Abortion as a Form of Genocide by Elder Ephraim of Vatopaidi Monastery, Mt. Athos

We live in a time when people are becoming increasingly vindictive. Their morals are deteriorating and their minds are darkened. The absurdity that people are experiencing today is obvious and undeniable. We’re living in a time prophesied by Anthony the Great when people who are mad appear to be rational and those who are rational are deemed mad. It may be claimed that in older times, too, there was rampant sinfulness, but we ought to note that there was never this offensive legitimation and widespread social acceptance of sin. In our time, abortions, adultery and homosexuality have all been made legal, though this would have been inconceivable until the middle of the 20th century. It’s a cause of astonishment, if nothing else, that today sin is projected not simply as legitimate, but as an ideal way of life.

Today the family is undergoing a great crisis throughout the world. The eternal enemy of mankind knows very well that if he strikes at the core of society, which is the family, he’ll achieve his goal. He’s created conditions such that young people avoid or delay getting married, and naturally with no thought to what should go without saying -- chastity and a life in Christ. They don’t have a Church wedding, which is the only valid and blessed marriage in the sight of God. They have a civil wedding or that modern, demonic agreement to live together, by which even homosexuals can marry. And even in existing families, he’s created temptations out of nothing, so that divorce presents itself very easily as the ideal solution! The statistics from dioceses in the Church of Greece indicate that in any year there are more divorces than weddings.

So when people today are faced with an unwanted pregnancy, they think that an abortion’s perfectly natural. It’s been accepted under the term ‘artificial termination of pregnancy’. As if it’s so easy, like pressing a switch and turning off the electricity. The people who have abortions have no sense that they’re committing a crime, a great sin, which is what murder is. From the moment of conception, that is when the egg’s fertilized, we have an embryo which is also a person, a psycho-somatic entity which grows for nine months in its mother’s womb until it sees the light of life at its birth. At no point in the progress of the embryo in its mother’s womb, even in the first twelve weeks, can we cut off its life. If we do, it’s murder.

The Ninth Instruction: That One Should Not Lie

I wish to remind you, O brethren, about lying, for I see that you do not strive very hard to restrain your tongues and from this we are easily drawn into much evil. Make note my brethren that in every matter, as I constantly tell you, one may acquire a habit either for the good or for the evil; and so one needs great heedfulness so that we will not be robbed by lying, for one who lies has no union with God. Lying is foreign to God. In the scripture it is said that Lying is from the evil one, and for he is a liar, and the father of it (Jn. 8:44). See how the devil is called the father of lies, while truth is God, for He Himself said, I am the way, the truth and the life (Jn. 14:6). Therefore you see from whom we separate ourselves, and with whom we join ourselves by lying: evidently with the evil one. And so if in truth we wish to be saved, we must with our whole soul and all our striving love the truth and keep ourselves from every lie, lest it separate us from truth and from life.

There are three forms of lies: one lies in thought, another lies by word, and another lies by his very life. He lies by thought who takes for truth his own suppositions, that is, vain suspicions against his neighbor; when he sees someone conversing with a brother, he makes his own conjectures and says, "He is speaking about me." If they stop talking he again supposes that it is for his sake that they have stopped. If someone says a word, he suspects that it was said in order to insult him. All the time and in every matter he takes note of his neighbor, saying, "He did this for my sake, he said this because of me, he did this for such and such a reason. A man like this lies in thought, for he says nothing true, but everything out of suspicion alone, and from this proceed: curiosity, evil speaking, eavesdropping, enmity, condemnation.

Concerning Mortal Sins, Pardonable Sins, and Sins of Omission

Concerning these you must know that, just as a physician is required to know what the illnesses of the body are in order to treat them, you who seek to be a Spiritual Father are obligated to know what the illnesses of the soul are, that is, sins, in order to treat them. Although the illnesses of the soul are many, they generally fall into the following three categories. Hence, you need to know which are mortal, which are pardonable and not mortal, and which are sins of omission or inaction.

1) Concerning Mortal Sins
According to Gennadios Scholarios, George Koressios, the Orthodox Confession, and Chrysanthos of Jerusalem, mortal sins are those voluntary sins which either corrupt the love for God alone, or the love for neighbor and for God, and which render again the one committing them an enemy of God and liable to the eternal death of hell.  Generally speaking, they are: pride, love of money, sexual immorality, envy, gluttony, anger, and despondency, or indifference.


2) Concerning Pardonable Sins
Pardonable sins are those voluntary sins which do not corrupt the love for God or the love for neighbor, nor do they render the person an enemy of God and liable to eternal death, to which transgressions even the Saints are susceptible, according to the words of the Brother of God: “For in many things we all sin” (Jas. 3:2), and of John: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (l Jn. 1:8), and according to Canons 125, 126, and 127 of Carthage. These sins, according to Koressios and Chrysanthos, are: idle talk, the initial inclination and agitation of anger, the initial inclination of lust, the initial inclination of hate, a white lie, passing envy, or that which is commonly called jealousy, which is slight grief over the good fortunes of one’s neighbor, and the like.