Why Heterosexual, Life-Long, Covenantal Marriage is the Only Form of Marriage that the Church May Bless

The Theotokos and St. Joseph joined together in Holy Matrimony as found within the apocryphal Early Christian book,  the Protoevangelion of St. James 8:3-16

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

Over the last few years, I have been deeply disturb by the news of a continuing redefinition of Holy Matrimony within the Anglican world. Such abuses must be called out by those within the Anglican Patrimony for the heresy that they represent and a clear statement of doctrinal commitment must be made from within our local tradition that affirms the received position of the whole Church. Christ Himself said that a marriage was between one man and one woman (Matthew 19:4-6). St. Paul the Apostle reminded us that any who practice otherwise without repentance cannot be members of God's Church (I Corinthians 6:9-11). This includes those who claim the authority of bishops, who, if outside the revelation of God's Word and the economy of God's grace, are no longer bishops! 

We remember Christ’s words, “the world hates you because it first hated me” (John 15:18), and take solace in Christ’s ultimate authority, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33) While we understand the profound issues that would bring about such an ecclesial move, based as it is upon the breakdown of the traditional rule and order of the local Anglican diocese, the dismemberment of the family unit in our culture, the recreational approach to sexuality, the loss of the loving and protecting father in the home, the intense cultural dislike and disregard for traditional womanly roles of wife and mother (the holiest of all vocations that is now deemed to be “oppressive” and “demeaning”), we must remind Anglican faithful and the world at large – Marriage in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church was never a matter of laws, legal contracts, or even, ultimately, about “personal choice”! It is a matter of divine command. 

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth...Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Genesis 1:28, 2:24) This is literally the first command God gave to mankind, the basis of all other divine law.

The Ancient Rite of Crowning in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony in the Church

Marriage is a revealed Sacrament, energized by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, kept by a life of repentance and holiness, and sealed with the Holy Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and integral to the function and propagation of the Christian Community. As a Sacrament, a point of contact between this world and the next, marriage cannot be understood as an agreement of convenience or a legal “status”. Its power is profound, central to society and vital to the birth and upbringing of Christian children, sanctified by Baptism, Prayer and the Eucharist from their earliest ages, who go out into the world as Holy Evangels in every generation, declaring the Kingdom to Come and establishing Christ’s Church on Earth. Marriage was given for our salvation, and it requires an asceticism and self-emptying of the same intensity as monasticism. No court of law or synod of bishops, regardless of its power or prestige, may question this role within the Church. The Holy Scriptures, the Holy Fathers, and the Holy Canons of the Ecumenical Councils make it impossible for us to recognize or to comply with such an errant, man-made approach!

"What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" - St. Mark 10:9

Human rights are based upon the freedom to live according to our created purpose and potential, only realized in a life lived in submission to God’s will, not the right to do whatever we wish. Such a view of rights is not liberation mandated by the law, but lawlessness. Our salvation, and indeed, the peace of the world, depends not upon the mere exercise of free-choice, but upon the love and selflessness required to exercise self-control, glorifying God in our bodies and minds, doing works meet for repentance. 

Whatever false bishops within the Anglican world may "allow", our loyalty lays with only One Ruler, Christ the King! We remember that true bishops have authority only in as much as they submit to and enforce the claims of Holy Scriptures, "Rightly dividing the Word of Truth!" Those who do not will be the "skulls that line the road to hell!" And as for those bishops who teach the unbroken consensus of the historical church in contradiction to contemporary hired hands and blind guides, up and against those who hold the staff of shepherds "but inwardly are ravening wolves", we cry with the ancient church - "Axios! They are worthy!" May God preserve, strengthen and protect them as they stand against the evil and confusion of our day! 

Christian Matrimony is joining into the Holy Covenant of God's Church through the blessing of the Apostolic Priesthood by the invocation of the Holy Trinity, sealed in Holy Communion, actualized between two Baptized Christians through the inextinguishable blood covenant and spiritual bond of the marriage bed, for the creation of a sacred home in which children are raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is the foundation of the Church, and the place where holy women realize their supernatural and sacramental work, a divine calling that is more fundamental and necessary for human flourishing than the work of apostolic ministry. Without holy mothers who enact this sacred mystery, the Church will flounder and fail, and ultimate be extinguished in cultures that succumb to other definitions of marriage, femininity and child-rearing.