Yurysprudentsiya said:
Read the Gospels carefully.
Deut. 24:1-4 recognizes the possibility of divorce.
When Christ was asked about this, He says in Matt. 19:8, that divorce, although unnatural, is permitted because of the hardness of men's hearts. It is a sin, but sometimes it is the lesser of two evils and was tolerated by God because of our weakness.
So too we see Paul stating that it is better to marry than to burn.
Christ understood the physical weaknesses of his hearers. The Church does the same. One must first realize that a sin is missing the mark rather than offending Gods honor. This when the choice is between a lesser sin and a greater sin, the church may, in this case, tolerate the lesser sin to save the sinner. But it is still sin and the sinner must still be healed.
I was not Catholic, and I have even divorced and remarried, but at the same time, I have always believed divorce was not to be allowed.
I did struggle a bit with the idea that the Orthodox church seemed to be, to my mind, less strict on it than they should be. Many, many protestant churches are much more outspoken against divorce (and indeed have done much damage to people in unfortunate circumstances). By comparison, the Catholic church can seem permissive, since I have heard they give annulments. (I don't wish to create arguments or be insulting, I know little about this, just have heard of it.)
But yes, protestant churches can and do bar people from ministry positions, set them aside from social functions, and treat them as moral failures on the basis of divorce (let alone remarriage). It happens. Even in the case of Scriptural reasons for divorce.
How I dealt with it ... was one of those cases where I put it aside for a while. In the meantime I heard many suggestions of how priests would handle particular problems a person might have that would make the usual ways of the church impose an undue hardship. Some might not be able to fast as prescribed, and the priest found ways to make the fast meaningful but not detrimental. Or the usual process of reception into the church would cause distress to families, so some parts are done in private. And so on. I was so encouraged to hear of the pastoral wisdom so often shown in the church. It gave me a very different view of the priesthood.
Within that understanding, when I look at the issues surrounding divorce and remarriage, it starts to make a lot more sense. We are human beings. Our lives are messy. We can't always fast as we should, pray as we should, have the family life we should. The goal of the priest seems to always be to take human-ness into consideration, and from our frail ability, find a way to "make things work" that lifts us up and makes us more able to grow spiritually and come closer to God's ideals for us. I have a far, far greater appreciation for the pastoral wisdom of the Church, and the guidance of the priest and other spiritual fathers, than I ever did before.
Given that appreciation and understanding, when I look at things like Yurysprudentsiya mentioned, and I understand how life works, I see the wisdom in considering a person's unique circumstances and how much better it seems to make allowances, where needed, to prevent temptation or occasion to sin, and so on. I am thankful for the compassion of the Church.
Given the circumstances of my first marriage - it would have been cruel if I had had to continue in it. I do believe God forgave me for the divorce. (I was outside the Orthodox church.) My church ... not so much on the forgiveness part. It took years for me to reconcile myself to God over it. The understanding and help of a priest might have made that process much shorter. And still, I struggled over the idea of remarrying. It was almost necessary for me, it would have been very difficult for me to continue without it. It was a compassion, and I do think allowed by God. I don't think I could have met and married my husband without plenty of direct help from God. There were many circumstances that make me think that, and much prayer involved. Still it was hard. Again, a priest to counsel would have been immensely helpful.
Because of all those things, I think I have stepped out of my judgmental-ness. I hope so. It's not my place to judge the Church's stance, but I do see so much wisdom, how it would have helped me, and how in the end, the fruits and spiritual benefits can far outweigh what might be the result of considering it a Law that cannot be made exception for the sake of compassion.
That has made it much easier to accept the Church's position and see it as wisdom and compassion, where my position on the matter before reflected only Law. In short, I think the Church is right and I was wrong.
