The saint's advice is timeless and can guide couples today

"...

life in matrimony is perfect and is pleasing to God.  But it is pleasing when its foundation is not some mercenary calculations and lowly motives, but rather, mutual love and devotion of husband and wife, combined with self-denial, constancy, meekness, and long-suffering, and when a husband loves and takes care of his wife, and the wife respects her husband and listens to him as the head of the family, which the Holy Church requires from a couple (cf. Eph. 5:22-29).

Furthermore, in order to be pleasing in the eyes of God, the marriage must be “in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39). The blessing of the Church must be called upon it, through which it becomes a mystery in which heavenly grace is given to a husband and a wife, which sanctifies and elevates their union in the likeness of the union of Christ with the Church (cf. Eph. 5:23–32), and which assists them in carrying out  their mutual duties.

Sometimes, as for example, some have it in this country, a Church wedding is considered unnecessary.  But if we cannot do genuine good in its fullness without Christ (cf. John 15:5), if all of “our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5), if it is God Who begets in us kind desire and actions (cf. Phil. 2:13), then how is it possible that the married couple does not need the grace of God to piously carry out their high duties?

No, the true Orthodox Christian cannot be satisfied with just a civil marriage..."

Read the Full Homily