Marriage

Answer:

Dr. Alexander Roman alex.roman@unicorne.org

First of all, please accept our very best wishes to you and your future wife for a blessed and most happy married life! On June 6th of this year, my wife and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.

It is good for you both to read and become familiar with the scriptural passages of the Crowning ceremony itself. This would be the Gospel of John, chapter two, verses 1-11, and the letter of St Paul to the Ephesians, chapter five, verses 20-33.

If you would like to engrave something on the inside of your wedding Crowns (what a beautiful tradition!), you might wish to place the words that the Priest will say over you during the ceremony:

So, on the inside of your Crown, would be the words: “Be magnified, O Bridegroom, as Abraham, and blessed as Isaac, and increased as was Jacob. Go your way in peace, performing in righteousness the commandments of God.”

On the inside of your future bride’s Crown would be the words: “You, O Bride, be magnified as was Sarah, and rejoiced as was Rebecca, and increased as Rachel, being glad in your husband, keeping the paths of the Law, for so God is well pleased.”

You could have a shortened version of this, of course. Ask your Priest for the actual Ukrainian text to ensure that the engraved words and the text he will use will be the same.

Some appropriate Psalm-prayers for weddings would be: Psalm 126, Psalm 127, Psalm 143. There is always the great Psalm 90 as well.

The Crowns you will wear and keep should always remind you of two things. First, that you are being crowned as the heads of a new family and home Church. Secondly, the Crowns hearken to the Crowns of martyrdom since marriage requires sacrifice on the part of you both (which is also why the Great-Martyr St Procopius is invoked in the Wedding prayers, together with the Holy Crowned Ones, Sts. Constantine and Helen – these will be the patron saints of your married life and you might wish to get icons of them for your family icon corner).

The Crowning (which is an entirely different spiritual emphasis than marriage in the West) signifies also the authority you will have in the Name of Christ Who blessed marriage at Cana in Galilee. The rings you will bear are also a sign of that authority. Christian couples in the past also wore special “marriage belts” on which were depicted Christ bringing a man and a woman together with the Sign of the Cross. Belts are likewise “royal symbols.”

At the Wedding in Cana in Galilee, Christ performed His very first public miracle. But He did so out of deference to His Most Holy Mother who asked Him to help the bride and groom who had run out of wine. The Most Holy Mother of God told the people, “Do whatever He tells you.” Remember, Jason, that our Lord, who is God and Man, listened and obeyed His Mother. So you too must learn the value of being attentive to your future wife, listening to her and holding her as your Queen over you!

The Mother of God will take you and your future bride under her Protective Mantle “Pokrova” and tells the two of you the same thing – do whatever He tells you!

You will doubtless each have icons of Christ and the Mother of God that you will bring with you to Church and later place in your family home as the beginning of your icon corner. Remember that the first icon of the Mother of God is that of the First Coming of Christ, and the second is that of His Second Coming. The space or actual corner in between the two Icons represent our lives that are lived in between these two historic focal points of our salvation. One has already happened, the other will happen – when, we do not know.

Always keep yourselves in between these two Icons and Christ and His Most Holy Mother will keep and guide you.