Hello everyone, My girlfriend and i are planning to get married next year. the only problem is that i herd that the church won't except us to marry in the Catholic Church, as my girlfriend was married before. here are some facts maybe someone will have information which would be helpful. -I am Catholic -She is a Methodist but never was baptized in her religion but she was brought up as a methodist. -she married many years ago to a Greek Orthodox -marriage did not work out and the divorced 3years later. _ we would love to be married in the Catholic Church. The reason my question is Does a Greek Orthodox need permision to get married from the chuch if they have a civil wedding? Because i know that if you are a catholic you do. and it is grounds for an annulment if you did not get permission. Can any one shed some light for me? If it is not very clear please tell me i will clarify the situation. It is hard for me to explain.

-- Robert Hillerd (BeautifulNails2002@hotmail.com), January 22, 2003

Answers

Jmj
Hello, Robert. Please let me know if I am misunderstanding.

You are Catholic and have never been married.
You are interested in a woman who has never been baptized, but grew up in a Methodist "environment."
In a civil ceremony, she married (?) a Greek Orthodox man, but they are now divorced.
You wonder if the Orthodox church will declare their "marriage" null (because the man did not seek permission to marry in a civil ceremony).

If I have understood you correctly, then my answer is this ...
The way the Orthodox church would view that past "union" is not really relevant to you as a Catholic. Neither you nor your friend needs to get an Orthodox church's ruling.
Instead you immediately need to go to your Catholic pastor, who will help you to ask your Catholic diocesan tribunal to determine whether or not your friend was (and is) really married, in God's eyes. (A very high percentage of the cases worked by Catholic tribunals involve the putative unions of Protestants and other non-Catholics, such as Orthodox, Jews, etc..) Sorry, but I do not know if the Catholic tribunal will take into consideration the (probable) fact that the Orthodox man failed to follow his church's marriage law.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 02, 2003.

Thank you for your help, you did understand me. We went to see the head of the church, they helped alot and now it is going to the tribunal, i hope it all will work out. Thank you

-- Robert (BeautifulNails2002@hotmail.com), March 24, 2003.

So nice to have your response, Robert. Usually, folks don't give us any feedback to our replies on topics of this kind.
May God bless you in the days ahead.
JFG

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 24, 2003.