CHAT: Sacraments

On Mon, Apr 10, 2000 at 07:11:58PM -0400, bjm10@CORNELL.EDU wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Irina Rempt wrote:
>
> > > confirmation and orders.
> >
> > In the Orthodox Church the spouses give the sacrament of marriage to
> > one another. The priest doesn't bestow it, he only witnesses it.
>
>
> Irina, I think you need to double-check this with a priest.  I can assure
> you that a priest DOES bestow the sacrament of Marriage within Orthodoxy,
> or so Bishop NICHOLAS of Detroit made quite plain in his last visit to
> Ithaca.
I've heard it Irina's way too.

In fact, I remember hearing that sometime in the early Middle Ages there
was a big push for making rules that priests had to be present at weddings,
because they were the only sacrament that could be performed without a
priest, and that grated on clerical nerves, so they insisted on at least
being *present* even if they didn't actually *enact* the sacrament, they
just blessed and recognized it.

But this is one of those "I heard it once" things.  No source.

Ed