Divorce

[NadirGP]

Recently, I was asked how the Orthodox Church deals with matter of divorce. Is there any exceptional case when a divorce is condoned by the holy Canons as seen the lesser of two evils?

[Lydia]

Unfortunately, divorce is quite common in the Orthodox Church. A divorce is granted if the couple's spiritual father deems it is for the spiritual well-being of the individuals.

[Barbara]

It IS very sad indeed.
Probably others always laughed or snickered at Roman Catholics for staying together despite many obstacles.
Protestants etc. thought it was ridiculous that women would spend a lifetime with a man who
was bad.
I maintain, though, that those women [or men if the man was the aggrieved party] received extra bonus credit from the Savior
for putting up with whatever it was.
Think too how much better it was for children to have the solidity of 2 parents. Look at the teenagers now with the high general
divorce rate...atrocious, some of them !

I think Orthodox were not well enough known by general society to have attracted any attention for either divorce rate
OR parents staying together. But Catholics were well known for the latter.

Myself, I never knew anyone who was divorced growing up. Not one family ! Parents were very stable, happy, secure
and remarkably wholesome.

If there had been any family with divorce in it, it would have been REALLY considered declasse.
I mean here families of any Christian denomination, not necessarily Catholic.

My parents friends were all married for 50 - 60 years.

My friends from growing up are still with their husbands. I have not heard of one high school or college friend who
was divorced.
So I am not really familiar with these dynamics. Only getting out into the wider world did I come across
cases of divorce. I would always feel uncomfortable around the parties involved; I felt it was damaging and indicated
something not right at all about the individuals.

Others may or will have different experience.

Can Lydia [or any member] hazard a guess as to the approximate percentage of Orthodox divorces these days ?
Also to assess these days versus say 40 years ago ?
I wonder if the Orthodox divorce trend reflects the general pattern of American society or is a different curve ?

[Maria]

The divorce rate, apparently has increased due to pornography which is found on the Internet. At one community college, instead of using the college computers for scholastic research, many of the teenagers and young adult men were viewing porn. The college had to hire a full time IT admin to block it. Many men get addicted to porn and then become abusive to their wives, whom they view as sex slaves. Criminologists also say that men involved with porn are more likely to commit homicide or murder their pregnant wives. Serial killers are usually involved with porn too.

[NadirGP]

Lydia, Barbara and Maria,

Thank you for your reply.

Nadir

[Lydia]

Barbara, when I attended a large parish of about 100 adult members, about 10% were divorced. So, it's much lower than in general society.
It made for some discomfort among the people, taking sides and such.
Interestingly, the priest had four children and three of them were divorced.

[GOCPriestMark]

Unfortunately, divorce is quite common in the Orthodox Church. A divorce is granted if the couple's spiritual father deems it is for the spiritual well-being of the individuals.

Can this be substantiated somehow? I have never heard of a divorce in the Orthodox Church. (Please tell me you were not including new-calendarists.)