The Greek priest emailed me back:
It's a gray area. An Orthodox Christian who marries must marry in the Church to stay in good standing.
But a married person who converts to the Orthodox faith should be considered differently. That person's priest should know and understand the situation and allow that person full participation in the sacraments regardless of the spouse. It's not logical for someone to convert and then be prevented from participating because the spouse is not interested in the Faith! (See I Corinthians 7:12-14) The problem is that it's complicated to explain outside of one's parish, and the person who converted should realize that when visiting other churches.
It is irregular and it is not spelled out anywhere; and there are some priests (I don't want to say illiterate) who just don't get it. For a person with a spouse not converting, it will depend on whether a GOA priest "gets it" or not.
Russian Orthodox priest also responded directly to me, not just through his matushka. He was instructed by *his* bishop that remarrying converts was not required (now if the couple wanted to do it, that's something different). So a person converting without their spouse would be generally OK, that's not to say there aren't priests who don't "get it" - and there seem to be more of those than we'd like there to be.
Seems to be another of those "case by case" situations. In other words, AYP (Ask Your Priest).
It's a gray area. An Orthodox Christian who marries must marry in the Church to stay in good standing.
But a married person who converts to the Orthodox faith should be considered differently. That person's priest should know and understand the situation and allow that person full participation in the sacraments regardless of the spouse. It's not logical for someone to convert and then be prevented from participating because the spouse is not interested in the Faith! (See I Corinthians 7:12-14) The problem is that it's complicated to explain outside of one's parish, and the person who converted should realize that when visiting other churches.
It is irregular and it is not spelled out anywhere; and there are some priests (I don't want to say illiterate) who just don't get it. For a person with a spouse not converting, it will depend on whether a GOA priest "gets it" or not.
Russian Orthodox priest also responded directly to me, not just through his matushka. He was instructed by *his* bishop that remarrying converts was not required (now if the couple wanted to do it, that's something different). So a person converting without their spouse would be generally OK, that's not to say there aren't priests who don't "get it" - and there seem to be more of those than we'd like there to be.
Seems to be another of those "case by case" situations. In other words, AYP (Ask Your Priest).
