W
w_stewart
Guest
Does Orthodoxy teach heresy when it is pro-artificial birth control?
- Status
W
w_stewart
Guest
In addition, what is the Orthodox’s basis in allowing the use of ABC’s?
1
1ke
Guest
Yes.
B
bpbasilphx
Guest
It would be more accurate to say that some Orthodox moral theologians TOLERATE some forms of ABC that are not intrinsically abortifacient, not that Orthodoxy is “pro birth control”.
S
StMarina303ad
Guest
And to follow up to bpbasilphx’s post, it can only be used when temporarily avoiding children after the couple has already had a child or children as the purpose of marriage is to “be fruitful and multiply”. Anyone who has ever attended an Orthodox Wedding would have never missed that point as there are like 8 Scripture Readings which pertain to having children.
For a more detailed account of what Orthodoxy teaches on this and other controversial matters, here is a place to start: goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7101
W
w_stewart
Guest
Do not Orthodox Churches have one stand on this issue?
1
1ke
Guest
Remember, the Orthodox Churches have no unified authority.
C
cathopologist
Guest
So who makes the critical decisions and is the main voice of all Orthodoxy? Lets say in this case, its about the artificial birth control issue. The Patriarch of Moscow? Or the Patriarch of Jerusalem?
B
bpbasilphx
Guest
So who makes the critical decisions and is the main voice of all Orthodoxy? Lets say in this case, its about the artificial birth control issue. The Patriarch of Moscow? Or the Patriarch of Jerusalem?
If it’s a serious enough issue requiring more than pastoral judgement, it’s up to an Ecumenical Council to decide.
If it’s a serious enough issue requiring more than pastoral judgement, it’s up to an Ecumenical Council to decide.
B
bilop
Guest
In practice, no one.
S
StMarina303ad
Guest
You are correct - no ONE - it is the Orthodox Church as a WHOLE who has maintained the Truth on all issues since we are guided by Holy Spirit through Councils.
S
StMarina303ad
Guest
Christ is the one and only Head of the Orthodox Church. For every lay person, they are under the obedience of their Spiritual Father, the Spiritual Fathers are under the obedience of their Bishop. Where the Bishop is, there is the Church entire. Now many Bishops are joined together through a common Patriarch, but not all. The Ecumenical Patriarch is Bartholomew of Constantinople.
The Orthodox Church is completely different in structure than the Catholic Church has become over the last 1000 years. The Orthodox Church maintains the original structure of the Church as Christ and His Apostles established.
A look at Church History and reading of the Church Fathers will reveal this clearly to anyone who actually looks.
V
Volodymyr_988
Guest
Let’s look at a controversial point in Church History:
The Fall of Constantinople…
29 May 1453…
Before his death, Constantine XI Paleologos receives Holy Communion from Cardinal Isidore of Kyiv. You see, even the Last Roman Emperor didn’t repudiate the Council of Ferrara-Florence and in fact tried to implement the decrees of the Council so as to reunite East and West.
The Fall of Constantinople…
29 May 1453…
Before his death, Constantine XI Paleologos receives Holy Communion from Cardinal Isidore of Kyiv. You see, even the Last Roman Emperor didn’t repudiate the Council of Ferrara-Florence and in fact tried to implement the decrees of the Council so as to reunite East and West.
S
StMarina303ad
Guest
“A representative Orthodox statement which shows the centrality and importance of the family in Orthodox thinking is found in an encyclical letter by former Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, issued on the occasion of National Family Week in 1972. He stated:
“Home and family life is the bedrock of our Greek Orthodox life-style. The spirit that binds us together as a people finds its deepest roots in the home where the tenderest values of human existence, love, compassion, forbearance and mutual helpfulness thrive in abundance.”
Over the centuries and throughout most cultures and civilizations the family has been proven to be the unifying unit of society. Today we find the family under attack both from within and from without. Outside forces would have us believe that the family as we have come to know and cherish it is no longer necessary. From within, the erosion of spiritual values and emphasis upon materialism has created for many families confusion and uncertainty where commitment and dedication once reigned. Marriage is holy. The home is sacred. Birth is a miracle. In these we find the very meaning of life itself.
One aspect of the “commitment and dedication” of the holy state of marriage and family is cast in terms of sexual behavior. Most moral questions relating to sex are generally best understood in the light of this high regard for marriage and the family. Some of the questions on sexual issues addressed by the Orthodox Church are the following:
The Orthodox Church remains faithful to the biblical and traditional norms regarding premarital sexual relations between men and women. The only appropriate and morally fitting place for the exercise of sexual relations, according to the teachings of the Church, is marriage. The moral teaching of the Church on this matter has been unchanging since its foundation. In sum, the sanctity of marriage is the cornerstone of sexual morality. The whole range of sexual activity outside marriage - fornication, adultery and homosexuality - are thus seen as not fitting and appropriate to the Christian way of life. Like the teaching on fornication, the teachings of the Church on these and similar issues have remained constant. Expressed in Scripture, the continuing Tradition of the Church, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and the canons, these views have been restated by theologians, hierarchs and local Orthodox churches in our own day. For example, the Decalogue prohibits adultery. In the tradition of the Church, the second-century Epistle of Barnabas commands “Thou shalt not be an adulterer, nor a corrupter, nor be like to them that are such.” The fourth-century Church Father St. Basil wrote against the practice (Canons 35 and 77); and the Quinisext Council (A.D. 691) repeated the same condemnation in its eighty-seventh canon. All major Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States have had occasion to repeat the condemnation of adultery.
Generally stated, fornication, adultery, abortion, homosexuality and any form of abusive sexual behavior are considered immoral and inappropriate forms of behavior in and of themselves, and also because they attack the institution of marriage and the family. Two representative statements, one on abortion and another on homosexuality, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America follow. They are from the Twenty-Third Clergy-Laity Congress held in Philadelphia in 1976. The Orthodox Church has a definite, formal and intended attitude toward abortion. It condemns all procedures purporting to abort the embryo or fetus, whether by surgical or chemical means. The Orthodox Church brands abortion as murder; that is, as a premeditated termination of the life of a human being. The only time the Orthodox Church will reluctantly acquiesce to abortion is when the preponderance of medical opinion determines that unless the embryo or fetus is aborted, the mother will die. Decisions of the Supreme Court and State legislatures by which abortion, with or without restrictions, is allowed should be viewed by practicing Christians as an affront to their beliefs in the sanctity of life. The position of the Orthodox Church toward homosexuality has been expressed by synodicals, canons and patristic pronouncements beginning with the very first centuries of Orthodox ecclesiastical life. Thus, the Orthodox Church condemns unreservedly all expressions of personal sexual experience which prove contrary to the definite and unalterable function ascribed to sex by God’s ordinance and expressed in man’s experience as a law of nature. The Orthodox Church believes that homosexuality should be treated by religion as a sinful failure. In both cases, correction is called for. Homosexuals should be accorded the confidential medical and psychiatric facilities by which they can be helped to restore themselves to a self-respecting sexual identity that belongs to them by God’s ordinance. In full confidentiality the Orthodox Church cares and provides pastorally for homosexuals in the belief that no sinner who has failed himself and God should be allowed to deteriorate morally and spiritually. Psychiatric reconciliation is bound to prove short-lived.
The possible exception to the above affirmation of continuity of teaching is the view of the Orthodox Church on the issue of contraception. Because of the lack of a full understanding of the implications of the biology of reproduction, earlier writers tended to identify abortion with contraception. However, of late a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers and thinkers on this topic, which permits the use of certain contraceptive practices within marriage for the purpose of spacing children, enhancing the expression of marital love, and protecting health.” My bold and italics.
“Home and family life is the bedrock of our Greek Orthodox life-style. The spirit that binds us together as a people finds its deepest roots in the home where the tenderest values of human existence, love, compassion, forbearance and mutual helpfulness thrive in abundance.”
Over the centuries and throughout most cultures and civilizations the family has been proven to be the unifying unit of society. Today we find the family under attack both from within and from without. Outside forces would have us believe that the family as we have come to know and cherish it is no longer necessary. From within, the erosion of spiritual values and emphasis upon materialism has created for many families confusion and uncertainty where commitment and dedication once reigned. Marriage is holy. The home is sacred. Birth is a miracle. In these we find the very meaning of life itself.
One aspect of the “commitment and dedication” of the holy state of marriage and family is cast in terms of sexual behavior. Most moral questions relating to sex are generally best understood in the light of this high regard for marriage and the family. Some of the questions on sexual issues addressed by the Orthodox Church are the following:
The Orthodox Church remains faithful to the biblical and traditional norms regarding premarital sexual relations between men and women. The only appropriate and morally fitting place for the exercise of sexual relations, according to the teachings of the Church, is marriage. The moral teaching of the Church on this matter has been unchanging since its foundation. In sum, the sanctity of marriage is the cornerstone of sexual morality. The whole range of sexual activity outside marriage - fornication, adultery and homosexuality - are thus seen as not fitting and appropriate to the Christian way of life. Like the teaching on fornication, the teachings of the Church on these and similar issues have remained constant. Expressed in Scripture, the continuing Tradition of the Church, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and the canons, these views have been restated by theologians, hierarchs and local Orthodox churches in our own day. For example, the Decalogue prohibits adultery. In the tradition of the Church, the second-century Epistle of Barnabas commands “Thou shalt not be an adulterer, nor a corrupter, nor be like to them that are such.” The fourth-century Church Father St. Basil wrote against the practice (Canons 35 and 77); and the Quinisext Council (A.D. 691) repeated the same condemnation in its eighty-seventh canon. All major Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States have had occasion to repeat the condemnation of adultery.
Generally stated, fornication, adultery, abortion, homosexuality and any form of abusive sexual behavior are considered immoral and inappropriate forms of behavior in and of themselves, and also because they attack the institution of marriage and the family. Two representative statements, one on abortion and another on homosexuality, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America follow. They are from the Twenty-Third Clergy-Laity Congress held in Philadelphia in 1976. The Orthodox Church has a definite, formal and intended attitude toward abortion. It condemns all procedures purporting to abort the embryo or fetus, whether by surgical or chemical means. The Orthodox Church brands abortion as murder; that is, as a premeditated termination of the life of a human being. The only time the Orthodox Church will reluctantly acquiesce to abortion is when the preponderance of medical opinion determines that unless the embryo or fetus is aborted, the mother will die. Decisions of the Supreme Court and State legislatures by which abortion, with or without restrictions, is allowed should be viewed by practicing Christians as an affront to their beliefs in the sanctity of life. The position of the Orthodox Church toward homosexuality has been expressed by synodicals, canons and patristic pronouncements beginning with the very first centuries of Orthodox ecclesiastical life. Thus, the Orthodox Church condemns unreservedly all expressions of personal sexual experience which prove contrary to the definite and unalterable function ascribed to sex by God’s ordinance and expressed in man’s experience as a law of nature. The Orthodox Church believes that homosexuality should be treated by religion as a sinful failure. In both cases, correction is called for. Homosexuals should be accorded the confidential medical and psychiatric facilities by which they can be helped to restore themselves to a self-respecting sexual identity that belongs to them by God’s ordinance. In full confidentiality the Orthodox Church cares and provides pastorally for homosexuals in the belief that no sinner who has failed himself and God should be allowed to deteriorate morally and spiritually. Psychiatric reconciliation is bound to prove short-lived.
The possible exception to the above affirmation of continuity of teaching is the view of the Orthodox Church on the issue of contraception. Because of the lack of a full understanding of the implications of the biology of reproduction, earlier writers tended to identify abortion with contraception. However, of late a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers and thinkers on this topic, which permits the use of certain contraceptive practices within marriage for the purpose of spacing children, enhancing the expression of marital love, and protecting health.” My bold and italics.
W
w_stewart
Guest
If the Orthodox Churches are ONE, how come they do not have a common stand on Artificial Birth Control?
E
eva6206213
Guest
learing~
learning~
learning~
J
Joseph_L_Varga
Guest
“However, of late a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers and thinkers on this topic, which permits the use of certain contraceptive practices within marriage for the purpose of spacing children, enhancing the expression of marital love, and protecting health.”
I guess this statement by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America would not be accepted by those Russian Orthodox belonging to ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) that I have met. They believed that ABC is always wrong - similar to the Catholic belief. Lately ROCOR reunited with Moscow Patriarchate and now they have the largest membership among Orthodox Churches. I would assume the MP is also against ABC, but I’m not sure.
Could anyone comment on the stance of other Orthodox Churches (e.g. Antiochian, OCA, Serbian, etc.) on ABC?
I guess this statement by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America would not be accepted by those Russian Orthodox belonging to ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) that I have met. They believed that ABC is always wrong - similar to the Catholic belief. Lately ROCOR reunited with Moscow Patriarchate and now they have the largest membership among Orthodox Churches. I would assume the MP is also against ABC, but I’m not sure.
Could anyone comment on the stance of other Orthodox Churches (e.g. Antiochian, OCA, Serbian, etc.) on ABC?
S
StMarina303ad
Guest
Because it is not necessary to have a current common stance on ABC since we’ve maintained the same stance on it since the beginning of the Church.
All abortive forms of birth control are rejected and all other forms NFP for example are also condemned unless the couple has already had a child or children - and even then it can only be used if it is determined to be in the family’s best interested as determined by their physician and most importantly their spiritual father.
- Status