Canon LXXII of the Quinsext Council (AKA Council of Trullo) in AD 692 reads thusly:
An orthodox man is
not permitted to marry an heretical woman, nor an orthodox woman to be joined
to an heretical man. But if anything of this kind appear to have been done by
any [we require them] to consider the marriage null, and that the marriage be
dissolved. For it is not fitting to mingle together what should not be mingled,
nor is it right that the sheep be joined with the wolf, nor the lot of sinners
with the portion of Christ. But if any one shall transgress the things which we
have decreed let him be cut off. But if any who up to this time are unbelievers
and are not yet numbered in the flock of the orthodox have contracted lawful
marriage between themselves, and if then, one choosing the right and coming to
the light of truth and the other remaining still detained by the bond of error
and not willing to behold with steady eye the divine rays, the unbelieving
woman is pleased to cohabit with the believing man, or the unbelieving man with
the believing woman, let them not be separated, according to the divine
Apostle, "for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the
unbelieving wife by her husband." (NPNF2 14:397)
This is a rather problematic canon. Note
the following note from the Nicene Post-Nicene volume quoted above:
Ancient Epitome of Canon LXXII.
A marriage contracted with heretics is void. But
if they have made the contract before [conversion] let them remain [united] if
they so desire.
Perhaps
none of the canons of this synod present greater and more insolvable
difficulties than the present. It has been for long centuries the tradition of
the Church that the marriage of a baptized Christian with an unbaptized person
is null, but this canon seems to say that the same is the case if the one party
be a heretic even though baptized. If this is what the canon means it elevates
heresy into an impedimentum dirimens. Such is not and never has been the
law of the West, and such is not to-day the practice of the Eastern church,
which allows the marriage of its people with Lutherans and with Roman Catholics
and never questions the validity of their marriages. Van Espen thinks "the
Greek commentators seem" to think that the heretics referred to are
unbaptized; I do not know exactly why he thinks so. (Ibid.)
Reading this canon reminded me of an
important resource on the Ubi Petrus blog:
Divorce
and Remarriage in the Church Fathers and Patristic Era Writers (Florilegium)
