On Adelphopoiesis.

This blog, for 21 years now, has always had the task of causing damage, even small ones, to the machine of the dominant culture. Why do I think it's necessary? Because if you don't pay attention to a problem it becomes a crisis. It doesn't matter how big it is: the dominant factor is time. So, the idea is to be a small problem. But for a long time.

For this reason, I would like to talk to you about Adelphopoiesis.

It is a liturgical blessing (not a sacrament, therefore not a marriage) which establishes the sanctity of a spiritual union based on friendship.

Imagine being in the Middle Ages. And imagine that two families want to ally themselves forever. You can do two things. The first is that you take a girl on one side, and marry her to a guy on the other. But there's a problem. Despite the Bene Gesserit, you have all males, or all females. It's a big mess, because now one has Paul Atreides and the other has a Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. And you find the crazy old lady in the bathroom with her gom jabbar.

Then someone comes along who asks himself an intelligent question: couldn't a pata-marriage be devised, which binds the two in such a way as to bind the families equally? Obviously for the Orthodox church (the custom was born in the Byzantine world and reached its peak in Croatia, it seems, where the Catholic church also accepted it, but didn't talk about it much) it must have been an urgent need. So the answer was "yes, we can do it".

Anyway, Chalamet turning him into a Femboy is a moment, and Feyd-Rautha is a fucking chad that never ends.

The wedding of the millennium, in short.

Well, if you find yourself in these conditions and you have Gaius Helen Mohiam chasing you with the gom jabbar, you can resolve the matter with Adelphopoiesis.

The conditions are that:

1. It is NOT a sexual union. (then, secretly, in short)
2. There is no dissolution.
3. The union celebrates the fraternal friendship between the two.
4. The two will almost always live together.
5. The two can still get married. (it's not clear where the brides sleep)
6. The purpose of the union is to proceed together in a better understanding of the Faith.

Is it still practiced? There are Melkite communities that still practice it.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030627040811/http://www.melkite.org/Questions/M-4.htm _

however, it is no longer included in the list of Catholic liturgies, where it existed as "Ordo at fratres faciendum".

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It was not a marriage , but a formal act that sanctioned one thing: the two became brothers, with all the LEGAL and hereditary obligations of the case. And when we talk about inheritances we talk about lands. It wasn't much.

The ceremony was, according to a reconstruction (quite dubious IMHO, because it was late):

1. The future brothers (or sisters or brother and sister) position themselves in the church in front of the altar on which the cross and the gospel lie; the older of the two is on the right, the younger on the left;
2. Prayers and litanies are recited asking that the two be united in love and that they remember the examples of friendship found in the history of the church;
3. The two are tied to each other with a belt and place their hands on the gospel; each of them receives a candle;
4. The verses (1 Cor 12.27 – 13.8) (Hymn to the love of St. Paul) and (Jn 17.18 – 26) (Jesus speaks of being one) are read aloud;
5. Further prayers are read aloud as in point 2;
6. The Our Father is read aloud;
7. The future brothers receive the consecrated gifts previously offered in the same bowl;
8. They are led around the altar, while holding hands and the faithful sing the following troparion: “Lord, look down from the heavens and see”;
9. The two exchange some kisses;
10. The faithful: Behold, how good it is, and how pleasant it is, for brothers to dwell together! (Ps 133.1)

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Generally, it was a tool that allowed two families to be united by blood , without having to marry offspring. Once the Middle Ages ended, it probably disappeared for this reason.

What does it make us understand, though?

It makes us understand that when there are rich and powerful families who pay well and who need something – like a ritual that creates kinship at will – the solution is found.

This idea was not contrary to theology, because a type of union of this kind was already known: this complete (and holy) brotherhood is described in Peter and Paul, Andrew and Jacob, John and Thomas, Jacob, Philip, Matthew, Simon, Thaddeus, Matthias and the holy martyrs Sergius and Bacchus as well as Cosmas and Damian: not with carnal love, but with the faith and love of the Holy Spirit

Why did she disappear, then? Because it was no longer of use to anyone or anything, or rather the company stopped asking for it. There are no words of excommunication for the disappearance of the Ordo at fratres faciendum, it is simply no longer part of the existing liturgies. It disappeared along with the demand from the company.

And this is important, because we know one thing:

1. The Church tends to align itself with society when the request is not fragmented , that is, when the whole of society requests it: there must not be a risk of schism. The families of the Middle Ages did not talk about it in shock because they knew that, who knows, "maybe sooner or later it will be useful to us too". It was fine with everyone.
2. On the contrary, today society is polarized: the left accepts homosexual marriage while the right does not. In this case the Catholic Church takes sides and becomes rigid. Compared to the requests shared by everyone such as the blessing of animals, soldiers, warships, however, there were no problems.

Its comeback, from a historical point of view, does not represent a doctrinal impossibility (unless we define it as gay marriage, which is impossible for Catholics) because if we define it as a liturgy that creates two brothers, we are faced with a family bond without sexual implications.

What disturbs his return, that is, is not the spiritual or religious agenda, but the political one. If this ritual were to come back into vogue, it wouldn't be the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that would have nightmares: since they are brothers, there is no problem. Both the right and the left would get angry and react badly, that is, those on the left who would sell it as gay marriage, and those on the right who would be scandalized by gay marriage.

And since the church fears schisms, like the one that is risked with the German and Austrian bishops – for the same issue – the problem would lie there.

If tomorrow there was a general consensus – at least among the bourgeoisie – a consensus that goes from right-wing bourgeois to left-wing bourgeois, let's say a transversal consensus, from which to profit, I don't think it would be difficult to bring it back into vogue.

But the problem is the Big Boogeyman of the church: the fear of schism.

If you take that away, and you have enough money on the line, a ceremony to brother n people together wouldn't embarrass any theologian.

Just a few politicians.