On Episcopal Monastocracy

 

A Contemporary Icon of St. John Chrysostom, Teacher of the Church

“‘A Bishop then,’ he says, ‘must be blameless the husband of one wife.’ This he does not lay down as a rule, as if he must not be without one, but as prohibiting his having more than one.” (St John Chrysostom, First Series, Vol. 13, Homily X, Homilies on Timothy, pg 438)

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

Introduction

There are a few fine points of Church history and hierarchy that are sometimes hard to remember and keep in perspective. Subtle changes occurred in an unfortunate evolution of beliefs from the time of St. John Chrysostom into the modern day that are institutionally unquestioned, even though they demonstrably lack Apostolic authority. While the Orthodox claim to reject the belief in doctrinal development, and aspire to hold to an unchanging, apostolic and completely continuous faith, we can see from the canonical and historical record that such is not always the case. As medieval canonist Zonaras claims - "When the faith first was born and came forth into the world, the Apostles treated with greater softness and indulgence those who embraced the truth, which as yet was not scattered far and wide, nor did they exact from them perfection in all respects, but made great allowances for their weakness and for the inveterate force of the customs with which they were surrounded, both among the heathen and among the Jews. But now, when far and wide our religion has been propagated, more strenuous efforts were made to enforce those things which pertain to a higher and holier life, as our angelical worship increased day by day, and to insist on by law a life of continence to those who were elevated to the episcopate, so that not only they should abstain from their wives, but that they should have them no longer as bed-fellows; and not only that they no longer admit them as sharers of their bed, but they do not allow them even to stop under the same roof or in the house." (Trans. H.R. Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol XIV, pg 371) And so, with an appeal to "higher and holier life," the Church is allowed to part with the ancient precedents of the Christian Faith, ones which were established by the marriage of St. Peter himself, the "rock" upon which the Church receives its Episcopal Ministry, and substitute something that is foreign to the Ancient and Apostolic Orthodox Church, a completely Monastic Episcopacy - a “Monastocracy.” 

The Church drastically changed its opinion regarding the sanctity of married life, not in an early and instantaneous  rejection of sacramental marriage as a foundational reality in Christian experience, but rather in a gradual turning away from pastoral and local Bishops, eventually transforming into an administrative system that closely mimicked the power of the temporal government. This process was extremely slow, and many of the steps occurred ostensibly for the purpose of greater unity and better responses to the pressures of the outside world. Much like the theological compromise we see in the Church of England today, where the official, politically-correct stances of the State become the accepted line of reasoning within the Church, the Byzantine Church found itself in an uncomfortable place, pushing back against Roman Emperors who often exiled and replaced obstinate Heirarchs who resisted their administrative requirements. Therefore, while the process of change within the Church was barely perceptible, the final results are clearly divergent from the original practice and now are administratively dysfunctional. 

Bishops and Priests were Not That Different 

Famously in Scripture, the Apostle Paul talks to "Overseers" and "Elders" as if they are the same office in Titus 1:5-7: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre." The Church, rather than seeing this as a contradiction, saw Elders, "Presbyters" (from whence we derive "Priest" in English) as an extension of the Episcopal Office, and not a function on its own. For this reason, there was not a perceived contradiction between having the Bishop as the only officiator of the Eucharistic Feast and the priests acting on his behalf within the community. The Bishop held the Priesthood and the Elders shared in it as his licensed representatives. 

Because of this, Bishops and Priests were still viewed as the same office in many places. We know that each place had its own Bishop, and that most places were served by Deacons and Bishops. In the Syriac Tradition, this state of affairs continued on into the 5th Century, where is is chronicled by the Council of Papa in Selucia Ctesiphon in AD 419. There were always Deacons, Elders and Bishops, but the Elders were not especially ordained in the Early Church, other than having the laying on of hands in confirmation of their ministry. Thus, they functioned much more like a “Church Board” does today, as a council formed around the head pastor, who was consecrated in Apostolic Succession as the High Priest of the community. This also led men in the Church to feel that they, as Elders, were essentially the “priests of their home” and resulted in a far more actively patriarchal Christian culture, while also meaning that the sign of authority in the Church was more about a good reputation and having a well-governed home, or the willingness to accept persecution and martyrdom, than by official status within a hierarchy. 

The strict bifurcation between the office of Priest and Bishop occurred when the Elders started to be ordained intentionally as the representatives of Bishops, with the understanding that they were not Bishops and that they could not act in their own headship, but were permanently attached to their Bishop as an extension of his office. Bishops of small towns and villages, like St. Gregory of Nyssa (which was a village), which had traditionally been equal to all other Bishops were declared “Chorbishops” by various councils (primarily at Ancyra in AD 314), and were prohibited from ordaining by law, which further concentrated the power of the Church into big city Metropolitanates and removed the bishops from active pastoral life. This is how episcopal equality was siphoned out of non-metropolitan areas and enabled the secular government to have a much stronger influence on the selection, consecration and maintenance of bishops. 

This, in turn, meant that more Priests had to be made to serve the people, which resulted in having more clergy with less power act as a buffer between the Bishop and the Church, and also lead to a time where the Deacons had more actual power in the Church than the Priests. This led to canons in which Deacons were prohibited from offering the Eucharist. It seems scandalous and unbelievable that this might have happened, but the unclear bifurcation of “Bishop” from “Elder” makes this possible, especially considering that Deacons were the ones who had the extra ordination and acted most often on behalf of Bishops previously. 

By the 6th century, a 200 year trajectory of centralization, self-empowerment and legal institutionalization occurred to make Bishops the imperial governors over provinces, which were called "Dioceses" in the Roman administrative structure, and placed an administration of non-ordaining and subordinate priests beneath them, effectively make the role of Deacon a transitional and unimportant one, which gradually faded out in the East until relatively recently. Local people lost direct access to the Bishop, who was no longer elected by the people from amongst functioning and pastoral married Priests, and stopped having any say in the selection of clergymen. This happened at the same time that the Council in Trullo, a local council of bishops handpicked by Emperor Justinian, convened a council declaring itself to speak for the 5th and 6th Ecumenical Councils and appended Justinians Civil Code (Codex Civilis Justinianus) to the canons of the Church, effectively bringing the Church even more thoroughly under the law of the Byzantine State. In this local synod, married Bishops were excluded and were expected to become monastics and divorce their wives if they were to be taken seriously by the establishment. This lead to the “great nominalization”, where Christians relegated the job of being holy to the monks, the job of guiding the Church to the Bishops, and the orthodoxy of the teachings to the enforcement of the Emperor. This situation, while normative now, would have been unrecognizable to the Early Church. 

There was No Separate Consecration or Elevation for Archbishops

All Bishops were considered equal, just as all Apostles shared in the ecclesial headship that Christ gave to St. Peter, which was based on the Apostolic Declaration of Faith, the Proto-Creed, that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of God”. The desire to create a hierarchy of Bishops occurred under pressure from the Byzantine Emperors, although the Apostles themselves had argued about who would be the greatest among them. Christ reminded them that “the first shall be the last” and “he that would be greatest among you should be servant of all.” The Apostolic Canons had made allowances for a leader to arise in Synod, as "Primus Inter Peres" (“First Among Equals”, a phrase that originated in the Roman Senate, not in the Apostolic age), but guarded against the abuses of such a system by making it a primacy of honor only. Any "Primus" or "Archbishop" only had one vote, and his only authority was found in declaring the findings of a council, not in dictating them. Even the act of calling a council was not regulated by the Primus, but was most often called by a secular authority, like the Emperor. St. John Chrysostom himself was ordained a Bishop in Antioch, and then was moved by the Emperor and installed into the position of Archbishop of Constantinople. This often happened in the Eastern Roman Empire. Installation made one an Archbishop, and this happened at the behest of the secular authority. Only later, in the 6th and 7th centuries, did Bishops started to be "consecrated" as Archbishops as an extra step above the Episcopal Office. 

Patriarchs were Biblical and "Patriarchates" Did Not Exist

The idea of “Super-Episcopacy” or “Fountainheads of Episcopal Ligitimacy” vested in a national head who is known as a “Patriarch” was a relatively late Byzantine development, and follows the trajectory of the development of the Papacy in the West. Ironically, it was the West that objected to the Archiepiscopal power grab that were going on in the East. This was the 6th Century Pope Gregory I’s rebuke of Patriarch John of Constantinople’s claims to being a “Universal Bishop” - 

"I say it without the least hesitation, whoever calls himself the universal bishop, or desires this title, is, by his pride, the precursor of Antichrist, because he thus attempts to raise himself above the others. The error into which he falls springs from pride equal to that of Antichrist; for as that Wicked One wished to be regarded as exalted above other men, like a god, so likewise whoever would be called sole bishop exalteth himself above others....You know it, my brother; hath not the venerable Council of Chalcedon conferred the honorary title of 'universal' upon the bishops of this Apostolic See [Rome], whereof I am, by God's will, the servant? And yet none of us hath permitted this title to be given to him; none hath assumed this bold title, lest by assuming a special distinction in the dignity of the episcopate, we should seem to refuse it to all the brethren.” (St. Gregory to Mauricius Augustus, Book VII, Letter 33, New Advent)

Clearly, the Roman Pope of that day had an understanding of primacy that is more Orthodox than the contemporary Ecumenical Patriarchate, which now insists that is “Prima Sine Partibus” or “First Without Equals” in the Orthodox world. 

A Canonical Eastern Icon of St. Gregory of Nyssa and His Wife, St. Theosebia of Nyssa

Married Bishops Were the Norm 

Not only did Scripture make the acceptability of married Bishops clear in I Timothy 3:2 where it says - "A Bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach", (which we highlighted at the beginning of the article in St. John Chrysostom's teachings) but also, the canons of the Council of Gangra (AD 325 or 351), declared "Ecumenical" by the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), rebuke anyone who despises marriage or uses holy orders as an excuse to divorce or neglect the care of children. Because one must first be a Priest to be consecrated as a Bishop, and married Priests were the common rule, it follows that married men were in no way excluded from the Episcopacy, which is a view complemented by the historical record  -

Canon 1. If anyone disparages marriage, or abominates or disparages a woman sleeping with her husband, notwithstanding that she is faithful and reverent, as though she could not enter the Kingdom, let him be anathema.

(Ap. cc. V, LI; c. XIII of the 6th; cc. I, IV, IX, XIV of Gangra.)

Canon 4. If anyone discriminates against a married Presbyter, on the ground that he ought not to partake of the offering when that Presbyter is conducting the Liturgy, let him be anathema.

(Ap. c. V; cc. XIII, XLVIII of the 6th; cc. IV, XXXIII of Carthage.)

Canon 9. If anyone should remain a virgin or observe continence as if, abominating marriage, if he had become an anchorite, and not for the good standard and holy feature of virginity, let him be anathema.

(Ap. cc. V and LI.)

Canon 10. If anyone leading a life of virginity for the Lord should regard married persons superciliously, let him be anathema.

Canon 14. If any woman should abandon her husband and wish to depart, because she abominates marriage, let her be anathema.

(Ap. cc. V, LI; c. XIII of the 6th; c. XX of Gangra.)

Canon 15. If anyone should abandon his own children, or fail to devote himself to feeding his children, and fail, as far as depends on them, to bring them up to be godly and to have respect for God, but, under the pretext of ascetic exercise, should neglect them, let him be anathema.

(c. XLII of Carthage.)

Canon 16. If any children of parents, especially of faithful ones, should depart, on the pretext of godliness, and should fail to pay due honor to their parents, godliness, that is to say, being preferred with them, i.e., among them, let them be anathema.

At the First Council of Nicaea (also AD 325), three Bishops desired to outlaw clerical marriage along the lines of the Spanish Council of Elvira (AD 313), but they were soundly defeated by St. Paphnutius, who is recorded as saying "that too heavy a yoke ought not to be laid upon the clergy; that marriage and married intercourse are of themselves honourable and undefiled; that the Church ought not to be injured by an extreme severity, for all could not live in absolute continency: in this way (by not prohibiting married intercourse) the virtue of the wife would be much more certainly preserved (viz the wife of a clergyman, because she might find injury elsewhere, if her husband withdrew from her married intercourse). The intercourse of a man with his lawful wife may also be a chaste intercourse. It would therefore be sufficient, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, if those who had taken holy orders without being married were prohibited from marrying afterwards; but those clergymen who had been married only once as laymen, were not to be separated from their wives." This rejection of an instance on clerical celibacy held the day, and was staved off for many hundreds of years afterward by the biblical practices of the Church. (Trans. Philip Schaff, Nicene Fathers, History of the Councils, Vol. I, pg 435)

Paphnutius the Bishop argues for Clerical Marriage at Nicaea I, In the Byzantine Nomocanon, Beri, Southern Italy 

In the non-Roman Church, the Church of Persia which is now called the “Assyrian Church of the East,” there is also a very clear synodal protection of the office of a married Bishop. 

CANON III of the Synod of Mar Aqaq (AD 486) states: None of us may forcefully impose this promise on his clergy, or on priests of the villages, or on the religious under his authority. Instead, his teaching on this matter should be like the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. From his own weakness let him understand the weakness of others. For our Lord Christ answered the apostles, when they asked him whether their separation from marriage was useful for them, saying, “Not everyone is capable of this saying.” Shortly afterwards he left the matter up to the will of the apostles, saying, “Let anyone who happens to be capable receive (it).” 

Also, in regard to deacons who have already received ordination to the diaconate: it is lawful for each one of them to be joined to one wife in honest and lawful marriage and to flee from the ancient custom which is reproached and reviled by outsiders because of the laxness of the dissolute. The lawful marriage of those who newly draw near for ordination to the diaconate should also be investigated along with the rest of their manners, and when they are honest married men they should receive ordination to the diaconate, that they might thus fulfill the apostolic teaching which says, “Deacons should be husbands of one wife, ruling well their children and their houses.” 

Let us place just and upright limitations upon the married and upon the unmarried who are in the dioceses committed to us by divine grace, teaching that one who, by his own choice, elects for himself separation from marriage should remain undistracted in a solitary dwelling, chastely and steadfastly. 

One who chooses this for himself, striving to please Christ with chastity and the eschewal of all earthly things, should he be found blameworthy — after this open permission concerning honest marriage and the procreation of children — and adheres to adultery and fornication, let him receive punishment through the censure of the canons. If he has the title of priest, let him be a stranger to the ministry of the priesthood until he shows repentance appropriate to his transgression and appears to be worthy of forgiveness. On the other hand, if it should be that he has applied himself to legal marriage and ventures to be familiar with others outside of intimacy with the one wife, or he who is honestly married should withhold the fruits of marriage — except for the natural infirmity of sterility — the same should also become a stranger to the fellowship of the church and to the rank of the priesthood. 

In the case of a priest who is not yet married, but who desires to be married honestly and to procreate lawfully, or one whose first wife has died, who desires to take for himself a second wife and maintain true intimacy with the latter as with the former, his bishop is not permitted to hinder him from this desire, for honest marriage and the procreation of children, whether it is administered before the priesthood or after the priesthood, is pleasing and acceptable before God. Also, it is reckoned as a marriage with one wife, even if there is a change in (the marriage) by the constraint of death or exigencies which arise in the world, for a brother who applies himself to it, even when he experiences it twice in succession, (having) one (wife) after another. 

And all of us, we whose names are set down above, with one like mind which adheres to the laws of Christ, made corrections which are due among our people and flocks in the matter of marriage and the procreation of children. We gave permission that, from him who is patriarch to him who is lowest in standing, we may retain openly and apply ourselves to pure marriage, with one wife alone, in which there is the procreation of children, agreeing also — only in this! — with the council which took place in the land of Beit Huzaye in the twenty-seventh year of Piroz, the King of Kings, in the city of Beit Lapat, and with the writing which began in the second year of Balash in Beit ‘Edrai during the days of Mar ’Aqaq. (The Sunhados, Unpublished Translation Manuscript by the Rev. M.J. Birnie, edited by the Rev. Dimitri G. Grekoff, used with permission.)

Now compare this to the Acta of the Synod in Trullo, commonly called the Quintesext Council, which undermines and excludes married Bishops based upon a claim that it "scandalizes the laity," even though, by such decisions, they break with the ancient canons of the Church and the Scriptural admonitions of St. Paul by doing so - 

CANON XII - MOREOVER this also has come to our knowledge, that in Africa and Libya and in other places the most God-beloved bishops in those parts do not refuse to live with their wives, even after consecration, thereby giving scandal and offence to the people. Since, therefore, it is our particular care that all filings tend to the good of file flock placed in our harris and committed to us,--it has seemed good that henceforth nothing of the kind shall in any way occur. And we say this, not to abolish and overthrow what things were established of old by Apostolic authority, but as caring for the health of the people and their advance to better things, and lest the ecclesiastical state should suffer any reproach. For the divine Apostle says: "Do all to the glory of God, give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Greeks, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Be ye imitators of me even as I also am of Christ." But if any shall have been observed to do such a thing, let him be deposed. (Trans. H.R. Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol XIV, pg 370)

The monastic takeover of the Episcopacy did not start until after Trullo's exclusion of the venerable and Apostolic practice of allowing married Priests to be consecrated as Bishops, in the late 6th Century, and this trend was not finalized until the 8th Century in the East, taking until after the Schism in the West in remote Northern European lands. This takeover was not motivated by the pastoral life of the Church, but was an acquiescence to the secular authorities who desired to control multi-generational Christian wealth and status, and exclude the children of Bishops from a place of honor in the community. 

A monastic Episcopacy did offer some historical and cultural advantages, or it would not have gained the traction and the monopoly that it now has within all of the Ancient and Apostolic Churches. It intensified the process of education, allowing for the complications of prayers and services that would later typify the the Byzantine liturgikon. It also separated the leaders or their families from holding secular power, making the clerical office dependent upon the sponsorship and protection of the State; and it also made the monks a class of people outside of the economy, tax-exempted consumers and non-producers (unlike the Benedictines in the West, who were phenomenal producers and the centers of village life). Ostragorsky and Hussey famously observed that the fall of the Byzantine Empire quickly followed the proliferation of monasticism and the retreat of the cultural elite into monasteries, collapsing the birthrate and moving valuable funds into monastic tax havens. As Sir Steven Runciman documents in his History of the Byzantine Empire, when Constantinople fell, the immediate thought by the subjugated Greeks was that God had pronounced judgment upon them - that it was their practice of nobles becoming monks, turning their estates into tax-shelter monasteries, passing down their wealth to illegitimate sons born of unwed maid-concubines, and who then became the ruling abbots and monks in perpetuity, was the real reason for God's wrath. 

Canonicity as a Continuum

In a system without an ultimate mortal head, such as the Papacy, synodality is an eternally fluctuating continuum of mutual recognition, not a law that cannot be bent or broken. This is why I do not ascribe to the later ideas that catholicity is determined by inter-diocesan communion through a Patriarchal Synod, as seen in late Byzantine canon law, or, in Papal recognition. The original word for Catholic is "Kata Holos," a "part of the whole," and it is actually referring to the local system of episcopal structure, which is universal to all the Ancient Churches - an apostolically ordained Bishop, his council of Presbyters, Deacons and the synaxis of the laity gathered in Baptism and expressed in the Eucharist. The Church is not found "between" the Bishops, and is not defined by a Patriarchate or a Synod, but is present in the local diocese. The local church is the fullness of Catholicity and Apostolicity. It is recognized by the Synod and documented for purposes of historical clarity and accuracy, so that we may have a record of unbroken Synodality and Orthodoxy, but this administrative function is not the essence of the Church.

This is how we have Churches in the ancient days who had no previous knowledge of one another, but met, discussed, and recognized each other as part of the same Church. This is like what happened between various Far Eastern churches when they encountered the West - Catholicos Ishoyaw's communion with Patriarch Sergius, or Rabban Barsauma, a priest from China during the Mongol Period, communing King Edward of England on his pilgrimage to Rome. They would formalize this recognition in celebrating the Eucharist together, recognizing the reality that was there because of a common faith and order. This is not to say that there were not early pressures to create pyramidal structures. We see this first in the Apostolic Canons, where the eldest Bishop of a diocese was the Primus and spoke for the synod of Bishops to the secular authorities. In all human relationships, hierarchy is inevitable. We must not allow it to cover or obscure the truth of Christianity, which insists on our universal brotherhood and upon the individual way that God works to save us, all incorporated into one body, the Church, which is made of many different members and given many different spiritual gifts by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

This idea, one of administrative hierarchy rapidly increasing for the health and benefit of the Church, until it became too powerful for its own good and started to lose the characteristics of pastoral ministry that had made it strong in the ancient times, is essential to understanding the progression of Christian History.  In the East, it developed differently than in Rome, where the administrative and sacramental were bound together in a very palpable and indivisible way. The Eastern practice still focuses more on the mechanism of synodality as the way in which the Holy Spirit expressed His will for the Church. The West focused on hierarchy, authority, obedience and efficiency as the earmarks of the Holy Spirit’s revelation. These two different ways of understanding what the Holy Spirit does within the structure of the Church, and the differences of how this is expressed, ultimately led to the mutual incomprehensibility between the two systems, while hardening both systems in their appreciation of clerical celibacy. The Church may use that which is helpful to it, as it always has within the canonical tradition, but it is not bound to the canons as its foundation. The Holy Spirit created the Church. The Church created the canons. The canons did not create the Church. 

It is easy to see how one thing led to another. If hierarchy is for administrative facility within the Church, then those areas with the best administrative position would naturally become the centers of the Church. Those with more time, the monks, become politically advantaged within the Church hierarchy. The Church, in this way, baptized the secular realities with the monastic vocation, and tried to make them function for the good of all. Rome became the preliminary center of Western Christianity for very practical reasons, and Constantinople recognized and preserved this canonically, applying the Apostolic Canons abstractly to the Bishop of Rome as the "Primus Inter Pares." But, Constantinople asserted its rights as "Second only to Rome" at the Council of Chalcedon because the Emperor moved there, and thus, made it an important administrative center as well. Now, in light of the pragmatism of the Ancient Church, our spiritualization and inflexible "traditionalism" becomes a problem, because it fossilizes a later stage in the development of the Church and misidentifies these later developments as the essence of the Church's nature. Both are wrong, and in a disempowered and decentralized Orthodox future, they both must be revoked and returned to the earlier, more biblical, more patristic practice. 

Summary

Churches have a strange habit of forgetting inexpedient parts of their own history, all the while trumpeting their timelessness and changelessness. This obscures the general trends of Christian history to the casual view. Forgeries like the Pseudo-Isadorian Decretals wreck havoc on Western canon law, and biased compilers like Theodore Balsamon and Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain anachronistically obscure the ancient diversity of liturgies and spiritual practices in the East. These hardens the mistaken self-perceptions, and gives a legal basis for Papal claims or Orthodox fundamentalism that then make our worst tendencies unquestionable. This means that there a is provably false basis for Roman arguments for papal supremacy, universal jurisdiction, and infallibility, just like the East now knows that the Apostles did not use the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and that Episcopacy was original filled with married men! Rome now recognizes that these documents were forgeries, but they do not walk back the doctrines that were built upon them. Orthodoxy has yet to teach its people well enough that they could appreciate the original continuity of the Western Rite, the holiness of married clergy, or humbly enforce the findings of the Chambesy Agreement on the real spiritual unity between the Chalcedonians and the the Miaphysites. Politics are, by definition, powerful, and very hard to resist. This is why I do not expect the Episcopal Monastocracy to dissolve any time soon, or for the ancient and Orthodox practice of the married episcopacy to find traction in the near future. As long as men who either did not want to be married (or who gave up being married) are in charge of elevating other men to the Episcopacy, they will not select men who are married out of investment bias, because they are either disgusted by the institution or jealous of those who have experienced something that they themselves were denied. 

God will use suffering, persecution, disestablishment and small numbers to eventually bring us full-circle and re-establish the married Episcopacy in His Church. Until then, we should all pray for our dysfunctional and emotionally stunted Hierarchs, who labor under a false veneer of piety, who do not understand how to truly and fully sacrifice themselves and their comfort for others, because they do not know how to love the Church as Christ loves the Church - an icon that is supremely typified in holy matrimony. (Ephesians 5:25)