DANIELA DETEȘAN
Abstract
Until the introduction of civil marriage in Transylvania, through Laws XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII/1894–1895, the contracting and dissolution of marriage was under the responsibility of the Church. Divorce was a relatively marginal and hard-to-measure phenomenon. Due to the religious character of matrimony, divorces were long, costly, and complicated. Remarriages were not usually the outcome of divorce, but rather of the death of the partner. The Orthodox church always encouraged reconciliation and compliance with the principle “what God has united, man cannot separate”. This article examines the canonical legislation of matrimony dissolution in the Transylvanian Romanian Orthodox Church. Secondly, it presents the practice of marriage dissolution, under the form of a case study, in the Săliște Orthodox Archpriestship. It then outlines the details about divorced couples: duration of marriage, place of origin, domicile, age of spouses, occupation, civil statute, causes of dissolution of marriage, cost of divorce, dowry received for the wedding. The data set includes divorce files selected and processed from the Săliște Orthodox Archpriesthip Archive.
Keywords:
divorce, marriage files, Orthodox Church, Romanians, Mărginimea Sibiului.