Contraception: Early Church Teaching

[Kollyvas]

Actually, no, I was giving you an explanation to your question...nothing more.
R

[Justin Kissel]

Orthodox6

For my own part, I don't consider NFP sinful; what I think would be an issue (though I don't want to attach the word "sin" here) on some level is if someone else considers contraception generally to be sinful, but then portrays NFP as something other than contraception. To me, that's completely inconsistent and contrary to what the Fathers taught about contraception (which some Orthodox writers such as Fr. Paul O'Callaghan have pointed out). If you want to be strictly faithful to the Fathers on the matter, that's fine, but that means that any action whatsoever that could result in preventing conception would be avoided. No contraception would be allowed, you could not avoid having sex in certain periods with the intention of avoiding the peak time at which the spouse could get pregnant, you would have to have sex in a specifically limited number of positions/ways, etc. (and if you wanted to remain faithful to what the Fathers thought generally of sex, you would be limited to one position).

The Bible says: "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is a sin". So, I would say that for the person who thinks contraception is a sin, then they shouldn't use it (unless their priest convinces them to) because it would be sinful to them. For other people, if they either study the issue and talk to their priest, or just go ahead and talk to their priest, and it seems like the best idea to use contraception, then I certainly wouldn't tell them that they are wrong. And, certainly, among contraceptives NFP or the rythym method is probably the most acceptable to Orthodox, so I have no problem with it on that level. I just don't think that you can quote Church Fathers as saying that contraception as wrong, and thus condemn contraception because of that, and then turn around and use a contraceptive (NFP) as though it's a totally different thing.

I know that to some people this approach will seem rather liberal--how can I say that the Fathers teach one thing, but that we should do another? I guess it is the end result of struggling with a couple ideas. First, that while there is an absolute moral standard, sometimes God permits what he expects or demands of people to change, based on how much they can do (as Scripture said, he will not give us more than we can take). We see this even in Scripture, when Moses allowed divorce, but Jesus said that in you really wanted to know the truth, that God didn't want divorce. The apostles considered the teaching very difficult, so Jesus let them know that this harder standard was for those who could accept it, not for everyone. Certainly I doubt that anyone would accuse Jesus of being a moral relativist.

The other thing is that the Church was sometimes wrong in it's teachings on morals. I suppose that reading Eve Levin's Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900-1700 really made clear to me how painful some of these errors would have been, and still could be today if we still held to them. For example, among the Slavs, woman were considered to have some degree of guilt for any miscarriages. Can you imagine today, a young girl going to a priest after a miscarriage, and the priest telling her that she had to have prayers of forgiveness read over her, do X number of prostrations for so many weeks, abstain from communion for a year for her sin, etc.? That is what happened in former times, but it is not what happens today (not in 99% of cases anyway). If I am a relativist for thinking that we should ease the rules on contraception, then we are all relativists, because we all accept much easier sexual guidelines than was common a few hundred years ago, or even a few generations ago for that matter.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter. I used to be very much against contraception. I understand the lure of that belief, for those who wish (admirably) to stay faithful to the Fathers. I would simply opine that we are to stay faithful to Christ first, and we should not replace Him with Tradition, Church Fathers, etc. I have more thoughts on that, but it will have to wait a while...

[Kollyvas]

What the Fathers, Canons, Tradition represent is Christ remaining with us unto the end of the age...for they are the living witness of those who have been enhypostaisized in Christ, become the abodes of the Holy Spirit, who have come to possess the Patristic Mind, which is ONE, being a theandric expression of the Holy Spirit. Divorcing Christ from His Church or the Fathers from the Holy Spirit firstly is unscriptural for it implies Christ does not abide with us or that He has not bestowed upon us the responsibility of binding and loosing. The Orthodox Church is assured of its Communion with Christ at every Liturgy and as such does not need a Jesus Projest. Moreover, crypto-protestantism as a reason for modernism with its accompanying doubt and dismissal of the way of the Fathers IS NOT Orthodoxy, but another reformed faith. Appeals to sola scriptura are utterly inane: if the last copy of the Gospel were to be destroyed today, the Tradition, our charismatic life in the Holy Spirit, would rewrite it.
ORTHODOXIA I THANATOS!!!
R M Malleev-Pokrovsky
Until I reach the theandria of the Fathers, I will never dare to presume they were "wrong" or are somehow "anachronistic" for our times...

[尼古拉前执事]

I was under the understanding that prayers read over one who miscaried are still done. I had heard of this being done both in the ROCOR and the GOC.

[Justin Kissel]

Dcn. Nicholas,

Prayers are read, but there is no implication that the woman has sinned because of penances or directly telling the person that it was her fault; rather, the prayers are said for "healing," and then that's that (though there are also prayers you can say at home as well).

Orthodox6

Maybe no one is sure what to say, lol.

[Jean-Serge]

I would like to have the quotations of the Fathers in their context. Indeed, the case of Gnostic was really particular. They did not reject having children because they anted only to have pleasure but because they thought
evrything material was evil... As regards contraception, I do not trust all this catholic writings that unfortunately influence Orthodox. I think we should read the full texts from the Fathers... Which books are worth reading (from the Fathers)?

[Tessa]

I am completely lost in regards to all these questions put on the table. On the one hand I would love to allow God to send us a horde of children even though we are (seemingly) in no way to take care of them at this time. And yet even though I always think we can't afford something, God provides. My husband and I are at odds over this matter , so we're writing to the Monastery for advice.

I think deep down ALL contraception other than (agreed upon)abstinence are sinful in the eyes of God and against His providence.
But that's just me.
Pray for my husband and I.

In Christ,
Tessa