Why Marrying Outside your Religion is Not Allowed for Orthodox Christians (according to the canons)

I would like to answer the question, for some quite practical, whether an Orthodox Christian woman can marry an unbeliever, or a non-believer, or a heretic, a sectarian, and, in general, a non-Orthodox; or, accordingly, whether an Orthodox man can marry a woman who is not Orthodox. 

If we turn to the holy canons of the Orthodox Church, we will see that they have the answer to this question, and this answer is negative - no, it’s impossible, no, you can’t. Even though you can find priests who will say that it is possible, the rules of the church say otherwise. I will show you these rules. 

IV Ecumenical Council

Let's start with the 14th rule of the IV Ecumenical Council. Though it does not speak about all Christians, it talks about readers and singers, and this Holy Council determined that none of them would be allowed to take a wife of another faith, and their children would not enter “marriage with a heretic, or a Jew, or a pagan.” 

Council of Carthage

The 30th canon of the Council of Carthage prescribes that “the children of those in the clergy should not intermarry with pagans or heretics”.

Council of Laodicea

The 31st canon of the Council of Laodicea speaks about all Christians: “It is not proper to enter into a marriage union with any heretic, or to give sons or daughters to such, but rather to take from them if they promise to be Christians”.

Quinsext Council (Trullo)

Finally, the 72nd canon of the VIth Ecumenical Council (or Trullo) says:

It is unworthy for an Orthodox husband to copulate with a heretical wife, nor for an Orthodox wife to couple with a heretic husband. If something like this is seen to have been done by someone: the marriage will be considered not firm, and the illegal cohabitation will be dissolved. For it is not proper to confuse the unmixed, nor to mate with the sheep of the wolf, nor with the portion of Christ the lot of sinners. If anyone transgresses what we have decreed, let him be excommunicated. 

But if some, while still in unbelief, and not being counted among the flock of Orthodox, were united in legal marriage: then one of them, choosing what was good, resorted to the light of truth, and the other remained in the bonds of error, not wanting to look at the Divine rays, and if an unfaithful wife desires to cohabit with a faithful husband, or, on the contrary, an unfaithful husband with a faithful wife: then let them not be separated, according to the Divine Apostle: the unfaithful husband is sanctified from his wife, and the unfaithful wife is sanctified from her husband (1 Cor. 7:14)."

Hieroconfessor Nicodemus (Milash) in his interpretation of this rule writes:

Based on this (72) Trullo and other parallel canons, the canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church on mixed marriages is as follows:

1) mixed marriages of Orthodox Christians with persons of other faiths, in particular with pagans, Jews, and heretics, are strictly prohibited by the church; 

2) mixed marriage is allowed only in such a form when in a marriage concluded outside the Orthodox Church, i.e. in a non-Christian or heretical religious community, and one of the spouses [later] accepted the Orthodox faith, moreover, when the non-Christian spouse expresses a desire to remain married to the spouse who has converted to Orthodoxy; 

3) children born from such a mixed marriage must, in any case, be baptized and raised in the Christian, Orthodox faith; 

4) if the non-Christian spouse does not want to remain married to the person who converted to Christianity, then the marriage is divorced and the Orthodox spouse is allowed to enter into a new marriage with an Orthodox person; and

5) an Orthodox person is allowed to marry a non-Orthodox person if the non-Orthodox person promises to accept the Orthodox faith and immediately fulfills this promise.

This is the strict canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church on this subject; and just as this teaching has been in force throughout all centuries of the Orthodox Church, so it must remain in force now and always.”

It must be said that many ancient saints, in particular St. Zeno of Verona, St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Jerome of Stridon spoke out strictly against mixed marriages. But I will not quote from them, since, in my opinion, it is quite possible to limit ourselves to the text of the canons.

And so, as we see, it is said quite definitely. There are modern priests who say that mixed marriages can be allowed, with reference to the words of the Apostle, that “an unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife” (1 Cor. 7:14), but the rules of the Council explain that this applies only to those situations where both spouses were initially non-Orthodox, and being non-Orthodox married each other, and then one of the spouses converted to the true faith. Additionally, if the second spouse, the one who did not convert, does not in any way prevent the Christian spouse from being a Christian, living like a Christian, to believe, and so on — only in this case is it permissible not to dissolve such marriages.

And if, as the apostle further writes, the non-Orthodox side or the non-Christian side is against living with an Orthodox Christian, and interferes with the Christian life of the spouse, then the apostle says that one can get a divorce. After adultery, this is the second legal reason for divorce listed in the New Testament. 

Therefore, if an atheist husband says to his Christian wife, or an atheist wife to a Christian husband, "either me or the Church" — the choice for a believer here should be obvious. Of course, the Church is the ark of salvation, the body of Christ, the pillar and ground of truth. 

Or, if a Muslim husband forces you to accept Islam, or a heretic husband forces you to accept heresy, of course, this is a reason for divorce. (As long as we are not talking about something that was said in the heat of the moment at the moment of a quarrel — at the moment of a quarrel anything can fly out of someone's mouth, and then the person himself later regrets what he said.) So, if this is not something that accidentally escaped from the spouse's mouth, but if this is a conscious, principled position of the non-Orthodox spouse, which he does not want to change, then you need to divorce him.

But if he does not object to the Orthodox spouse living like a Christian and raising children like a Christian, then there is no need to get a divorce. That's the only thing that's allowed. 

If we are talking about a person who is already a believer — if we are talking about a faithful Orthodox Christian marrying a person who is not a member of the Orthodox Church — then this, as you yourself have seen, is prohibited by the canons of the church.

People who do not like the decrees that we are talking about can refer to the statements of various clergy or even perhaps decisions that allow such marriages, thereby contradicting the rules and canons which universally apply to the whole Orthodox Church. Well, on this matter, without going into all the details, I can say briefly: the canons adopted in the Church can only be abolished by a Council of equal or higher status than the Council that approved this or that canon. These canons were not abolished by any Council, equal or higher in status, and the decisions of lower-status authorities cannot be perceived as abolishing the canons we are discussing.

In previous videos, I talked about examples of canonical violations by clergy, but the canons that I voiced are, for obvious reasons, violated by the laity, since persons in the clergy can no longer get married. To be fair, I note that in the vast majority of cases, the laity do not know about these rules of the Church, and it turns out that they violate them out of ignorance. 

But in my life I have already had the opportunity to observe many examples when laymen, and especially laywomen, before concluding such a marriage, turn to a priest, and hear from him that the canons of the Holy Church do not allow a person to marry someone who is non-Orthodox. I think you won't be surprised to learn that in most cases the reactions of those who asked was, "Well, we'll get married anyway." And in general, they did what they wanted. 

People may make comments, offering various objections, such as:

• "but they love each other"
• "you shouldn't interfere"
• "people should be free"
• "that’s who they want"
• "let them they get married"
• "here you are with some outdated, ancient rules, just making people’s lives more difficult"

...and so on, and so on. I understand perfectly well that few are ready to listen, and in fact, I am recording this video for them. Here I would like to say that such an attitude towards the canons is as if the Church — or specifically the holy fathers who accepted these canons — as if they just sat there and deliberately came up with ways to complicate our lives, as if they were saying, "What kind of rules could we come up with to make it more difficult for them to live?" This is the attitude towards the canons that one encounters on the part of those people who do not want to follow the canons. So, they say, some ancient bishops simply didn’t like people, and that’s why they came up with all these canons. 

Well, in fact, the truth is exactly the opposite, because through the canons the holy fathers pointed out things that are not pleasing to God, and accordingly, a person who does these things that are displeasing to God is a person who enters into a path that leads him to suffering and torment even in this life. 

The Holy Fathers prescribed these canons precisely because they loved people and wanted to warn people, both their contemporaries and descendants, us, from everything that makes a person’s life unhappy and directs it in the wrong direction. A Christian strives. And I have seen many times that these inter-religious marriages very often lead to unhappiness. Of course, my personal observations in this case cannot claim to be something comprehensive, However, sociological studies also show that inter-religious marriages are the least durable compared to other marriages, compared to marriages of people of the same worldview, the same faith. 

In our country, of course, now marriages are very fragile, but even in comparison with this, inter-religious marriages are even more fragile, and this is not surprising, because faith is the most important thing — the core of human life. If the husband and wife are not united in this most important thing, then it is only a matter of time before this internal disunity will become obvious to them and will manifest itself in unpleasant circumstances.

I received a letter from a woman who married a non-Christian, and this very quickly led to some terrible, nightmarish things. And she wrote to me that at the time when she was deciding to take this step, she watched a video of some priest on the Internet who said, "yes, this is allowed; everything is fine." And I realized that it is still necessary to say the truth: "No, not everything is in order. In fact, according to the canons of the Church, it is forbidden. The Church, like a loving mother, adopted these canons in order to protect you from harm." 

Of course, someone may say, "there are good examples of such marriages with a heretic, or marriages with a non-believer, or marriages with an unbeliever, and sometimes it happens that people who enter into such marriages live well afterwards." Yes, indeed, there are, but these are either cases when an Orthodox believer has ceased to be an Orthodox believer, or it is a case where the unbelieving spouse has sincerely accepted Orthodoxy, and is already on the way to accepting baptism. As for those unusual cases where one person remains an Orthodox believer, and the spouse is non-Orthodox, and they nevertheless live quite a long time in perfect harmony — there are so few cases of this — it is so exceptionally rare that we can call them exceptions that confirm the rule.

But even in these exceptions, again, I know that the Orthodox side still has grief that the spouse is an unbeliever and does not share the Christian faith. And even then, even in these exceptional cases that I know of, the Orthodox side, when entering into such a marriage, did not know that the canons of the Orthodox Church were being violated, and in some cases a person was misled by the priest who blessed such a marriage. 

But for someone to intentionally enter into such a marriage, knowing that he is trampling on church canons, doing something displeasing to God, and after that living happily ever after — I don’t know of any such examples. 

Some may say, as they often say in such cases:

• "you just don’t like people"
• "you don’t feel sorry for them"
• "but they fell in love"
• "they have such feelings"
• "this couple can’t live without each other"
• "How can we tell them they can't be together?"

In fact, I do feel sorry for people. Of course I feel sorry for them. As I already said, I personally observed such stories. How can you not feel sorry for the people you personally observe? Even out of stupidity, it was like this for me: a long time ago, when I somehow tried to save people who were in such a marriage, because I felt sorry for them, well, there was hope that the non-Orthodox side would accept Orthodoxy. There was some progress in this direction, but in the end, it all ended just horribly. 

And now I can say that it is precisely because I feel sorry for people that I say it is necessary to follow the canons that I cited earlier. The fathers of the councils accepted these canons precisely because they felt sorry for the people and they wanted to save them. How many stories do I know that began with what was perceived by the participants themselves as simply "great love"? And so, in this "great love" of theirs, they got married and it ended in such a nightmare that you can’t even imagine. They can tell me that Orthodox Christians also get divorced, and sometimes things end badly. Yes, it happens. But according to my observations, this happens much more often in these various inter-religious marriages.

On the other hand, in those cases where I pointed to the canons of the Church, and I helped people make a decision to end such a marriage that was displeasing to God, the people involved were ultimately made happy as a result, including all the spouses. I remember a young woman who had married a pagan wrote to me. They already had friction precisely on religious grounds, but she asked my advice, intending to somehow save this marriage. So I showed her these canons of the Church. As a priest, I cannot prescribe to people what to do in such a case, whether to remain married or get divorced — the decision is made by the person herself. But I explained to her that such marriages are not blessed by the Church. 

She divorced her pagan husband, and a year later she found herself a good Orthodox husband and wrote to me that she was expecting a child, and her pagan ex-husband found himself a pagan wife and is also happily married, and none of them are offended by each other; everyone is happy with how things turned out. 

No doubt there are still many people who want to act according to their own will, and who are not willing to be convinced at all. They will argue, disagree, give some examples of their friends, or cite certain situations from history. Well, what can I tell these people? My job was only to testify about the church canons and try to explain why they are exactly what they are. And whoever wants to neglect this testimony, neglect these canons, of course, I won’t be able to influence them. But I know that there are still people who listen, and for them I wrote it all down in order to protect them from harm.

A person may ask, "What if you have feelings for a non-Orthodox person, for someone of a different faith, or for an unbeliever?" If this person is ready to study the Orthodox faith and sincerely accept it before getting married, then this is the only the possibility of a God-blessed union with this person. If this person does not want to accept Orthodoxy and this is his completely unambiguous position, then you need to stop communicating with this person, pray that the Lord will help you get rid of feelings for this person, and the Lord will eventually help you get rid of this attachment. 

I know that some Orthodox women have such an attitude that they must get married, no matter what. It is precisely this attitude that pushes some to marry a non-Orthodox person, and this does not lead to anything good. In such marriages, many people lose faith and become apostates. Even if they do not lose faith, very many live and suffer.

I believe that in principle, such an attitude – “to get married at any cost” – humiliates a Christian woman, and a faithful Christian woman should not have such an attitude. We must look not for what "I want", but for what the Lord will give, for what pleases the Lord.

Well, that’s probably all I wanted to say on this topic. Thank you for your attention, and God bless you.

Fr. George Maximov