"Save me, God!".
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Marriage is a certain sacrament during which, by mutual consent of the bride and groom, their marital union is blessed. It is believed that after this ceremony, God's grace descends on them and mutual help and unanimity are achieved, and the birth and Christian upbringing of children is blessed. But there are cases when, for one reason or another, one of the spouses leaves this world. What to do if a person finds a new partner? Is it possible to get married after the death of the previous spouse?
Marriage: its essence and locked sacraments
The church only accepts one marriage. Divorce can only be carried out if the sin of adultery in Orthodoxy has been committed against one of the spouses or due to other destructive life circumstances.
In Orthodoxy, it is allowed to marry a second time after the death of a wife or husband, but in prayers for second marriages they ask for forgiveness of the sin of second marriage. If there is a third marriage, the church will accept it only if it is to avoid debauchery.
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It is forbidden by the church to marry:
- more than three times;
- persons who are closely related (including second cousins);
- atheists who want to get married for other reasons;
- unbaptized or those who do not wish to be baptized before marriage;
- if one of the parties is married to another person, that is why the clergy require a marriage certificate to be provided before the wedding - the sacrament of marriage;
- spiritual relatives (godparents and godchildren, godfathers, godparents and parents of the godson);
- if one of the spouses professes a different faith;
- persons who have taken monastic vows, as well as deacons and priests after ordination.
Marriage after the death of one of the spouses
According to God's plan, marriage is considered to be an indissoluble and eternal union. Christian marriage is the path of spouses to a blissful eternity with Christ. It begins on Earth and continues in Heaven. The basis of such a marriage is the unity of the spiritual, mental and physical state of both spouses. After the death of a person, the bodily shell disappears, but if their souls were close, then even after death they will be connected and retain mutual love.
The Church does not prohibit marriage after the death of one of the spouses. The Church has always understood the severity of widowhood and married single people. This marriage was not condemned as a marriage of divorced people.
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How soon can you get married after the death of your wife?
It all depends on the psychological state of the widower. Previously, it was believed that it was worth grieving for a year, and after that you could think about a new relationship. But there were also cases when the new family got together earlier. The reasons for this could be the infirmity of the widower or the presence of children who needed a wet nurse. But it also happened that men were left alone forever.
The most important thing is that a man must make his own decision about when to get married after the death of his wife, based on his inner feelings. Advice from outside will be inappropriate here, since it is difficult for strangers to understand what he is going through.
The Lord is always with you!
Is there love after death
The famous writer Yulia Voznesenskaya wrote these letters to visitors to the Memoriam.ru forum, designed to support people who have lost their loved ones. Exactly a year ago, 74-year-old Yulia Nikolaevna died of cancer. But until her death, she did not stop helping site visitors overcome grief. We have collected several posts by Yulia Voznesenskaya, which she wrote on the forum and which were included in Mikhail Khasminsky’s book “Memoriam of Yulia Voznesenskaya. Album of memory."
Photo from the archive of Yulia Voznesenskaya
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Grief is just that, grief, our test, allowed by God. We must accept it, drink it to the end, to the very bottom, like a cup of bitter medicine. A soulless person, a person who does not know how to love deeply, is given a small cup of testing, three sips for three days. Then he turned away, switched gears and forgot. He who has not known deep love is not given the opportunity to know real grief. Yours is different. Your love and happiness were complete, and behind them came complete, deep grief. Everything is fine, everything is correct.
Very slowly, a drop a day, you will feel better. It will be noticeably easier in about a year. In the meantime, grieve, dear, as your soul tells you!
Just don’t upset your husband too much, dilute your grief with bright memories of your love, gratitude to him, and most importantly, prayers. Read “Akathist about the One Who Died”, Psalter for a husband. Go to Liturgy more often and submit notes about him. They say that the prosphora served at the Liturgy for the departed is heavenly bread for them.
And smile at your husband more often. He hears you and sees your smile addressed to him. That's exactly true, I know. From experience.
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My girl, do you know many immortal people? In 73 years I have not met anyone who is at least 150 years old. How many married couples do you know who died on the same day? It, of course, seems to be beautiful: “They lived long and died on the same day!”, but this is a romantic thought for lovers. But for children to lose both parents at the same time - God forbid anyone! Therefore, one leaves and the other stays. For a while.
Do you know why husbands usually leave before their wives? Because wives are stronger in spirit. They don’t drink themselves to death out of grief, don’t go to great lengths, don’t go crazy, they find their place in life even under new sad circumstances. A widower is, for the most part, a lost, lost man, and a widow is the title of a woman respected by all. So hang in there, honey!
* * * *
No one is immune from the disease. But they die in different ways!!! Someone in wild torment and abandoned by everyone calls death as a deliverer, and someone is in such a cloud of love and care that he doesn’t even think about death - he dies and does not die, until the last minute he does not believe in death, but believes in eternal love - and that means life. To eternal life. That's how your wife left. So my husband Vladimir passed away 15 years ago, also dying of stage 4 lung cancer and not even thinking about death. He took communion and died 20 minutes later. And my closest friend Ninochka also died in February from colon cancer. Both with metastases throughout the body, both surrounded by love so tightly that neither pain nor fear could get through to them.
Serezhenka, what you are suffering about is understandable. But what is your anger about, this torment because of the doctors - what are they talking about? You are a blind man! Yes, our beloved people could not be cured. Do you think doctors could have prolonged their lives, but they didn’t do it and now they are to blame? They could prolong not life, but dying. And it is still unknown what it would be like, this prolonged dying. And so your wife, the lucky one, died in your arms. Everyone who lived died, and you and I will die, but how many died like your wife? Do you think she didn’t feel much pain because of the medications? No, my little fool, it was your love that numbed her suffering!
* * * *
You know, I think that your desperate and vindictive desires to find the guilty and punish them are, of course, from your inescapable grief, from despair, but also from your blindness. Understand, Serezhenka, there is no right or wrong treatment in the fourth stage of cancer - it is all, in essence, useless. It only treats the patient’s psyche and does not allow him to feel doomed and abandoned. That's the whole secret. In previous years, when people believed in God more and relied on the will of God, they simply went home to die. Today people are weak, they cannot do this, they need white coats nearby to calm them down. Well, let them have white coats. Just make no mistake - not for treatment.
Ten years ago, a very dear person to me, my spiritual mother, the abbess of a Russian monastery, died in my arms. Everything I know and can do now comes from her, from my dear mother Afanasia. She was 88 years old and dying of cancer. And this is what she told me goodbye. If the same fate befalls you, she said, do not choose either treatment, or a doctor, or a hospital, but accept the first one that comes your way as obedience: where they will take you, how they will treat you, then accept it as the will of God. Because if the Lord decides to heal you, then you will be healed from aspirin, and if not, the most famous professor will not help. Don't waste your energy panicking.
* * * *
You have already passed this terrible moment of earthly separation from your wife. Don’t go back to it, I beg you, don’t stir up this past! Your wife is no longer in a hospital bed, not in the morgue, she is not even in her grave - there is only her mortal body. “Her soul dwells in the good,” as we sing at the funeral service. You pray for her, you turn to her with words of love - and she hears you. This is now your new “love babble”, your conversation about love. Well, don’t darken it with panicky squabbles about doctors. This has no meaning either for the worldwide oncological impotence of medicine in the last stages of cancer, or for your wife, or for you. Take a deep breath, clench all your resentment and all your complaints into a fist - exhale and throw them away forever.
You have more important business to do, which is to love your wife from here. Lightly, faithfully, truly love and serve her soul. This is what you do.
* * * *
When a widow throws herself at the coffin and even into the grave shouting “Take me with you!” - this is natural, this is exactly what she feels now - the desire not to let him go, to hold him or leave with him. At home, she grabs his worn shirt or robe, eagerly searches for his scent, sleeps with his things, like a child with her favorite teddy bear - and this is normal. But only until a certain time!
It is not for nothing that the Orthodox tradition orders that the things of the deceased be distributed before the fortieth day or immediately after it - and this is not just such a tradition, it is correct. Because then fetishism, magic, and a false attitude towards the things of the deceased begin: it is not in them and cannot be. He is with the Lord, he is already in the spiritual world. The earthly things of the deceased have lost their owner, and they should simply be given to those to whom they can still serve in his memory. Even if a child has died, his things must be washed, folded and either left for the future child in the family, or given to a poor mother. Turning your home into a museum in memory of the deceased is fraught with bad mental consequences. A portrait on the wall, photographs in an album, a few memorabilia that are put away and taken out only upon special request - this is normal and correct.
* * * *
Where are you going, my dear, when you shout: “Lord Jesus, take me to him!..”? Let's really look at the wish you expressed. Are you really ready to die immediately and follow your husband? Let's imagine: this happened, one morning you did not wake up in your bed, but woke up already there. And what will you tell your husband if he meets you? “Hello, dear, here I am! Are you glad to see me?” Will he be happy to see you? I very much doubt this. Having come to the Lord, people become purer, better, they begin to understand more clearly what Love is. Your husband did not choose his death, but he has the right to tell you: “I left because the Lord called me. I didn’t leave you on earth of my own free will, of my own accord - I didn’t go to someone else, I didn’t go abroad, I didn’t even ask to come here. And you? You came here of your own free will, leaving our daughter an orphan, leaving me without prayerful help. Who will be there to pray for me now? Will our daughter remain in the Church? And in general, what will happen to her after such a double blow?” - and what will you tell him about this, my dear girl? “I couldn’t live without you!”, right? And he will answer you: “For the sake of our love, for the sake of our daughter and your mother, you had to stay. If God had thought differently, He would have taken you and left me.” Yes, it’s bad, yes, it’s difficult, sometimes unbearable. But dreaming about desertion is already criminal.
* * * *
And the feeling of guilt... You know, for some reason it only happens to the most loving and devoted widows, what a strange thing! It’s just grief looking for a way out - and finding someone to blame: some blame God, some blame people, but some blame themselves.
* * * *
Do you know who, according to legend, takes care of babies (up to 7 years old) who go to Heaven? Holy virgins and previously departed relatives - grandmothers, grandfathers... Your daughter is not alone there, don’t worry. Can you imagine how many ancestors you have? And all of them, from those who are in Paradise, of course, came to meet THEIR girl, their little descendant! Yes, they must have spoiled her there!
But there are also angels and saints - and everyone, everyone loves children. The Lord himself loved them more than adults, and told people: “Be like children, otherwise you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” From here it is easy to understand that Paradise is good for children, that they are happy there, because entry there is open to them - unlike us, the poor...
* * * *
The Lord, who is Love, rewarded children and parents with mutual love. Children who do not grieve after losing their parents are not normal children, but scumbags. This means that loving dead parents is right. But why love them - in order to leave after them? Of course not!
God gave us enduring love for our parents who have gone to another world so that we can help them in the other world and make them happy. Gratitude, memory of them, prayers for them. And the continuation of the life of our common family with them. So that their grandchildren also know about them and remember them and love them. And who can preserve this memory and love for the departed in the family? - Well, of course, only the one who loved them and continues to love them!
So let's not die of love for mothers, but live out of love for them.
* * * *
Yesterday after the Liturgy we went for a walk with my old friend. We walked around the park and philosophized about life. We started talking about happiness: what makes us happy in this life? My friend lost her son 20 years ago. I knew him - he was a wonderful young man, unusually kind and quiet, clearly not suited for this life, he was too good for it. He took care of his mother to the smallest detail: before she came home from work, he tried to clean up the house and gave her slippers. And suddenly a friend says: “I look at today’s youth, at the children and grandchildren of our friends, and I think how happy I am that I HAD SUCH A WONDERFUL SON! He is with God, we will see each other soon, but I am NOW happy that I HAD him, that I had this in my life - a wonderful loving son!” And at the same time she had a radiant face.
This is the conversation I had yesterday...
* * * *
Losing a mother is always hard. Mine passed away at 91, and do you think it was easy for me to bury her? I still miss her. But I myself am 72 years old. It’s not scary to leave on your own, but I didn’t want to lose my mother.
But, Natasha, when people leave after 70 years, it’s normal. By this time the body is already worn out. And death from a heart attack is not the worst death, I assure you. I know what I am saying. Would you really rather have cancer or a stroke followed by paralysis for several years for your mother? God gave her fullness of years, long life, gave her love, warmth and care in old age - and this is already very, very much! Not all old people have this.
* * * *
I just imagined two options for my posthumous relationships with my sons, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters. So I left and looked at them from afar. They are sad, of course, but they talk about how their mother and grandmother loved them, what she gave them, they remember warm and funny stories from their past life and promise each other never to forget it. "Thank you mom! Thank you, grandma! We had a good time with you. We will meet again, and we will feel good together again.”
Here's another picture. I left, and they cried and sobbed: “Why did you leave us? How could you leave? We cannot and do not want to live without you! Why did God separate us forever?! For what?!?!?!!!!" I will be sad, hurt for myself and for them. And I will feel guilty before those who remain for unknown reasons. God forbid me from such a memory after my death! May your memory be bright and full of gratitude and love.
Guess three times which option I like best?
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Before her death, Yulia Nikolaevna asked to pray for her. I hope that among the readers there will be those who will remember her in their funeral prayers.
