The Orthodox Church permits up to three marriages. A fourth is absolutely forbidden by canon law.
But that bare answer needs context. The Church holds up one lifelong marriage as God’s intention. That’s the ideal. When we bless a first marriage, we’re celebrating something meant to be permanent, an icon of Christ’s union with His Church. It’s the full expression of the mystery.
Second and third marriages? Those are something else entirely.
Marriage After Loss
The Church recognizes that we live in a broken world. Spouses die. Marriages fail despite everyone’s best efforts. Sometimes adultery or abandonment or abuse destroys what was meant to be permanent. And people are left alone.
So the Church extends mercy. We call it economia, which means something like pastoral discretion or divine economy. It’s the Church acting as a hospital for souls rather than a courtroom. A second marriage isn’t the ideal, but it’s permitted because we’re frail and because loneliness and temptation are real.
Third marriages are rarer. They’re allowed, but barely. The Church is saying, “Yes, but this is really pushing it.”
Fourth? Never. The canons are clear. St. Basil the Great wrote about this in the fourth century, and the Church has held that line ever since.
It’s Not the Same Ceremony
Here’s something that surprises people coming from other traditions. If you’ve been married before, you don’t get the same service. The Antiochian Archdiocese uses a special Rite of Second Marriage. It’s shorter. More penitential. There’s less celebration and more acknowledgment of human failure.
For a third marriage, it gets even more austere. You can’t have a big wedding party. Just the couple and two witnesses. The tone is somber.
This isn’t the Church being mean. It’s the Church being honest. A second or third marriage is a concession to weakness, not a triumph. We’re grateful for God’s mercy, but we’re not pretending this is how things were supposed to go.
The Process Matters
You can’t just show up and remarry. If you’re divorced (not widowed), your priest has to petition the Metropolitan Archbishop for permission. The Antiochian Archdiocese requires this. It’s not automatic.
There’s counseling. Questions about what happened in the previous marriage. Sometimes penance. The Church wants to know: Have you dealt with what went wrong? Are you ready to try again? Is this actually going to work, or are we just setting you up for more heartbreak?
For a third marriage, the scrutiny is even more intense.
This isn’t like an annulment in the Catholic sense. We’re not declaring the first marriage never existed. It existed. It failed. That’s tragic. Now we’re asking whether mercy permits another attempt.
Widows and Widowers
If your spouse died, the situation is different but not entirely different. You’re free to remarry, but even then the Church uses the Rite of Second Marriage. Why? Because the ideal is still one marriage. St. Paul said it’s better for widows to remain unmarried, though he acknowledged that remarrying is no sin.
The Church holds that tension. You’re not doing anything wrong, but you’re also not doing the absolute best thing. That might sound harsh to modern ears. It is what it is.
Why This Matters in Southeast Texas
I know what some of you are thinking. You’ve got family at First Baptist where people remarry after divorce all the time with no questions asked. Or you’ve got Catholic relatives who had to get annulments and jump through different hoops. The Orthodox approach is neither of those.
We’re not pretending divorce doesn’t happen or that marriages can’t truly die. But we’re also not treating marriage as easily dissolvable. It’s a both-and. The Church recognizes reality while refusing to lower the standard.
If you’re an inquirer and you’ve been divorced, don’t let this scare you away from Orthodoxy. Talk to Fr. Michael or another Orthodox priest. Every situation is different. The Church has been dealing with broken marriages since the beginning. We’ve got two thousand years of pastoral experience with this exact situation.
The goal isn’t to make you feel condemned. It’s to help you heal and, if it’s right, to try again with the Church’s blessing and support. That’s what economia means. God’s mercy is bigger than our failures, but it’s also serious enough to call us toward something better.
