The Church Fathers Have the Answers on Abortion and on Everything Else ---- Dimitris Hatzinikolaou, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Ioannina, Hellas

As is well known, the United States (US) Supreme Court has recently reversed the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling, and the serious matter of abortion has been once again fervently debated throughout the world. “My body, my choice,” argue the pro-choice women! “The child has rights, too,” reply the pro-lifers! The purpose of this note is to stress that if people accepted the teachings of the Church Fathers, who have spoken and written about everything, based on the Holy Scriptures and on the Holy Tradition, such debates would be totally unnecessary.

For the matter at hand, the 6^th Ecumenical Council (691 AD), in its 91^st Holy Canon, says: “As for women who furnish drugs for the purpose of procuring abortion, and those who take fetus-killing poisons, they are made subject to the penalty prescribed for murderers.” St. Basil the Great, in his 2^nd Canon, which is acknowledged in the 2^nd Canon of the 6^th Ecumenical Council, says the same.

Therefore, if all people on earth were Orthodox Christians, there would be harmony and peace everywhere and agreement on every matter. Unfortunately, however, nowadays, people go to the opposite direction! That is, they leave Orthodoxy to become atheists or heretics, who are also atheists, according to St. Gregory Palamas (14^th century). Worse, not everyone who claims to be Orthodox is in fact so. Nowadays, only a few people on earth are truly Orthodox Christians. To my knowledge, all patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops who pretend to be Orthodox Christians aren’t, as they communicate ecclesiastically with the pan-heresy of Ecumenism. Therefore, in accordance with the 15^th Holy Canon of the so called “First and Second” Council (861 AD), they are not bishops, but pseudo-bishops! Needless to say, the same is true of the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans and the other Protestant denominations, the Monophysites, etc.