Posts Tagged ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’
In the Wayback Machine I just came across what purports to be a translation of what happens when an Orthodox wedding is held alongside a full Divine Liturgy, i.e., Eucharist, translated by just-glorified St. Justin Popovich (†1979) of Chelije, Serbia. I can’t vouch for anything about the Archive link material, since I haven’t attended any Orthodox weddings yet, nor studied them, so if you need to follow the Two-Source Rule, you should follow it!
A little background: I’ve read that most Orthodox weddings these days are not served with Liturgy, similar in fact to the one depicted in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding as far as I could tell. There’s even some controversy over whether we should do so more, or not get worked-up about it. One thing a non-Liturgical wedding makes easier is the question of how to tell non-Orthodox attending a Liturgical wedding that only Orthodox may receive the Communion … especially if one of the spouses and/or their whole side of the building are non-Orthodox, as in MBFGW, where the groom had converted, but his (few) friends and family in attendance had not.
Just for comparison’s sake, if I remember my altar-boy days correctly, among Vatican-II-Rite Roman Catholics [we have to specify now] it wasn’t uncommon to have a Nuptial Mass, which would be the equivalent of a Byzantine Rite (and thus Orthodox) Liturgical wedding like we’re talking about here; IOW it includes Communion consecrated during that service. However, these were Saturday afternoon Nuptial Masses I was serving at, not much longer than a non-nuptial Weekday Mass, little if any liturgical music, brief homily, short Communion, Ave Maria ceremony added, etc. (and five Bicentennial U.S. dollars in my 13-year-old, working class, pre-seminarian pocket! 🙂 ). Point being, it’s hard to do that in Orthodoxy — for better or for worse — as you may see if you read through the linked material even at a normal, clearly-spoken pace, nevermind mostly-chanted. OTOH IIUC it’s not rare for Catholics to just have a wedding without Mass, either; there are different reasons why they could, would want to, or would have to go this route, which I don’t need to go into here.
OrthodoxWiki discusses Orthodox Marriage approaches and services more briefly than St. Justin. A decade ago (or more), my own jurisdiction, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, defined what denominations our faithful were allowed to marry “in the Church,” * in terms expressed pretty clearly, though without denomination-specific treatment, by Metropolitan ISAIAH of Denver. I once read somewhere else that what His Eminence says more or less reflects SCOBA practice generally … but again, Two-Source Rule … or if you’re already Orthodox or in process, follow the guidance of your priest.
And just to be clear, this post does not attempt to cover Orthodox weddings or marriage(s) comprehensively, just point to something interesting I stumbled across on the Web. Much more would be way out of my depth!
(*–As well as who could be received in conversion by means of Chrismation without [re-]Baptism.)
Eastern Orthodox Christianity 2.0 