1) What is the marriage?

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... the light, the water, the vegetation and the animals... And God saw that it was good... So He created man, in His own image He created him...Then God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him...He created male and female, he blessed them and told them:"Grow up, multiply, and spread all over the world". And for that reason, the man leaves his father and mother, and stays with his wife, and they become one body...And God saw what He did very good".(Gen 1,2)

This is the marriage's rule, God put it since the beginning, and Jesus renewed it and confirmed it, and He brought the marriage up to one of the church's Sacraments; He gives what the married life needs from gifts.

Then the marriage is God's work; it unites the man and the woman and by this union they agree to start a family following the God's law.

And if the marriage act is an agreement, no human force can replace this agreement, only if it comes from someone who knows the marriage's responsibilities, without any influence which limits his freedom. On this act, the parents should teach their children what is their happiness; they should let them take on their responsibilities; and also the children should listen to their parent's advice, in order to stay aware of the exigence of the married life for ever, not only the appeal of the heart.

2) The marriage's purposes:

The marriage's purpose is to give birth to children and to raise them, and to help one another in life. And it is a great honor that God calls a man and a woman to help Him keeping the human being, and installing a new generation for God's church and house.

Children are the marriage's result and a gift from God; parents should accept them thankfully, considering that God will return to them satisfaction of what they have endured. And as a woman giving birth to a child has pain, she forgets the anguish when her baby is born because of her joy that a child is born into the world (Jn 16,21), God will not be cheap on those whom he invited, and whom he kept His kingdom to. And He is the one who feeds the birds of the air that do not sow; and He clothes the lilies of the field that do not spin a dress that not even Solomon in his splendor was dressed like.(Mt 6,26/30)

And the parents should not only teach their children reading, writing and proper manners, but also above those three, teach them, the reality of the religion, the behavior's principles, and teach them worship, rightness and the good. And it is a honor, that the man and the woman help each other in life though they become one heart and one hand; and they work together to elude evil, and to bear the suffering, also they thankfully have God's blessing and gift. For that reason, the family gets bigger like a healthy body _Which head is the man and the heart is the woman. It is a complete growth on which the body's members rely, and the God agrees about.

3) The marriage's qualifications.

The spouses cannot gather from their union these results, if they do not live with love and security until death.

Yes, the man who chooses a woman to be his partner in life, makes a promise in front of God and people, that his eyes and his heart will be always directed to her, and also his body will touch only her body; the Savior said:"Every one who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart".(Mt 5,28) And the woman makes the same promise. From this point, they are both equal in rights and duties. And this promise can disappear, only if one of the two dies,"for what God has joined together, no human being must separate"(Mt 19,6). Here we can see that there is no divorce in the christian marriage, and that every sacrifice is cheap in order to save the union of the family. But if life becomes unbearable because of one spouse's errors, and there is no way for reconciliation, the responsible power will have to let the innocent leave the faulty for a certain time, but they will stay married, and they are not allowed to contract a second marriage only if the first marriage was impossible from the beginning for finding an impediment that they have not known at that time, and that would have stopped the marriage. And if there is no_way to rebuild the marriage, then the marriage is canceled.

4) The marriage's conditions.

After all above, we can see, that there are some conditions which make a bad marriage between two special people. These conditions are the marriage's impediments that make people loose their abilities to contract a real marriage. Divorced people cannot marry only if the responsible power cancels their first marriage. And this responsible power is the Church who had put those impediments or "barriers" in order to save the christian marriage, to guarantee the happy life for the couple, and specifying the natural law, and adding some arrangements special for her christian sons. And it is sure that the impediment coming from the nature nobody can be exempted from, and the exemption given from all the impediments cannot be true only if it is justified by a good reason. One of these impediments is the blood relation.

Except the impediments that prevent the marriage, there are impediments that prohibit the spouses from the grace of the marriage's sacrament, and one of those:the forbidden time.

And to prevent a bad marriage, the church orders the people to pass a test before the marriage to discover the impediments or to be sure that they do not exist, because if they discover them after the marriage, that will be a sorrow for the spouses.

For this reason, they spread all over the parish "the three calling" on which they say that this man would like to marry this woman, in order to find out if someone from the parish knows any impediment for their marriage. This person will tell the priest who,on his turn, discuss this impediment with the spouses-to-be and their parents who have to tell the priest on their will for the marriage at the proper time because he has to examine this impediment with patience and exactitude.

After accomplishing these legal papers, the spouses-to-be should be ready for the marriage, by confession, communion and the priest will bless the marriage. It is better if the people get engaged before getting married because it is the promise to the marriage, and like that, each one can be sure of his or her decision.

5) The grace of the marriage.

Because the marriage was an act that cannot be canceled only after the death of one of the spouses and Jesus Christ has brought the marriage up to the level of a sacrament among the church' Sacraments; that is why, the marriage had become a symbol of special graces that God gives to the spouses. These graces help them to resist against the matrimonial problems, and to sanctify themselves in their life together.

One of these graces, the grace of mutual love that gets stronger and bigger as the love that unite Christ and the church especially in difficulties, and when the reason of natural love decrease, and the grace of sacrifice and to offer their life to each other in order to raise and educate the children, where the effort gets better, and the happiness stays with the force of Christ who said "for my yoke is easy, and my burden light".(Mt 11,30)

6) The marriage's ceremony.

The marriage's ceremony is two parts: The wedding sacrament and the ceremony before the wedding sacrament.

The prayers before the wedding sacrament, are performed in the specific order as required by the Church's wedding ritual. When prayers are done, the priest explains to the newlyweds the purpose of marriage and their responsibilities and obligations.