Eastern Orthodox Divorce and Remarriage

It was a good four years ago now, perhaps longer, that I was first asked by a Catholic publisher for my thoughts on the debate over marriage, divorce, and re-marriage that was then heating up in the Catholic Church. Asked to recommend reliable authors who treated these topics in an Orthodox context, I came up with a short list of names of those who had treated certain aspects in the past, but was aware of just how much work yet needed to be done, and how easily it could be done badly.

What was then lacking, and has since been remedied, is a wide-ranging, historically comprehensive, and scholarly judicious study of these endlessly messy and complicated matters. Such a study has now emerged in very impressive form, and based on my read of it, it promises to be an enormously helpful book, not least for its clarity, careful sifting of sources, and vast bibliography (running more than 60 pages!), inter alia. In the coming weeks I hope to run an interview with Kevin Schembri, author of Oikonomia, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition (Valore Italiano SRL, 2017), 336pp.

About this book and its author the publisher tells us the following:

Over the last fifty years, the Eastern Orthodox position on oikonomia, divorce and remarriage was the subject of numerous studies. This volume builds on this research and attempts to offer a comprehensive systematic presentation of these topics. By doing so, it adds to the already rich tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and presents the Western Churches with a valuable resource in their pursuit of ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox East, in their dealing with the ever-growing reality of mixed marriages, and in their ministry to the divorced and remarried members of their faithful.

Kevin Schembri is a lecturer in canon law at the University of Malta. He holds a licentiate in sacred theology from the same university and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He is a Catholic priest and serves as promoter of justice and defender of the bond for the Archdiocese of Malta.