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Originally Posted by Victor
What is the official position on contraceptives? Can you explain the reasoning behind it as well.
Gracias
~Victor
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You want an official position? What would you consider to be official? The beliefs as expressed by every clergyman and educated layman that I've known is that they are not ideal (some go as far as to say they are outright evil) but that the Church can allow the use of them by economia. This is really no different than our attitude to divorce. It's not allowed according to strictly following the rules but these may be relaxed (you know, binding and loosing and all that) in case of pastoral need. It tends to be the case that non-abortifacient methods are only really forbidden outright if the intention appears to be to avoid children full stop. Abortifacient methods are considered as abortion and hence are always forbidden.
Personally, I agree with the more moderate position (as with many things in the Orthodox Church, there are a range of beliefs on this -it's not dogma) as I fail to see anything wrong in non-abortifacient contraception and can find neither Scriptural nor Patristic condemnation of it that doesn't read as simply condemnation of abortion (quite often the Fathers seem to have thought the entire foetus was in the father's 'seed' and just grew in the mother's 'soil' and I feel under no compulsion to be bound by faulty ancient science). Couple that with what I consider the rank hypocristy of 'natural family planning' (which is every bit as much contraception in my eyes as is a condom and yet it's favoured by those with less moderate beliefs) and I can see absolutely no value in forbidding contraception, though I do recognise it as less than the ideal. We would be expected to confess use of contraceptives to our spiritual father, but we'd be very unlikely to be excommunicated, even temporarily, for it.
James
01-15-2007, 05:52 PM
Eastern Orthodox and contraceptives
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