The crowning is the heart of the Eastern Orthodox marriage service: the priest places crowns, the stefana, on the heads of bride and groom, joined to each other by a ribbon, and the couple are led three times around the central table in the Dance of Isaiah. The crowns signify both the founding of a new household under God and the crown of martyrdom, the mutual self-sacrifice the marriage asks of each spouse. In Greek practice the crowns are usually white floral or metal bands kept by the couple for life; Slavic churches often use royal-style crowns held above the heads.
Facts
Attributions
TraditionThe Orthodox Church situates the crowning rite, stefana, within Byzantine Orthodox marriage tradition, the exchange of crowns that gives the Orthodox wedding service its common name, the Sacrament of Crowning. 1 PurposeThe Orthodox marriage rite centres on the crowning of the bride and groom with stefana, wreaths or crowns symbolising their new roles as king and queen of their household, joined by a ribbon to signify their union. 2 Function
Stage of Life Marked Form
Implements and MaterialsThe stefana crowns are joined by a ribbon; Greek practice typically uses floral or metal bands kept by the couple for life, Slavic churches often use royal-style crowns held above the heads 1 Practice
Who Performs ItAll adherents of the tradition 1 FrequencyOnce, or at a turning point in a life 1 Liturgical and Scriptural RoleForms the theological center of the Orthodox marriage service, the crowning itself rather than an exchange of vows treated as the sacramental act that unites the couple. 2 Text
Source TextIts rite is set out in the Eastern Orthodox euchologion, the priest's service book, under the sacrament of matrimony, which prescribes the crowning, the shared cup and the ceremonial walk called the Dance of Isaiah around the analogion. 1 Status
Current StatusRemains an obligatory element of the Eastern Orthodox wedding service today; the marriage is not considered sacramentally complete under Orthodox canon law without it. 1 Meaning
Literal MeaningStefana is Greek for crowns, naming the rite for the pair of wedding crowns joined by a ribbon that the priest places on the couple as a central visible act of the service. 1 Origins
Place of Origin Historical OriginDraws on an ancient association in the Eastern Church between marriage and martyrdom, the crowns signifying both royal dignity and the willingness of each spouse to sacrifice for the other. 1 Use
OccasionThe Orthodox Church places the crowning at the heart of the Byzantine wedding service itself, the moment at which the priest sets a crown on each spouse, rather than as a separate ceremony held before or after the marriage rite. 1 Learn More
Marriage as Martyrdom and Kingdom
Byzantine theology reads marriage through two images at once, and the crowning service holds both without resolving them into one. The crowns placed on bride and groom are called stephana, and the priest's prayers name them twice over: crowns of glory and honour, marking the couple as founders of a new kingdom in miniature, the household that is called the domestic church, and crowns of martyrdom, since every marriage asks a lifelong dying to self for the sake of the other. The rite descends from a betrothal and crowning pattern already established in the early Byzantine church and preserved with little structural change through the Ottoman centuries into the present Slavic and Greek liturgical books.
Two cups of wine, drunk in turn by the couple from a single chalice, recall the wedding at Cana and signal that from this point the couple share one cup, one life, in common. The service is inseparable from the Divine Liturgy's sacramental logic even though it is served on its own: Orthodoxy counts crowning among the seven mysteries, conferred by the priest's prayer and the couple's free consent rather than, as in Western canon law, by the couple's consent alone with the priest as witness.
The Dance of Isaiah
The crowning service moves through a fixed sequence recognisable across every Orthodox jurisdiction that keeps it. After betrothal prayers and the exchange of rings, the priest joins the couple's right hands and places the crowns, holding them briefly over each head in turn before setting them down, while the choir sings the same troparion asking the martyrs and the couple alike to keep the faith. Scripture readings follow, from Ephesians on marriage as an image of Christ and the church and from the Gospel account of the wedding at Cana, after which the couple share the common cup.
The service closes with the Dance of Isaiah, three processional circuits around the small table at the centre of the church, the priest leading the couple by their joined and crowned hands while the choir sings the same hymns again, a physical enactment of a lifelong journey begun together rather than a formality tacked onto the end. The crowns themselves, whether stiff formal circlets or, in many parishes, simple flowered wreaths joined by a ribbon, are traditionally kept afterward by the couple as a household object rather than returned to the church, and in some communities are shown again only at the couple's funeral, closing the marriage where the crowning opened it.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Kept in the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431.
Kept in the Church of Greece.
Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches.
Kept in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
Kept in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century.
Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches.
Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance.
Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books.
Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Marriage is the Byzantine crowning.
Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Conducted By
The crowning of an Orthodox marriage is performed by a presbyter.
Related To
Sources
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