This week in our parish catechesis we explored one of the richest sections of Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World and his meditation on the Mystery of Love.

Reading him as an Anglican, one cannot help but hear similarities with our own liturgical and sacramental tradition.

1. Mary as the Icon of Humanity Restored

Schmemann begins not with theories of “love,” but with Mary—the Theotokos—whose obedience reveals what humanity was created to be.

“She accepted to be what from all eternity all creation was meant and created to be: the temple of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of God.” (For the Life of the World, p. 83)

Marys “Be it unto me” (Luke 1:38) reverses Eve’s grasping initiative and restores the posture of receptive love.

Few phrases in the classic Prayer Book marriage rite draw more attention than the vow the bride speaks:

“to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part.”

Grooms traditionally promise to “love, cherish, and worship,” while brides promise to “love, cherish, and obey.”

Mary’s “Be it unto me” is the pattern of redeemed human obedience.
The bride’s vow echoes Mary and her “Be it unto me.”

The Prayer Book’s Marian feasts emphasize Mary as the humble receiver of God’s Word. Anglicanism honors her not as divine, but as the first Christian disciple whose posture (receptive obedience) shapes all Christian vocation.

2. Marriage as Entrance Into the Kingdom

Schmemann insists that Christian marriage is not merely a religious blessing of a natural institution. It is the transfiguration of human love by its union with the Kingdom. It is Sacramental.

“The true form of the sacrament is the entrance of marriage into the Church, which is the entrance of the world into the world to come.”

The 1928 BCP begins with a clear theological grounding:

“Dearly beloved… Matrimony is an honorable estate, instituted of God, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His Church.”
1928 BCP, Form of Solemnization of Matrimony

Early Christians sealed their marriage by receiving the Eucharist together. The later symbolism of the procession, the rings, and the crowning all express the same truth: marriage is not self-contained. It is a witness to God’s Kingdom.

“A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness… is not a Christian marriage.” & “The true meaning of matrimony… is that marriage is taken into the ‘great mystery of Christ and the Church.’”

3. Priesthood and Marriage Share One Reality: Love as Vocation

Schmemann’s other great insight is that the sacraments of marriage and ordination spring from the same mystery: love as vocation.

“Man was created priest of the world… the one who offers the world to God in a sacrifice of love.”

Priesthood is not a caste; it is the restoration of Adam’s original calling to offer all things to God. This is why Schmemann says:

“The sacrament of ordination is, in a sense, identical with the sacrament of matrimony.”

The priest is “married to the Church,” and marriage is an icon of Christ and the Church. Both vocations reveal that the end of all human life is communion with God.

The 1928 rite lays out the purposes of Christian marriage:

“First, It was ordained for the procreation of children…
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin…
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other.”

The BCP’s “mutual society, help, and comfort” anticipates this theology of mutual self-emptying an each spouse becoming a “priest” of love to the other. We believe that marriage is a vocation ordered toward holiness, fidelity, and the sign of Christ and His Church.

Marriage makes a “little kingdom,”and a domestic church and it sanctifies.

The 1928 BCP concludes the vows with the solemn declaration:

“Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”