Greek orthodox priest

I am orthodox and i will say that although you can have interfaith marriages at a GO church, they usually do it if its still another christian religion. For example im orthodox and Dh is catholic, if we wanted to do it in an orthodox church we would've been able to. We ended up getting married in a Catholic church but only bc dh and his family are more religious than me and my parents. And let me say that even in the catholic church, when we said I was of a different religion even the catholic priest asked me 'wait but are you still a part of christianity' once i said that i was christian orthodox(its what GO is) he said oh ok thats no problem then as long as you're still part of christianity.

Unfortunately, if its a non-christian religion, usually they'll be ok with it only if the non-christian converts. Unless rules have changed or some churches are ok with this now which i dont think, it hasnt changed.

I also have to say that a GO priest won't even come to do a ceremony outside the church at lets say the RH and to do the ceremony with a rabbi. They can be strict when it comes to do this. We wanted to have an orthodox priest come to the catholic church we got married in and they wouldn't even do that lol, we kinda just gave up on that thought bc it was becoming a difficult task, so although my dad wanted this he realized it wasn't going to happen. A catholic priest would've allowed a priest from another religion come into the church but GO priests are not allowed to do so and go to another church

Espo pretty much has it right on the money, so not much else I can add.

In my case, I'm the 'outsider' and FH is orthodox, but I'm catholic so I am allowed to get married in the church, but you must be a 'christian baptized by water' to be allowed. So if you are not baptized, or Jewish, Muslim, etc., you will either have to convert, or not get married in the church. The priests also will not perform a ceremony outside of the church walls.

In FH's church, just as an aside, we actually were told that if we wanted a Catholic priest or deacon to come to say a few words after the ceremony, we would be allowed to, which I thought was strange, because I know they're usually pretty strict about things like that. However, I think this is because GO recognizes Catholics as being a Christian denomination, and they would not let a rabbi do the same.

Unfortunately, outside of your FH converting, the only other option it seems is to not have a church wedding at all and just find an interfaith officiant and perform it at the RH.

Yeah it's weird, i think they would allow another priest to come into the GO from a different religion, at least some churches but i guess the rules are just that the GO priests themselves can't perform anything outside of a GO church.

Are you gonna have a catholic priest come do part of the ceremony? that would be nice, i wanted to have both an orthodox priest and catholic priest but unfortunately bc of the GO rules, one couldn't come do it.

ETA: you brought up a great point, even if you are of a different christian religion you still have to be baptized and did everything that religion requires of you. I had to show the catholic church my baptismal certificate

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Posted by coldasice217

I'm not going to have a Catholic priest come. I'm not really religious, and I've haven't had the best experience in my church, so it kind of turned me off to the whole religion, which is why we're not having two ceremonies and I'm only doing the Orthodox one. Kills two birds with one stone, because while Catholic recognizes marriages performed in Orthodox, Orthodox won't recognize marriages performed in Catholic, and FH is very religious and didn't want to be excommunicated lol. I actually feel a little more comfortable in the Orthodox church anyways, so it's worked out pretty good so far.

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Oooo ok thats completely understandable then. Yeah same happened with me, dh is more religious than I am and so is his family so to me just made more sense. Your pics will come out gorgeous though bc the inside of greek churches all look so amazing, the painted walls and ceilings, really pops in the pics.