Marriage as a Sacrament
In the Orthodox Church, marriage is not a legal contract solemnized before God — it is a sacrament, a holy mystery, through which the grace of God transforms the union of a man and woman into something more than a human partnership. The married couple becomes a little church — a domestic church — in which Christ reigns as Head, love is the law, and children are the fruit.
The Apostle Paul calls marriage a "great mystery" (mysterion mega) and compares it to the union of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32). This is not a polite compliment — it is a theological definition. Marriage exists in the image of the greatest love story in the universe: Christ's sacrificial, self-giving love for His Bride, the Church. The husband is called to love his wife as Christ loves the Church — that is, unto death. The wife is called to honor her husband as the Church honors Christ — that is, with complete trust and love. These are not cultural gender roles; they are icons of divine mysteries.
"A Christian marriage is a vocation, not merely a relationship. The couple is called to help each other toward theosis — to be instruments of each other's salvation."
The Orthodox Wedding Service
The Orthodox marriage service is one of the most beautiful in all of Christendom. Its central rite is not the exchange of vows (there are none in the traditional Orthodox service) but the placing of crowns on the heads of the bride and groom. These crowns are simultaneously the crowns of a king and queen of their new domestic kingdom, and the crowns of martyrs — for marriage, like martyrdom, requires the total sacrifice of self for love of the other.
The couple drinks together from a common cup of wine — sharing in a single life, a single joy, and a single suffering. They are led three times in a circle around the Gospel book — beginning a journey together that they will never complete, always moving forward in Christ. These are not symbols — they are sacramental acts that actually accomplish what they signify.
Marriage and Salvation
Orthodox theology does not view marriage as a lesser calling than monasticism — both are sacred vocations, each demanding total self-giving. Marriage is one of the primary paths to theosis: through the daily demands of love, forgiveness, patience, and sacrifice that life with another person requires, the soul is ground down into holiness. Many of the greatest Orthodox saints were married. The path to God runs straight through the family dinner table.
There is no relationship between human beings so close as that of husband and wife — if we connect them together in the manner that Christ demands. If we love each other as Christ loved the Church, we ourselves shall become the greatest blessing for each other.
— St. John Chrysostom