{"id":8802,"date":"2013-07-03T11:45:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T18:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=8802"},"modified":"2013-07-03T11:45:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T18:45:58","slug":"oca-bishops-synodal-affirmation-of-the-mystery-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/oca-bishops-synodal-affirmation-of-the-mystery-of-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"OCA Bishops: Synodal Affirmation of the Mystery of Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Orthodoxby OCA Holy Synod –
\nAt the Tenth All-American Council<\/a> of the Orthodox Church in America, held in Miami, Florida in July 1992, the Holy Synod of Bishops issued a document titled, \u201cSynodal Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life<\/a>.\u201d The Affirmations were issued after a lengthy process of study and discernment with the intention of addressing issues that, even in our time, continue to be a source of debate and division within American society.<\/p>\n

The first section of the Affirmations, titled, \u201cThe Mystery of Marriage,\u201d reads as follows.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod creates human beings in His own image and likeness, male and female. He declares human life, with all that He makes, to be \u2018very good\u2019 (Genesis 1:27-31).<\/p>\n

\u201cGod wills that men and women marry, becoming husbands and wives. He commands them to increase and multiply in the procreation of children, being joined into \u2018one flesh\u2019 by His divine grace and love. He wills that human beings live within families (Genesis 1:27; 2:21-24; Orthodox Marriage Service). <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord Jesus blessed marriage in which the \u2018two become one flesh\u2019 when, by His presence with His mother Mary and His disciples at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, He revealed His messianic glory in His first public miracle, evoking for the first time the faith of His disciples (Genesis 2:24; John 2:1-11)….<\/p>\n

\u201cChrist\u2019s apostles repeat the teachings of their Master, likening the unique marriage between one man and one woman to the union between Christ and His Church which they experience as the Lord\u2019s very body and His bride (Ephesians 5:21-33; 2 Corinthians 11:2).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile condemning those who forbid marriage as an unholy institution, along with those who defile marriage through unchastity (1 Timothy 4:3, Hebrews 13:4), the apostles commend as \u2018the will of God\u2019 that Christians, as examples for all human beings, abstain from unchastity [porneia] and know how to marry \u2018in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God.\u2019 They insist that \u2018whoever disregards this [teaching] disregards not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit\u2019 to those who believe (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8).<\/p>\n

\u201cHusbands are commanded to be the heads of their wives as Christ is the head of the Church. They are called to love their wives as their very selves, as Christ loves the Church, giving themselves in sacrifice to their brides as to their own bodies. And wives are called to respect and reverence their husbands as the Church devotes herself to Christ with Whom she too, like the wife with her husband, is \u2018one flesh\u2019 (Ephesians 5:21-33; Orthodox Marriage Service).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018great mystery\u2019 of marriage (Ephesians 5:32) is the most used image and symbol in the Bible for God\u2019s relationship with His People in the Old and New Testaments where the Lord is the husband and His people are His wife\u2014so often unfaithful and adulterous (cf. Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Song of Songs, Corinthians, Ephesians, et. al.). And the ultimate union between the Lord and those saved by Christ for eternal life in God\u2019s kingdom by the indwelling Holy Spirit is likened to the communion of marriage (Revelation 21-22).\u201d<\/p>\n

In light of the decisions rendered on June 26, 2013 by the Supreme Court of the United States of America with regard to same-sex marriage, we, the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, reaffirm that which had been stated in June 1992, namely that marriage involves the union of one man and one woman, as divinely revealed and experienced in the sacramental life of the Church. As such, the Church does not, and can not, condone or accept marriages apart from those involving one man and one woman who seal their relationship in the all-embracing love of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

We exhort the clergy and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America not to have fear or anxiety in the face of the decisions of the civil authorities of our lands, but to bear witness to the timeless teachings of Christ by striving for purity and holiness in their own lives, by instructing their families and communities in the precepts of the Holy Gospel, and by placing their trust in our Lord Who \u201chas overcome the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

HT: OCA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by OCA Holy Synod – At the Tenth All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America, held in Miami, Florida in July 1992, the Holy Synod of Bishops issued a document titled, \u201cSynodal Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life.\u201d The Affirmations were issued after a lengthy process of study and discernment … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15,5,130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-marriage","category-moral-issues","category-orthodox-christianity","category-orthodox-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}