The Holy Eparchial Synod of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in America
Cobleskill, New York
August 19, 2020 (Old Style)
To the Genuine Orthodox Christians in the Lands of the Americas Who are Faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. [1]
Beloved Christians:
The Church of
Christ holds chastity to be among the greatest of virtues. In its purest form
as virginity, it emulates the bodiless life of the Angels, while in its lesser
form as honorable Christian marriage, it provides a vehicle for families to be
created and live in harmony. Now, however, we are living in a time when sins of
the flesh are being promoted as never before in history. Traditional Christian
chastity has been abandoned, forgotten, and maligned, while being replaced by
unrestrained sexual license. This new and completely secular form of morality,
commonly called “the Sexual Revolution,” came into its own in the late 1960s
and has since gotten progressively worse. The proponents of this revolution
have entirely usurped the popular culture of the West, bombarding Christians,
especially the youth, with a message of diabolical effect which has unseated
the love of Christ from their hearts and separated them from God. Moreover,
they have marched through the institutions originally formed to serve the common
good, such as schools and the media, abusing the public trust which these
institutions still command. The Sexual Revolution has had widespread effects on
human behavior. In its wake, we see a landscape devastated by moral confusion,
spiritual darkness, mental illness, sexual perversion and bondage, rape, abuse,
and broken families and communities.
As a result, many
people are confused about God’s will as it pertains to sexuality and family
life. In what follows, we shall present a brief list of the key issues relating
to these subjects, in order to remind the Orthodox faithful of the truth as
revealed by our Lord in Sacred Scripture and as preserved in Holy Tradition,
and encourage them to adhere with fervor to the moral teaching of the Church.
On Sexuality and
Marriage. Marriage exists for the sake of channeling
sexuality toward chastity, childbearing, and family life. Sexual relations
presuppose, as precursors, love, sacrificial commitment, and the Church’s
Mystery of marriage. Sexual relations, then, outside of marriage are contrary
to its purpose as ordained by God, Who is the cause, principle,
intelligibility, and end of all things.
On Beauty,
Modesty, and Shame. True human beauty is the image of
God manifested in virtue. Modesty is a quality of temperance, while shame,
being the fear of baseness, preserves the Divine image in each person and
protects human dignity.
On Premarital
Cohabitation. For a man and a woman to “hook up”
temporarily or live informally together without being married constitutes the
sin of fornication. Fornication reduces the human capacity for trust and
fosters the objectification of others, viewing them not as individuals but
solely as instruments for personal sexual gratification. Only a lifelong
commitment consecrated in the Mystery of marriage preserves the union of a man
and a woman undefiled.
On Divorce and
Remarriage. Marriage is intended by God to be an
indissoluble bond, and in the Gospel, the Lord mentions only infidelity as a
just cause for divorce. If the Church permits divorce in other, extreme
situations, this is to be understood not as a norm, but as an expression of
economy: of God’s wonted compassionate condescension toward our weakness. As
for remarriage, it represents a certain failure to attain the high standard of
Christian perfection, which is why the tenor of the service for a second (and
by extension a third) marriage is, to a degree, penitential.
On Abortion. Deliberately inducing an abortion is infanticide, since it is at
conception that the infant receives his or her individual existence. Abortion
is also the ultimate violation of that most sacred and primary of bonds so
central to the flourishing of human society: the love that exists between a
mother and her child.
On In-Vitro
Fertilization. Procreation should occur in the natural
way, not in a laboratory separated from human bodies. Apart from the
destruction of unwanted zygotes, which constitutes the taking of human life,
in-vitro fertilization separates the act of procreation from human love, mutual
affection between husband and wife, and the natural locus of conception and
gestation. Couples who have difficulty conceiving should accept God’s will and
consider whether it is not guiding them to the noble act of adopting a child
and giving him or her a good Christian home.
On Birth
Control. According to the Holy Fathers, the primary
purpose of the sexual act is procreation. Therefore, any attempt to prevent the
conception of a child within marital relations represents a falling away from
the standard of evangelic perfection proclaimed by Christ. For this reason, the
Holy Church cannot encourage the use of birth control, either of the so-called
“natural” or “artificial” type. Birth control should especially not be used for
the purpose of maintaining a lifestyle characterized by self-indulgence or
“conspicuous consumption.”
On Unnatural
Acts. Although marriage is honorable in all and the
bed undefiled, [2] sexual activities outside of natural intercourse are
blameworthy. This includes sexual acts committed alone.
On Pornography. Our Lord severely reproves the viewing of unclean images when He
declares, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart.” [3] Pornography
is an addiction which floods the heart with spiritual darkness, defiles the
mind with images of depravity, creates false expectations, and reduces the
soul’s capacity for spousal love.
On
Homosexuality. Men and women complement each other in
their physiologies and psychologies, and it is only a union between man and
woman that rightly begets and nurtures life. To lust after one’s own sex
sinfully overturns the whole Divinely-ordained purpose of human sexuality. The
Church teaches that same-sex concupiscence is not simply a failure to achieve
the lofty Christian standard, but an abrogation of it. It is a passion
extrinsic and contrary to nature, and as such must be resisted.
On Same-Sex
Marriage. From what has been said above, it is evident
that the Church must regard same-sex marriage with the utmost disfavor, since
it normalizes sexual perversion and promotes it as being equal to
Divinely-ordained Christian marriage.
On Gender Roles
and Feminism. The Church defends the true dignity of
men and women by remaining faithful to the prophetic teaching: So God
created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male
and female created He them; [4] that is, they are equal spiritually but
remain distinct, with separate, interdependent roles. Although the Industrial
Revolution and accompanying social developments have created new opportunities
for women, women remain biologically and psychologically adapted to be the
primary caregivers of children in a family, and it is wrong for them to neglect
their marriage or parental responsibilities in the name of their career.
On
Transvestitism. Sacred Scripture states that the
woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put
on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy
God. [5] The Church, therefore, remains faithful to Divine
Revelation in teaching that men and women are to dress and present
themselves in accordance with their sex, lest they disfigure their gender and
deface the image of God manifest in them.
On Gender
Fluidity and Transgenderism. Sex is providentially
assigned by God to each of us for our particular salvation and is not subject
to arbitrary whim. Men and women are to act in accordance with traditional
standards for their gender. To deny natural gender differentiation and seek radical
emancipation from human biology through chemically and surgically mutilating
the body is a rebellion against God’s providence shown toward us at our birth.
Those who do this harm both their bodies and their souls.
Beloved
Christians:
Our Lord has
provided for us to live in these trying days so that we might work out our
salvation by remaining pure and faithful to Him amid the surrounding
dissipation and by bearing witness to His Gospel in word and deed. We shall be
judged, however, if we fail both to guard ourselves and to ensure the spiritual
well-being of our children by passing down to our posterity the Pearl of Great
Price that we received from our Fathers. For this reason, we must become
vigilant guardians of our children’s hearts and minds, and active advocates of
their moral formation. Orthodox parents should inspire their children to
loyalty to our Savior Christ. They should praise virtues such as virginity,
chastity, modesty, fatherhood, and motherhood, and take strong measures to
shield the eyes of the young from impure and suggestive imagery. These should
include restricting access to the Internet, the media, and the products of the
entertainment industry. Where possible, they should become vocal defenders of
Christian morality in their local schools. Where this is impossible, they
should seriously consider opting out of their local system of public education
and embracing Christian education in the form of private schooling,
homeschooling, or one of the many hybrid forms of education available today.
To those who have
been wounded by the Sexual Revolution, to those beguiled by its doctrines, to
those who have lived by its misbeliefs, we say: Take heart and arise. The
Church of Christ teaches the truth with clarity and conviction, proclaiming the
Gospel of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Through the mystery of
repentance, we rise from spiritual death unto newness of life. In this task,
sinners have the Church as their advocate rather than their judge; for the
Church, acting through the Hierarchs and spiritual Fathers, is always ready to
exercise mercy and economy in order to condescend to the sinner and raise up an
ailing soul. This, dear Christians, is the spirit of true Christian love. Each
of the sins and failings enumerated above violates this spirit of love in one
way or another. They disfigure those most sacred bonds which constitute society
and are essential to true human flourishing and well-being: the love of a
mother for her child, the love of a man for his wife, the love of true friends,
the blameless love of self, the love of man for life, and, above all, the love
of man for God. Let us cleave therefore to that pure love in Christ, that love
which is alien to any perverted sexual passion promoted by the world, for “by
this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, that ye have true
and undefiled love one toward another.” [6]
Your fervent
suppliants before the Lord,
The Holy Eparchial Synod
NOTES
1.
Ephesians 1:2–4.
2.
Hebrews 13:4.
3.
St. Matthew 5:28.
4.
Genesis 1:27.
5.
Deuteronomy 22:5.
6. St. John 13:35.
Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XXVII (2020), No. 3, pp. 3-8.
Online: https://hotca.org/documents/encyclicals/954-encylical-on-human-sexuality
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