Orthodox and birth control

[Pax_et_Caritas]

I’m curious when the Orthodox began allowing artificial birth control and how they justify the reversal?

 

[chrisb]

I’m curious when the Orthodox began allowing artificial birth control and how they justify the reversal?

Grace and Peace Pax,

As I understand it, and please understand that I am a lowly catechuman, we must first understand how the Holy and Lifebearing Fathers understood the process of procreation.

Must understood it as the learned of Greek Culture that man carries within himself a seed (i.e. sermo) and that the woman only served as ground in which the seed grows. In fact, Greek thought on the subject didn’t recognize any role in the process of procreation by the woman except as a ‘host’ for the man’s seed (i.e. sermo).

Knowing this, the Greeks thought of the man’s sermo as the zygote and thus the complete source of a new life apart from any participation with the woman or with any egg supplies by the woman. This understanding of procreation entered into early Christian thought concerning the severity of sexual activities such as self-gratification… If the sermo is actually a zygote it would be a grave misuse of such a gift to engage in self-gratification as one would be literally careless with the gift of life (i.e. zygote) and be a very grave offense. In fact ‘all’ misuse of the sexual organs would be most grave. The problem is as we have grown in greater knowledge of the process of procreation we have learned that the sermo ‘isn’t’ a zygote and so misuse of the sexual organs, although a grave lost of control to the passion, does not carry with it as ‘grave a misuse’ of the life of life (i.e. zygote) as was perhaps thought by the Holy and LIfebearing Fathers. Understanding this, there exists room for our Bishops and Priests to exercise some economia with our use of contraception and to perhaps understand sex, outside of a procreative act as not inherently a grave misuse of sex. This returns the misuse of sex to a loss of discipline over the passions instead of placing in a special category because of it’s misuse of the ‘gifts of life’.

I hope that I expressed this well. God forgive if I have not.

 

[Delora]

Post directly from Orthdox Wiki:

Opinions about contraception have varied in the Orthodox Church. There is complete unanimity that no form of contraception that is abortifacient is acceptable and there are definitive ecumenical canons that proscribe abortifacients. The Fathers of the Church, such as Ss. Athanasius the Great, John Chrysostom, Epiphanios, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Caesarious, Gregory the Great, Augustine of Canterbury and Maximos the Confessor, all explicitely condemned abortion as well as the use of abortifacients. However there are a range of opinions on the issue of non-abortifacient contraception.

1) There are those who hold the view that sex should only be for the purpose of procreation, and so even natural family planning would be prohibited. 

2)There are those who argue that natural family planning is acceptable, because it simply involves abstinence from sex during times when fertility is likely. 

3)There are those who teach that non-abortifacient contraception is acceptable if it is used with the blessing of one's spiritual father, and if it is not used simply to avoid having children for purely selfish reasons. The statement on marriage and family from the 10th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America follows along these lines, as does "The Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church," section XII. 3, which was approved by the 2000 Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.

While some local churches have issues official statements on this issue, it is not an issue that has been clearly defined by the entire Church.

Vocal opponents to the prevailing view of contraception in Orthodoxy today include [incomplete]: Bp. Hilarion of Vienna [ROC], Bp. Artemije of Kosovo [SOC], Fr. Josiah Trenham, Fr. Patrick Reardon, Fr. John Schroedel and Fr. Patrick Danielson.