Although marriage was not yet a
dogmatically defined sacrament, by the ninth or tenth century the divorce rate had been greatly reduced under the influence of the
Catholic Church, which considered marriage to be instituted by
God and
Christ indissoluble by mere human action. Marriage was later dogmatically defined as a sacrament, beginning in 1208, when
Pope Innocent III required members of another religious movement to recognize that marriage was a sacrament as a condition for being received back into the Catholic Church. In 1254, Catholics accused
Waldensians of condemning the sacrament of marriage, "saying that married persons sin mortally if they come together without the hope of offspring". In 1439 the
Council of Florence defined marriage as a sacrament, solidifying the development of doctrine from the previous twelve centuries and described marriage as 'insoluble' "since it signifies the indivisible union of Christ and the church." The passage follows, "Although the separation of bed is lawful on account of fornication, it is not lawful to contract another marriage since the bond of a legitimately contracted marriage is perpetual." Although divorce, as known today, was generally allowed in Western Europe after the 10th century, separation of husband and wife and the
annulment of marriage were also well-known. What is today referred to as "
separate maintenance" (or "
legal separation") was termed "divorce a mensa et thoro" ("divorce from bed-and-board"). The husband and wife were physically separated and were forbidden to live or
cohabit together, but their marital relationship did not fully terminate.
Civil courts had no power over marriage or divorce. The Catholic Church historically opposed the legalization of civil divorce in Catholic countries. For example, when
Republican Spain legalized divorce in Spain for the first time,
Pope Pius XI wrote: 'the new Spanish legislation, with the deleterious introduction of divorce, dares to profane the sanctuary of the family, thus implanting, with the attempted dissolution of domestic society, the germs of saddest ruin for civil well-being.'
Canon law makes no provision for divorce, but
a declaration of nullity may be granted when the proof is produced that essential conditions for contracting a valid marriage were absent—i.e., that the sacrament did not take place due to some impediment. The grounds for annulment are determined by Church authority and applied in
ecclesiastical courts. Annulment was known as "divorce a vinculo matrimonii", or "divorce from all the bonds of marriage", for
canonical causes of impediment existing at the time of the marriage. "For in cases of total divorce, the marriage is declared null, as having been unlawful
ab initio." The Church holds that the sacrament of marriage produces one person from two, inseparable from each other: "Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: 'It is not good that the man should be alone.' The woman, 'flesh of his flesh,' his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a 'helpmate'; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. 'Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.' The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been 'in the beginning': 'So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Since husband and wife became one person upon marriage, that oneness can only be seen as null if the parties improperly entered into the marriage initially, in which case the marriage does not validly exist. In 2016, Pope
Francis published
Amoris laetitia, which pertains to the reception of Holy Communion by the divorced and remarried who live together "more uxorial". However, there have been no updates to Catholic canon law as a result of this apostolic exhortation. == Eastern Orthodox Churches ==