Canonical age
The Orthodox tradition sustains
that the minimum age for marriage is fourteen years for men and twelve years
for women. This condition is based on the age for marriage (aetas nubilis)
that was suggested by Tertullian (c. 160-220) (De virginibus velandis,
11, 10), fixed by Emperor Justinian (527-565), and confirmed in the Syntagma
(1335).
However, it is interesting that
this principle was many times rendered flexible within the Christian tradition,
as evident in the writings of Basil of Caesarea (330-379) (In the 4th century,
Basil mentioned the age of sixteen and seventeen years for both marriage and
religious profession. In canon 24, he also set the upper limit to sixty years
for widows. Cf. Basil, Epistola 199, 18); in canon 20 of the
Synod of Hippo (393) and canon 19 of the Synod of Carthage (419) (When
discussing the age of marriage, the Synod of Hippo and the Synod of Carthage
did not mention a particular age but made a simple reference to
<<puberty>>); in the Ecologa (726) and other civil
legislations of Emperors Leo VI (886-912) and Alexis I Comnenos (1081-1118) (The
Ecologa of Emperor Leo III [cf. I, 4] and Novella 24 of Emperor
Alexis I Comnenos set the age of marriage to fifteen years for orphan boys and
thirteen years for orphan girls. On the other hand, Novella 74 of Leo VI
declared the age of fifteen and thirteen for all boys and girls.); in the Kormc̆aja
Kniga (In Chapter 51/50, the Kormc̆aja Kniga set the age of fifteen
years for the male and twelve for the female), in the decisions of particular
Orthodox Churches, and in the preparatory work for the Great and Holy Council
of 2016 (The Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission of 1971 stated that it was
advisable to keep to the local laws of the State. In 1982, the Pre-Council
Conference agreed on these draft proposals). This flexibility was particularly
present whenever the Church was faced with diplomatic difficulties and had to
adapt her canonical age of marriage according to the personal wish of a particular
sovereign or the civil code of their country. For instance, in 1299, King
Milutin of Serbia (1282-1321) married Simonis, daughter of Emperor Andronikos
II Palaiologos (1282-1328), when she was only five (cf. J. Meyendorff,
<<Christian marriage>> 1039). However, in the countries where civil
marriage was regulated by Islamic law, the Orthodox Churches were often allowed
to regulate the age of their religious marriage. (Kevin Schembri, Oikonomia,
Divorce and Remarriage in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition [Kanonika 23;
Valore, Italy: Pontificio Instituto Orientale, 2017], 64-65)
In a footnote to the above, we read that
In 1774, the Holy Synod of the
Russian Church endorsed the age of the Ecloga, but in 1830, an imperial
Russian law set the age of eighteen for boys and sixteen for girls. In 1849,
the Holy Synod of the Greek Church forbade the marriage of a man under the age
of eighteen and a woman under the age of fourteen. In 1877, the Holy Synod of
Constantinople followed the Greek Church. It also abolished the norm that had
been set by Basil of Caesarea and that impeded a man to marry a woman over
sixty. (Ibid., 64 n. 343)
