What are the grounds for divorce, and how is it handled in Old Believer tradition? #

Scripture states that in marriage, husband and wife become “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), and when asked about the possibility of divorce, our Lord Jesus Christ commanded:

“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
(Matthew 19:6)

Holy Scripture further teaches:

“The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”
(1 Corinthians 7:39)

As the Orthodox saying goes:

“A priest unites, but the grave separates.”

According to Scripture, a husband is not permitted to dismiss or expel his wife “except for the cause of fornication” (Matthew 19:9). If he does so without this cause, he bears responsibility for any adultery she may commit. Furthermore, if the husband dismisses his wife without grounds of adultery and marries another, he commits adultery, and whoever marries the dismissed wife also commits adultery (Matthew 19:9).

In the Old Believer tradition, we avoid using the word “divorce.” However, situations arise where a marriage is destroyed by the actions of one spouse. In such cases, the other spouse is deemed innocent in the separation and is permitted to remarry (while the guilty party is not, as it would constitute adultery, as noted above).

Judicial authority in the Church is vested exclusively in bishops. Therefore, cases involving such broken marriages in the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church are reviewed by diocesan bishops, and in the Moscow Diocese, by the Metropolitan of Moscow. However, the initial preparation of materials for such cases is handled by the spiritual fathers of the former spouses, and in the Moscow Diocese, there is also a special Commission on Private Matters. This commission investigates the circumstances that led to the separation and provides preliminary recommendations, evaluating the culpability of each party in the family conflict. Often, the commission encourages reconciliation and the restoration of marital relations, sometimes repeatedly.

When rendering a spiritual decision on matters of broken marriages, the Church relies on the rules of the Kormchaya Book (Nomocanon).

A marriage may be declared broken by the Church, according to the rules, for the following reasons:

Proven adultery by the wife, even a single act of fornication with another man.
If the wife planned or attempted to kill her husband or cause him bodily harm, or if she knew of such plans by others and did not report them.
If the wife participated in drinking parties with unrelated men, bathed with them in a bathhouse, or attended horse races or other public events without her husband’s permission or against his prohibition.
If the wife spent even one night away from home without her husband’s consent (except when staying with her own parents or when expelled from the home by her husband and having no parents to stay with).
If the wife refrains from marital relations with her husband for three years or more, thereby tempting him to fornication.

In cases of a wife’s adultery, the husband may either forgive her and remain with her or leave her and marry another. However, the former wife has no right to a second Church marriage and may only remarry after her husband’s death, but under no circumstances to the man with whom she committed adultery.

A wife may seek the dissolution of a marriage with the Church’s permission to remarry for the following reasons:

If the husband is openly adulterous, living with another woman in his home or community and ignoring appeals from his wife or relatives to return to her and leave the mistress. (If the husband engages in occasional fornication with different women but does not live openly with any of them, the rules command the wife to endure his sins and not leave him.)
If the husband plans or attempts to kill his wife or cause her grievous bodily harm.
If the husband, out of greed or other motives, compels his wife to commit adultery or forces her into unnatural sexual practices.
If the husband refrains from marital relations with his wife for three years or more.

If one spouse takes monastic vows, this is equated to death under Church rules, permitting the other spouse to remarry.

Ancient rules allowed a wife to remarry if her husband was taken captive and remained missing for more than five years. However, if the missing husband later returned, the wife was required to return to him, and her second marriage was declared invalid.

Marriage is a sacrament instituted by God, and to destroy it is a grave sin—one against God’s will and Christian love for one’s neighbor. Without repentance for this sin, the guilty party condemns themselves to separation from God and, after death, to eternal torment. May the Lord deliver us all from such a fate!

—Archpriest Vadim Korovin.