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Last week we talked
about marriage in the Orthodox Church and saw how in the Old Testament
marriage had as its primary goal the reproduction of human beings and the
continuation of the family line, it became necessary for man to reproduce
so that the human race would continue until the time that God would send
the Messiah. With the coming of Christ, children took a secondary position
and the primary goal of marriage was lifted to a higher spiritual level:
this being for the couple to help each other attain the highest state of
human existence, the state of theosis (deification). But procreation was
and still is regarded as an important part of marriage. Children are the
natural result of a marriage, and, until relatively recent times, they
were the expected and much-desired result of a marriage. Children were
sought as a fruit of the marriage union, a proof that a man and a woman
had become one flesh, and this was always seen as a very great blessing on
a marriage. It was considered a great tragedy, a great sorrow, if the
marriage was childless; so much so that, although the Church always
permitted a childless couple to continue to live together as man and wife,
if a wife was barren or a husband was impotent, it was accepted by the
Church as grounds for divorce, so that either would be free to enter into
a marriage relationship with another, in the hope of having children.
Nowadays, of
course, our society considers children more of a nuisance than a blessing,
and many couples wait one, two, three, or even more years before they have
a child. Indeed, some couples decide never to have children. And so,
although in the Orthodox Church the first purpose of marriage is not
merely to have children, the desire of most young married couples today to
wait before having children is considered sinful. If they are not prepared
and willing to conceive and bear a child, without interfering with the
will of God by means of artificial birth control, then in reality they are
not ready to be married. If they are not prepared to accept the natural
and blessed fruit of their union - that is, a child - then it is clear
that their primary purpose in marrying is to have legalized fornication.
It should be noted that the Church definitely teaches that marriage
implies childbirth. The woman, says St. Paul, “will be saved through
bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with
modesty” (I Timothy 2:15). However, nowhere in Scripture is it said that
childbirth is the only aim of marriage. Marriage is essentially an
inseparable union, both spiritual and carnal, of two beings. St. Paul
teaches: “Do not refuse one another except perhaps by agreement for a
season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together
again.” (I Corinthians 7:4-5) I think it is clear by St. Paul’s teaching
that the carnal union of a married couple is not always intended to be
only for the conception of a child. If this is so then there is a need for
some sort of birth control. Which brings us to the question: How do the
Churches see birth control in marriage?
The Roman
Catholic Church officially teaches that the primary purpose and function
of marriage is to have children thus, procreation is the primary reason
for sexual intercourse. This teaching is rooted in the Augustinian
tradition, which treats sexuality, even within marriage, as basically
sinful, and therefore procreation is held to be a necessary justification
for the marriage act, as it serves to fulfil God's command to be fruitful
and multiply.
Protestants, on the other hand, who do not accept tradition as an
authority, but only the Bible, have a different attitude to sex and birth
control. The Bible doesn’t explicitly mention birth control and so when
the Pill became available in the early 60s, they welcomed it as human
progress. The Protestant teaching, that God wants man to be personally
fulfilled and happy, comes and seals the attitude that sexual
gratification is from God and so the primary purpose of sexual intercourse
in marriage becomes not procreation but recreation.
So we have two
churches that teach two different extremes. The Roman Catholic Church
which considers the marital act as sinful and should only be performed as
a means to reproduce and the Protestant attitude where anything goes and
as long as we are happy, God is happy. So where does the Orthodox Church
stand. Some Orthodox writers take the negative view and count any use of
contraceptive methods even within marriage as immoral. They believe that
the primary and almost exclusive purpose of marriage is the birth of
children and their upbringing. They tend to consider any other exercise of
the sexual function as pleasure-seeking, passion, and bodily
gratification, which are held to be inappropriate for the Christian
growing in spiritual perfection. These writers hold that the only
alternative is sexual abstinence in marriage, which, though difficult, is
both desirable and possible through the aid of the grace of God.
Fortunately, most Orthodox writers do not agree with this and neither does
the Church. The Orthodox Church has never considered sexual relations in
marriage as sinful for as St. Paul says: “Marriage is honourable in all,
and the bed undefiled.” (Heb. 13:4) How can the Church bless the union of
two people in the Wedding ceremony if she considered it a sin? But the
Church does teach a limitation on sexual relations. For as St Paul said,
there are times to come together but also times when the couple should
abstain for certain periods to devote themselves to prayer. This approach
readily adapts itself to an ethical position that would not only permit
but also prescribe sexual relationships of husband and wife for their own
sake as expressions of mutual love. Such a view clearly would support the
use of contraceptive practices for the purpose of spacing and limiting
children so as to permit greater freedom of the couple in the expression
of their mutual love.
There are two
categories of birth control, the Natural and the Artificial. The natural
birth control methods are
1. Total abstinence: in other words - no sex at all. For most marriages
this is not an option but there are many very pious couples who having
brought a number of children into this world, have agreed to abstain from
one another, both for spiritual and worldly reasons, living the rest of
their lives in peace and harmony as brother and sister. This has happened
in the lives of saints - most notably in the life of Saint John of
Kronstadt.
2. A limitation on sexual relations. This of course already happens with
the Orthodox couple that sincerely tries to observe fully all of the fast
days and fasting periods of the year.
3. The Rhythm method or the newer Natural family planning method which
again involves a limitation on sexual relations and where the couple only
come together during the days that are considered safe.
All three natural birth control methods are acceptable to the Church under
the right circumstances and can be used by a couple without burdening
their consciences, because they are what we would call “ascetical”
methods; that is, they have to do with self-denial, self-control.
A fourth natural birth control is Coitus interruptus or more commonly the
Withdrawal method which is often not mentioned as a form of birth control
by Orthodox writers. I think the reason is because is often reminds us of
Onan in the Old Testament who spilled his seed on the ground rather than
sire children by his dead brother’s wife, Tamar. (Gen.38:1-11) This has
always been interpreted as a form of masturbation and the two words
Onanism and masturbation are used synonymously. In reality, Onan used the
withdrawal method with Tamar, refusing to father children by her since
they would not be considered his, but rather his brother’s. This
displeased the Lord: and slew him. Personally I think, no matter what
method of natural or barrier birth control is used, it doesn’t differ from
Onan’s coitus interruptus because they all have the same intention and
that is not to father a child, the avoidance of conception. Onan’s sin was
not that he spilled his seed, but that he deliberately refused to fulfil
his obligation to Tamar and God’s will.
Of the
Artificial birth controls, The Pill and the morning after pill, the
Condom, Diaphragm and the Coil, the church has never permitted their use.
However, in recent years, a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers
and Spiritual fathers 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.
They have allowed as an “economy” the use of the barrier contraceptives,
that is the condom and the diaphragm because these do not involve
fertilisation and conception. The Pill on the other hand and the coil
involve the aborting of the ovum which may or may not have been
fertilized. If fertilization has taken place, then this is considered as
an abortion and therefore murder. So let’s look at the Church’s view on
Abortion.
One of the
most widely used arguments in favour of performing abortions is that each
woman has the right to control the functions of her body, in whatever way
she finds necessary, right up to terminating the life of an unwanted baby.
The Church rejects this argument outright. First of all, the Church points
to the sacredness of God-given life, and likewise points to the fact that
if it is forbidden for the Christian to raise his hand against his own
life, all the more so does a Christian not have the right to terminate the
life of another, even if this life has the appearance of a still not
completely formed embryo. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, as
the Apostle Paul teaches; this means that the termination of the life of
any other person is considered to be a crime not only in regard to that
person, but likewise in regard to the Holy Spirit. We tend to think of
abortion as meaning the termination of a pregnancy which has reached a
stage where the embryo has developed into a recognizable body, in other
words between one and three months.
Abortion, as
we all know, is the killing of an unborn child. The Church’s belief is not
the same as society’s. For Orthodox Christians and many other religions,
abortion is considered murder. From the moment of conception, the Church,
in keeping with Biblical teaching, holds that human life exists. The
Church professes that the so-called “blob of tissue” (in the words of the
pro-choice lobby) inside the mother is a sacred human life and no one but
God has the right to decide the future of that child. Another argument of
those who are for abortion is that during the first weeks of pregnancy the
embryo is not “viable.” This basically means that the child cannot live by
itself outside the mother. They would argue therefore that it is a part of
the woman’s body, and not a separate entity of life. The Church, of
course, does not adhere to this belief at all. From the moment of
conception, a new life had been created. Using the same argument, can we
say the same is true for a newborn child? Without someone to feed and care
for the newborn, it would die. We do not accept the belief that just
because the child cannot live by itself that it is not human and alive.
Women have abortions for various reasons but no reason justifies the
removal of a living person except in the case where the mother herself is
in danger of her own life if she carries the pregnancy to full term.
A common argument is: “What if the mother was raped, and the child that
she would have is of a man that violated her in the cruellest way? The
child would only be a tangible reminder of that horrible time.” The
Orthodox Church condemns rape but does not view abortion as the best
possible solution to the woman’s problem. The Church never says that the
woman must keep the baby. If a mother cannot deal with her child because
it is a reminder of rape, there is still the option to put the child up
for adoption. The Church, in this case, does not accept the idea of
abortion as a solution to the problem because there is an alternative.
Now here comes
the tricky part. There are some cases and situations where giving birth
may endanger the life of the mother. “What if the mother has a serious
illness, such as cervical cancer, which indicates a more than likely
chance that treating the mother may endanger the child?” This is a very
serious and sensitive issue. The Orthodox Church tries to take each case
separately and fairly. A mother may be afflicted with cervical cancer and
be pregnant at the same time. In rare cases it may be necessary for the
mother to undergo treatment to save her own life during the pregnancy. If
the child inside of the mother’s womb dies as a consequence to that
procedure, the Orthodox Church does not view it as an abortion. The intent
of the treatment was to save the mother’s life, not kill the child. The
child’s death was an unfortunate casualty of trying to save the mother’s
life. But there have been many cases where doctors have advised women to
have an abortion for their own safety and yet these women decided to leave
things in God’s hands and both they and the babies survived. Women finding
themselves in these situations bear a very heavy cross and should not have
to make a decision only on the doctor’s advice. A woman should pray and
talk with her priest, as well as her husband if she’s married, to
determine what is best. There are rare situations where the Church accepts
and understands the circumstances that cause the death, or abortion of an
unborn child - like the situation above. It is still viewed as killing,
but judgment is, as always, ultimately left to God. But all too often in
our society, abortion is diminished to just another form of birth control,
where the “problem” of an unexpected child can be eliminated easily. We as
Christians should stand firmly behind the Church’s belief that it is wrong
and inhumane.
Part of the problem
with unwanted pregnancies is the fact that not only has society changed
but also our faith in God to provide has diminished. In former times, when
poor parents knew nothing about contraceptions, they relied exclusively on
God's will - and this should in fact be an example for us today. Children
were born and they accepted the last one just as they had the first,
saying, "God gave the child; He will also give what we need for the
child." Such was their faith, and it often happened that the last child
proved to be the greatest blessing of all.
Now modern
society has had a tremendous effect on the size of families. Over the past
hundred years we have changed from an agricultural society, to a mostly
urban and industrial society. In past generations large families were
actually needed in order to run the farms. The extra hands were always
welcomed because most families, although self sufficient, could not pay
helpers to help them plough, sow, irrigate and harvest their crops, to
feed and take care of the animals and all the others duties involved with
farming. Most of us in Cyprus are descendants of such farmers who didn’t
have much in the way of worldly wealth except for the land that they
worked. They lived without the daily comforts we are accustomed to and the
whole family usually lived in two or three rooms at the most. They didn’t
all have the luxury of separate bedrooms, parents and children slept in
one room which often was also their dining and living room. Extra rooms
were usually reserved for the animals especially the family donkey which
was a necessity and the goat for the daily milk and cheese and the
chickens for the eggs. Life was unimaginably different but there was
always enough food and work to go around. Another factor was education.
Most of the people had a very basic education or none at all. It was only
the privileged few that finished school and had the opportunity to go on
to further education. Parents would take their children out of school
after only having attended what we would call the Infant school because
they needed them to work in the fields. Today, of course we have the
opposite problem and for most people their financial status plays an
important part in how many children they can raise. We no longer need
children to help us with our daily chores and emphasis is put on providing
them with the best our modern world can provide. We need large houses with
separate bedrooms for each, we have to keep them in fashion with their
peers and provide them with computers and all the latest mobiles and other
gadgets. For us Cypriot parents it is even harder because we have to pay
for their extra curriculum lessons, save or borrow to send them to
university, provide them with a car, pay for their weddings and if
possible build them a house. Couples understandably consider having only
one or two children at the most so that they can provide their children
with the demands of modern society. There are of course large families
that may not have all the luxuries of modern life, but with faith in God
manage to send their children to university. An example is my wife’s
sister’s family. They have nine children. Three are still at school but of
the other six, five have successfully finished university and obtained
their degrees.
From a
strictly spiritual point of view, one should try to have a large family so
that the family will be strong and durable and full of love, with all of
its members bearing the burdens of life together. A large family accustoms
children to being concerned about others, makes them more sensitive, etc.
And while a small family might be able to provide more of this world's
goods for each child, a small family does not at all guarantee a good
upbringing. Single children are sometimes the most difficult of all, for
they often grow up spoiled and self-centred. There is no general rule as
to how many children we should have, but we should be prepared and expect
to have as many children as God will send, bearing in mind also what the
moral and physical health of the mother and the family as a whole will
allow, always staying in close touch with one’s priest on these matters.
We must be
careful, however, not to over-emphasize this whole business of having
children, having a certain number, etc. Saint John Chrysostom says,
“Giving birth to children is a matter of nature. Far more important is the
parents’ task of educating their children’s hearts in virtue and piety.”
Indeed, this puts the emphasis back where it belongs, rather than on
negative things about birth control and family size. For what the Church
wants us to understand and remember is that the children we bring into the
world do not belong to us; they belong to God. We did not give them life;
rather, God, using us as His instruments, called them into existence. In a
certain way, we parents are really only babysitters for God’s children.
And so our greatest responsibility as parents is to bring up our children
“in the Lord,” so that they come to know, love, and serve their Heavenly
Father. Bringing up children in a Christian manner is not an easy task
when so much of contemporary life is anti-Christian. We don’t have time
today to look into the problems of raising children – that’s a subject for
another talk that we can have at a later date. Today we have seen the need
for children in marriage, what birth control methods are acceptable to
space out and control unwanted pregnancies and the Church’s view on
abortion. But what about those couples who cannot have children, who have
been trying for years without success of a pregnancy or who cannot carry
the pregnancy to full term. The rapid development of biomedical
technologies has given great possibilities to these couples to have
children using the In Vitro Fertilization technique, in other words “Test
tube babies” and if the woman cannot carry the pregnancy to full term, the
use of a surrogate or foster mother.
These methods have
become a cause of great concern for the Church especially the use of these
methods without moral and ethical limits. Let’s look first at IVF. The
woman is given fertility drugs to increase the number of ovum (eggs)
produced. Some of these drugs are said to be highly dangerous and can
cause cancer. The eggs are taken out of the woman and fertilized in a dish
with the sperm given by the husband. The fertilized eggs, which for us
Christians are now human beings, are then implanted into the womb of the
woman and hopefully will reach full term. The procedure sounds simple so
what is the problem? The problem lies in the fact that many eggs are
fertilized but only three can at any time be implanted into the womb. What
happens to the other fertilized eggs, the other human beings? They are
sometimes kept in cold storage to be used at a later date, sometimes they
are given for adoption by other childless couples – this would be similar
to a usual adoption and recognized as such by the legal courts and the
Church, or they are donated for stem cell research. Stem cells are a
particular kind of cells, they are unspecialized (blank) cells that can
divide over and over for very long periods of time which can become all
210 different kinds of human tissue. Researchers hope that someday these
cells could provide cures for all kinds of serious diseases, even
repairing vital organs. We have stem cells throughout our bodies, but they
are most abundant in human embryos. To get embryonic stem cells, however,
requires killing those human beings. The Church sees this as another form
of abortion and therefore murder. It should be said the the Church is not
opposed to research, but the task of research, the efforts to cure
disease, should not be at the expense of human life. People contemplating
IVF should speak with their spiritual adviser before going ahead with the
procedure. It should be remembered at all times that the eggs taken from
the mother belong to her and not to the doctors. She can demand that no
more than the number of babies she is willing to carry should be
fertilized. In other words if only one baby is desired then only one egg
must be fertilized, if two then two eggs fertilized. This might reduce the
success rate but at least the parents will not be guilty of murdering
their own children. IVF should only be contemplated in marriage and only
with the use of the couple’s own egg and sperm. Using a donor egg or sperm
is viewed by the Church as an intrusion of a third person into the sacred
marital relationship and rejects it as a form of adultery not ethically
appropriate. There is also the problem of not knowing the biological
father’s or mother’s other children who would be the baby’s brothers and
sisters. And if the biological father or mother often donate sperm or
eggs, how many brothers and sisters are out there in the world who might
one day fall in love with each other and marry? It would seem consistent,
though, to hold that, so long as the sperm and ovum are those of the
husband and wife, and the wife carried the child to term, such procedures
would not in themselves be objectionable. However the use of donor
material undermines the foundations of family relationships, since it
presupposes that a child has, in addition to the «social» parents, the
so-called biological ones.
Which brings us to
the ethical question of whether “Surrogate motherhood” should be
considered in the case where the mother cannot bear a pregnancy to full
term. Surrogate or foster motherhood is the bearing of a fertilised ovule
by a woman who is not the biological mother, who after the delivery
returns the child to the biological parents or to be more precise to the
«customers» because there is usually a large fee involved. Again the
Church rejects this method as unnatural and morally inadmissible even in
those cases where it is realised on a non-commercial basis. The method
involves the violation of the profound emotional and spiritual intimacy
that is established between mother and child already during the pregnancy.
On examining the question of surrogacy, the Holy Synod of the Church of
Greece said that: “Surrogate motherhood may have a positive aspect for it
assists child bearing. However, since the developing relationship with the
embryo during pregnancy is an essential and integral part not only of
motherhood, but also of the embryonic development, the continuation of the
relationship between the surrogate mother and the child is unjust for the
genetic parents; its interruption is unjust for the surrogate mother; and,
furthermore, both solutions are unjust for the child, for they disrupt
family cohesion.”
What if a
woman offers to be the surrogate mother for her sister’s baby? Keeping it
in the family “so to speak.” This sounds like a beautiful, generous and
loving gesture that only a sister can offer, but in reality it creates
even more problems. The surrogate mother is both mother and aunt to the
child and the father will no longer see his sister in law as his sister in
law but as the woman who gave birth to his child. Wouldn’t this put a
strain on the family unit?
We have
something of a precedent in the Bible. Sarah, Abraham’s wife eager to help
her husband achieve God’s promise that he would be the father of many
nations, offered her maid-servant Hagar to be a mother for his child.
Hagar would simply have to give birth while lying upon Sarah’s lap and the
child would be considered Sarah’s and not Hagar’s. The Bible shows how
this Surrogate motherhood arrangement did not work as planned. The child,
Ishmael, was indeed beloved by God and Abraham, but when Sarah gave birth
to Isaac, her own son in the flesh, she insisted that Hagar and Ishmael
leave the family unit and continue their lives apart from Abraham's
family, to resolve the complex inter-personal relations that developed out
of this initially generous and loving gesture by Sarah.
Modern
technology has given many challenges to our ancient faith. Things once
impossible now become possible. Who could have thought centuries ago that
parents, eager to fulfil the natural and God-given drive to reproduce
fellow human-beings, would be able to consider the possibilities given
them today? But let us not forget that the primary goal in marriage is not
children but as a means to reach salvation. In the instances in which the
couple are not able to bear their own children they can always consider to
adopt children. Just because the technology exists to do something new
doesn’t necessarily make it moral or ethical to do so.
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