Need advice - I am catholic and my fiance is greek orthodox - we want to get married!?

We want to get married in the Orthodox Church so that my fiance can still take communion and be part of the church. The problem is that we live in the UAE and there appear to be no Orthodox Churches which offer a service in English or Greek. We can't really get married anywhere else so if any of you people out there have an idea of what we can do... it would be more than welcomed!!





Thanks.Need advice - I am catholic and my fiance is greek orthodox - we want to get married!?
At the end of the day does the language of the service really matter. Does it change the validity of the wedding. If it was done in Greek would you understand any more of it than if it was in Arabic? Unless your fiance speaks excellent Greek and is knowledgeable of the Koine Greek used in the Greek Church he probably won't understand all of it either.





If you are not familiar with the Orthodox wedding service it is not like Protestant and Catholic services where you speak during the service. The only people who speak during the service are the priest and the chanter. So if you study the service before hand on line in English and know what to expect you will know what is going on and being said during the service even though you don't understand the priest. The service is very structured and the priest isn't going to say anything outside of the common books used by Orthodox priests for the wedding service.Need advice - I am catholic and my fiance is greek orthodox - we want to get married!?
Have you thought about saving, and having a destination wedding in Greece. You may have to put off the wedding for a while, save up the money to go, but doing it that way may be more romantic.


I don't know of anywhere outside of the U.S. that you could have a greek orthodox wedding, besides Greece. My cousin had the same situation, but she was in the U.S. and converted to Greek orthodox.


I do not if you're U.S. nationals, but if you are, go to the U.S. embassy for help.
Does he have a friend who is a priest? Or a family connection to one, who can come in and perform the ceremony? That's pretty much all you can do if you can't travel elsewhere to marry.


Best thing for you two to do is get into contact somehow with an Orthodox priest and see if there are other options.


http://www.oca.org/QA.asp?ID=125%26amp;SID=3
A few years ago, I went to a wedding like this - but it was in Buffalo, NY.
If you're interested, this is a popular forum for Orthodox Christians, you may find more answers here...





http://christianforums.com/f145-the-anci鈥?/a>
If there's an American military base nearby, they might have an Orthodox chaplain who can perform the wedding for you.
you should take a step back - ask both your Parents opinion
If the UAE has an orthodox church which I assume that it does by the way you speak about it. You need to contact the Orthodox church. You may have to fly an orthodox priest in who can speak english or greek. Or may be the orhthodox chruch will fly some one in. Is it to much to assume you speak arabic? You may want to contact the orthodox church there in the UAE and request especially for your service that it be in english or greek.
The Orthodox wedding mystery is a sacred service; the language it is conducted in is irrelevant. If there is an Orthodox church in the UAE, you should go to it (and support it! It's not easy maintaining a church there).





However, you have to be careful about the distinction between ';Eastern'; and ';Oriental'; Orthodox churches. Which one does your fiancee belong to? They are completely separate entities that just have similar names for the sake of confusion :) Here are some examples of each to make things clearer:


-Eastern Orthodox: Greek, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian


-Oriental Orthodox: Coptic, Indian, Armenian, Syrian, Ethiopian





By the way, if you are looking for Eastern Orthodox churches, I found a couple of internet articles talking about the construction plans for new Greek and Russian churches in the UAE. So your options might increase within a year or so.