06/11/2007 | Георгій

http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/athenagoras_remarriage.htm

3. THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE

Here it becomes evident that the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church differ in their understanding of the purpose of marriage. In orthodox theological thinking this is firstly the reciprocal love, the relationship and the help between the marriage partners with view to their completion in Christ. Only subsequently comes the restraining of their sexual passion[7] and the reproduction of the human race.[8] It is remarkable that in the New Testament we find no reference relating marriage to reproduction. In the Roman Catholic Church it is evident that the ultimate purpose of marriage is “procreation” or reproduction. To see reproduction as the principal purpose of marriage is a narrow perspective on the conjugal life of man and wife. What value does sexual intercourse have between man and wife in the case of sterility or after the menopause, or if the wife is medically unable to have any more children? It is certain that the married couple have precedence above the family, however praiseworthy the purpose of family is.[9] The story of the establishing of marriage is found in the second chapter of the book Genesis, which deals with the fact that “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2, 24), without mention of reproduction. The Holy John Chrysostom refers to this: “There are two reasons for which marriage was established …to cause the man to be satisfied with one single wife and to give him children, but it is the first which is the most important…As for reproduction, marriage does not necessarily include this…the proof is to be found in the many marriages for which having children is not possible. This is why the primary reason for marriage is to regulate the sexual life, especially now that the human race has already populated the whole world". [10]