Konfesionāli Jauktu Laulību Slēgšanas Prakse Starp Kurzemes Guberņas Romas Katoļu Un Pareizticīgo Draudžu Locekļiem (19. Gs. - 20. Gs. Sākums): The Practice of Mixed Marriages between the Roman Catholics and the Evangelical Lutheran Believers in the Province of Courland (the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century).
The present paper explores the practice of mixed marriages between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Believers in the province of Courland in the 19th a nd t he beginning o f t he 20th centuries. It provides an extensive context for the denominationally mixed marriages in order to emphasize the i...
| Published in: | Cel̜š |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | Latvian |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
LU Akadēmiskais apgāds
2017
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| In: |
Cel̜š
Year: 2017, Issue: 67, Pages: 27-48 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The present paper explores the practice of mixed marriages between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Believers in the province of Courland in the 19th a nd t he beginning o f t he 20th centuries. It provides an extensive context for the denominationally mixed marriages in order to emphasize the inconsistencies between the civil laws of the Russian Empire, the regulations of the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church. The research paper is based on extensive studies of historical materials in the archives of Russia, Lithuania and Latvia. Priests of almost all the parishes were trying to prevent or hinder attempts of their parish members to form family relationship with a person with different confessional affiliation. It was considered that this type of marriage presented a threat to stability of faith. The attitude by the Russian Empire to "mixed marriages" was also very cautious. The first laws, which permitted mixed marriages in Russia were adopted only during the era of Tzar Peter I in the beginning of the 18th century. Still, when such marriages were concluded, there were several measures intended as precautions not to permit an Orthodox person to be influenced by alien religious views. There was a mandatory precondition that children born out of "mixed marriages" have to be baptized and brought up in the Orthodox faith. The Roman Catholic Church could not and was not willing to accept this procedure because also its canon law equally strictly tried to impose that children born out of mixed marriages should be baptized and brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. Under the circumstances, when the Roman Catholic priests had to follow both the state law and the canon law of their church, they encountered a contradicting situation, which could only be solved by looking for bypass ways or solutions. Persuading a member of the relevant parish not to conclude marriage with an Orthodox person was among the most radically and most frequently used solutions. If this solution did not work, it was possible to create obstacles for concluding a marriage by not issuing the birth certificate or the extract from the metrics books regarding the birth to the Catholic party or by refusing to officially announce this marriage in the parish. As the priest's authority in the society was remarkable at that time, in most cases such measures were sufficient for preventing conclusion of this marriage. However, as this did not always provide a solution, in the 1830s the Holy See issued several important documents allowing also other solutions in cases of mixed marriages. For example, following marriage by the Orthodox Church, the marriage was announced at the Catholic Church according to a simplified procedure and the marriage was entered in the church registered witnessed by two witnesses after that. Generally, the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church was very conservative and therefore caused a lot of inconvenience in settlements with multi-confessional population. The most frequent conflicts between Catholic and Orthodox priests because of mixed marriages were encountered in Ilūkste county in Zemgale, where the Catholic and Orthodox parishes were functioning side by side. As a result of the analysis of the metric data of the Orthodox parishes of Sēlpils parish district (prāvestijas) about marriages concluded in the second half of the 19th century, several trends become visible. Firstly, there were comparatively few people in the Orthodox parishes in most cases, therefore, the number of marriages concluded there during a year was quite low. Secondly, in all the parishes more than a half of all the marriages were mixed. Moreover, out of the total number of mixed marriages, most of them were between Catholics and Orthodox persons. The analysis of the situation in the Orthodox parishes of Courland, i.e., in Liepāja, Ventspils and Kuldīga, at the second half of the 19th century in relation to mixed marriages leads to the conclusion that marriages between Catholic and Orthodox persons were quite rare there. Also in the city like Liepāja, which became the new place of residence for many people coming from rural districts at the end of the 19th century, the number of Catholics concluding marriages in the Orthodox church was quite low. A different situation regarding mixed marriages could be observed only in Jelgava, where the confessional and social status of residents was more diverse, as this was the centre of the province (also marriages with military persons of the Russian army were more frequent there), therefore, the proportion of mixed marriages was higher. The Holy See was carefully following the legal solution regarding confessional mixed marriages in the Russian Empire. Although the compromise in this regard was not achieved by concluding the concordat in 1848, nor by the agreement in 1882, still, for the Pope’s Curia it was of an extreme importance not to allow subjection of the local priests to the laws adopted by the Ministry of Interior or any other Empire authorities that would contradict the canon law of the Church. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Cel̜š
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