Sophie Stavrou

This article by Sophie Stavrou, drawn from the roundtable discussions of an Orthodox theology conference, addresses the relationship between love, sexuality and marriage from both an anthropological and sacramental perspective. The author begins with the observation of a semantic and historical asymmetry between the notions of love and sexuality, revealing a persistent tension within the Christian tradition, which has long associated sexuality with sin and valorized the monastic model to the detriment of the conjugal state. The article then examines how the experience of falling in love can constitute an opening to the mystery of God, and how the sacrament of marriage, understood as the "sacrament of love," reconciles carnal love and spiritual love. The theological contribution lies in an Orthodox reinterpretation of marriage that rehabilitates corporeality and sexuality as legitimate dimensions of the journey toward God, in dialogue with contemporary society.

This article presents the *Threnos of the Mother of God*, a Greek poem probably dating from the late fourteenth century, devoted to Mary's lamentations at the foot of the Cross. Sophie Stavrou offers a French translation accompanied by a historical and literary introduction. The article situates this text within the long tradition of the Greek threnos, a feminine funerary genre inherited from Antiquity, and traces its liturgical lineage from the kontakion of Romanos the Melodist to the hymns of Byzantine Holy Week. The central idea is that this poem articulates popular pathos and theology of the Passion: Mary passes through despair and revolt before accepting the sacrifice of Christ and awaiting his resurrection. The article makes a twofold contribution: it highlights the creative continuity between liturgical hymnography and Byzantine paraliturgical poetry, and it makes accessible in French a text transmitted by Athonite manuscripts edited by Manousakas.