Moros
2nd August 2005, 11:22 PM
- 10 Commandments (Thou shalt not kill)
The Didache, (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), Ch. II, The Second Commandment: Gross Sin Forbidden, 80-100 AD:
And the second commandment of the Teaching; Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not commit paederasty, thou shalt not commit fornication, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not practise magic, thou shalt not practise witchcraft, thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.
Athenagoras of Athens, Apology for the Christians, Ch. XXXV, The Christians Condemn and Detest All Cruelty, Circa 177 AD:
And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God s for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it.
The Epistle of Barnabas, Ch. XIX, The Way of Light, 19:5, Early 2nd Century:
Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.
St. Hippolytus of Rome, The Apostolic Tradition, circa 217 AD:
...women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly to expel what was being conceived. See, then, into what great sacrilege that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!
Tertullian, Apologeticus, page 9, circa 223 AD:
We acknowledge, therefore, that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul begins at conception. Life begins when the soul begins.
For us [Christians], murder is once and for all forbidden; so even the child in the womb, while yet the mother’s blood is still being drawn on to form the human being, it is not lawful for us to destroy. To forbid birth is only quicker murder… He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.
Tertullian, Treatise on the Soul, Ch. XXXVII, On the Formation and State of the Embryo, Its Relation with the Subject of this Treatise:
Now the entire process of sowing, forming, and completing the human embryo in the womb is no doubt regulated by some power, which ministers herein to the will of God, whatever may be the method which it is appointed to employ. Even the superstition of Rome, by carefully attending to these points, imagined the goddess Alemona to nourish the foetus in the womb; as well as (the goddesses) Nona and Decima, called after the most critical months of gestation; and Partula, to manage and direct parturition; and Lucina, to bring the child to the birth and light of day. We, on our part, believe the angels to officiate herein for God. The embryo therefore becomes a human being in the womb from the moment that its form is completed. The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion, inasmuch as there exists already the rudiment of a human being, which has imputed to it even now the condition of life and death, since it is already liable to the issues of both, although, by living still in the mother, it for the most part shares its own state with the mother.
St. Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator, Volume II, page 10, circa 150-220 AD:
...if we would not kill off the human race born and developing according to God’s plan, then our whole lives would be lived according to nature. Women who make use of some sort of deadly abortion drug kill not only the embryo but, together with it, all human kindness.
St. Clement of Alexandria, circa 223 AD:
Those who use abortifacients commit homicide.
Minucius Felix, Octavius, page 30, circa 200-225 AD:
And now I should wish to meet him who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Think you that it can be possible for so tender, so little a body to receive those fatal wounds; for any one to shed, pour forth, and drain that new blood of a youngling, and of a man scarcely come into existence? No one can believe this, except one who can dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to birds; at another, that you crush them when strangled with a miserable kind of death. There are women who, by the use of medicinal potions, destroy the unborn life in their wombs, and murder the child before they bring it forth. These practices undoubtedly are derived from a custom established by your gods; Saturn, though he did not expose his sons, certainly devoured them.
Letter of Diognetus, 5:6, circa 250 AD:
Christians marry, as do all others; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring.
The Canons of the Council of Ancyra, Canon II, 314 AD:
A woman who aborts deliberately is liable to trial as a murderess. This is not a precise assertion of some figurative and inexpressible conception that passes current among us. For here there is involved the question of providing for the infants to be born, but also for the woman who has plotted against her own self. For in most cases the women die in the course of such operations, But besides this there is to be noted the fact that the destruction of the embryo constitutes another murder.... It behooves us, however, not to extend their confessions to the extreme limit of death, but to admit them at the end of the moderate period of ten years, without specifying a definite time, but adjusting the cure to the manner of penitence.
The Canons of the Council of Ancyra, Canon XXI, 314 AD:
Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfil ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees.
St. John Chrysostom, 345-407 AD:
Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gifts of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse you seek as though it were a blessing. Do you make the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the women who are given to you for a procreation of offspring to perpetuate killing?
St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, XXIV:
You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevent its being born. Why then dost thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter?
Blessed Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Book One, Ch. 16, 354-430 AD:
Sometimes their sadistic licentiousness goes so far that they procure poison to produce infertility, and when this is of no avail, they find one means or another to destroy the unborn and flush it from the mother's womb. For they desire to see their offspring perish before it is alive or, if it has already been granted life, they seek to kill it within the mother's body before it is born.
St. Basil the Great, First Canonical Letter, 188:2 and 188:8, circa 374 AD:
A woman who has deliberately destroyed a fetus must pay the penalty for murder… those also who give drugs causing abortions are murderers themselves, as well as those who receive the poison which kills the fetus.
St. Basil the Great, Letter CLXXXVIII: (Canonica Prima),To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons, VII:
Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses.
St. Basil the Great, circa 379 AD:
The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. The hair-splitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us.
The Canons of St. Basil, Canon II:
Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not.
The Canons of St. Basil, Canon VIII:
But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the that takes it die upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees.
The Apostolic Constitutions, Book VII, Concerning the Christian life, and the Eucharist and Initiation into Christ, Sec. I, III, circa 380 AD:
Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for "everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed.
St. Ambrose of Milan, circa 339-397 AD:
The wealthy, in order that their inheritance may not be divided among several, deny in the very womb their own progeny. By use of' parricidal mixtures they snuff out the fruit of their wombs in the genital organs themselves. In this way life is taken away before it is born… Who except man himself has taught us ways of repudiating children?
St. Jerome, Letter to Eustochium, 22:13, circa 340-420 AD:
Some virgins [unmarried women] go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder.
The Canons of the Council in Trullo, (The Quinisext Council), Canon XCI:
Those who give drugs for procuring abortion, and those who receive poisons to kill the foetus, are subjected to the penalty of murder.
Matrona
3rd August 2005, 10:13 AM
In the Orthodox Church, use of contraception is a pastoral issue, which means that the couple that wishes to use it talks things over with their spiritual father. It's handled on a case-by-case basis so that personal circumstances can be taken into account, although permission won't be given if the reason is hatred of children or greed, like wanting to buy a nice yacht. Reasons like a serious medical condition, or a dire financial situation, are acceptable. Separating the bad reasons from acceptable ones (which are sometimes intertwined) is why we have spiritual fathers, who can help the couple discern and find the best course of action for the sake of all souls involved.
OrthodoxTexan
3rd August 2005, 05:42 PM
I'll note additionally that an abortifacient form of birth control is also considered murder.This would include ALL forms of hormonal birth control pills. Not only the progestin only "mini-pills", but also the combination oral contraceptive pills, as well as the "morning after pill", and certain hormone injections
The Orthodox church is opposed to birth control, but in situations where is it allowed, it should be a non-abortifacient method.This would basically leave condoms, maybe a sponge, spermacides and the diaphram. Almost any other means of birth control is abortifacient, ie they have actions after conception that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.
Strick implimentation of the Church's teachings with regards to abortifacients would mean that Orthodox Christians would have to refrain from the use of hormonal means of birth control. Obviously, there are other medical uses besided birth control for these agents, and those uses would not contradict any of the Church's teachings.