainly that "an orthodox man is not permitted to marry an heretical woman, nor an orthodox woman to be joined to an heretical man."¹⁶ What bishops permit beyond that, they permit as an exception, couple by couple. The OCA's Diocese of New York and New Jersey, for example, publishes its rule: a marriage between an Orthodox Christian and a Christian baptized with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit requires a petition to the bishop and takes place in an Orthodox church; marriage to a non-Christian isn't permitted.¹⁷ Other jurisdictions publish their own guidelines.

On second marriages Saint Basil was severe: a year's penance for a second marriage, and a third "no longer to be called a marriage."¹⁸ Hapgood's notes say the Church permits second and even third marriages "but unwillingly," and print a separate Order of Second Marriage, used when both bride and groom have been married before, whose prayers ask for "the contrition of the Publican, the tears of the Harlot, the confession of the Thief."¹⁹ The same diocese states the norm, "one marriage for each person," and requires a petition to the bishop for a second or third.²⁰

Contraception

No universal canon addresses contraception. The canons sometimes cited, Trullo 91 and Ancyra 21, concern abortion. Two churches have addressed the question pastorally: the Russian Church in its Basis of the Social Concept (2000), section XII.3, and the OCA's Holy Synod in its 1992 affirmations, which accept only "those means of controlling conception within marriage... which do not harm a fetus already conceived."²¹

What you do

If you're Orthodox: talk to the parish early, because the calendar matters. Weddings aren't celebrated during the fasts, on the eves of great feasts, or in Easter week, and some dioceses list more dates.²² Choose your sponsor well; in the service the job is to stand behind you and keep the crowns on, and afterward it's a lifetime of friendship and prayer.

If you're visiting: there's no aisle moment and no vows to wait for, so watch for the crowns, the cup, and the walk instead. Stand when others stand. At the end, go up with everyone else to congratulate the couple.

Field Note: "I have, reverend Father." The nearest thing to a vow in the whole service is the priest asking the bride and groom whether they came freely. They answer him, not each other. After that the couple say almost nothing, and that's the point: the marriage doesn't rest on the strength of their promises. God does the joining, and then they spend fifty years walking in it.

Go deeper

• Hapgood, Service Book, The Rite of Holy Matrimony, pp. 292–306, with the explanations on pp. 604–605.
• Ephesians 5:20–33; John 2:1–11.
• "The Mysteries: A Field Guide to the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church," Simply Orthodox.
• Go to an Orthodox wedding; Family Life, Name Days, and Godparents.

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