Orthodox Church condemns abortion

By Darrell Holland

Religion Editor

Sex outside of marriage, abortion and euthanasia were all opposed here yesterday by the Orthodox Church in America.

The meeting at the SheratonCleveland Hotel of the youngest independent branch of Eastern Orthodoxy in the world also affirmed "the dignity and value of human life in the likeness of God."

The church's 13 bishops and more than 400 priests and lay delegates are mostly of Russian background, and have not been noted for dealing with current social problems.

But yesterday the delegates, representing about one million members, revealed the growing Americanization of the church. The issues were approved by the bishops on behalf of the church.

The approved document declared that "there is no form of sexual relationship which can be fulfilling of human life as created by God... except the relationship between one man and one woman in the community of marriage.”

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It said, "Sexual activities such as fornication, adultery and homosexual acts are sinful deviations from normal, natural and

spiritually fulfilling human life and behavior."

Life is a sacred gift and it should be protected from conception to the grave, it said, and it stressed that this is a vocation and task of medicine.

The church's morals committee, which made the proposals, held a long debate on the case of Karen Ann Quinlan, the New Jersey woman whose parents want to have doctors disconnect her lifesustaining equipment,

The document concluded that the willful and deliberate taking of human life-one's own or that of another-is murder.

It said euthanasia could not be practiced to free a person from pain or to free society from the burden of caring for the aged or the infirm.

The delegates expressed concern for the complex problems involved in determining when a person is physically dead, but said that no human being has the right to dispose of the life of another.

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On abortion, the document declared, "We cannot accept the act of the willful destruction of the developing child at any stage of its development, whatever the decision of human legislatures and

courts, as anything other than the destruction of life."

It said that "wilfully aborting unborn children is an act of murder and contrary to the will of God."

The meeting, which ends today, also condemned what it called "the overwhelming trend in our society to glorify violence and to use violence for gaining power, pleasure and profit."