What Does the Orthodox Church Teach About Abortion?

Few moral questions divide modern societies as sharply as abortion. Orthodox Christians are sometimes assumed to hold a position borrowed from Roman Catholic teaching or from American politics. In fact the Orthodox Church has its own long record on the question, found in an early Christian manual, the letters of a fourth-century bishop, and canons the Orthodox still read today.

That record is clear, and it is also more pastoral than its reputation. The canons that call abortion a grave sin also limit penance and tell the confessor to look at the person's repentance. This article sets out what the sources say, what the Church teaches now, how Orthodox bishops have addressed the hardest cases, and where honest questions remain.

In brief

From its earliest surviving moral teaching the Church rejected abortion. The Didache (late first or early second century, date debated) forbids it beside murder, and Athenagoras and Tertullian treat it as the killing of a human being. St Basil the Great set aside the distinction between a "formed" and an "unformed" fetus found in the Greek text of Exodus 21. The councils of Ancyra (314) and Trullo (692) treated abortion as homicide for purposes of penance, yet Ancyra shortened the old lifelong exclusion to ten years, and Basil said treatment should depend on "the character of their repentance." Modern statements from the Russian Orthodox Church (2000), the Orthodox Church in America (1992 and later) and the Ecumenical Patriarchate (2020) teach that life is to be protected from conception, refuse to bless abortion, and insist on forgiveness and practical help for mothers. Where the mother's life is directly threatened, the Russian Church recommends pastoral leniency.

Thesis: The Orthodox Church has taught without a break that abortion takes a human life, while treating those who have been involved in it as people to be healed in repentance, not as people beyond mercy.

The world the first Christians lived in

The world in which Christianity appeared was familiar with abortion and with the abandonment of newborns. An Orthodox priest writing for the OCA's parish resources notes that under Roman law a father could refuse to accept a newborn, who would then be "exposed," left outside to die.¹ Some physicians did object. The Hippocratic Oath, in a modern translation published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, includes the promise: "I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion."² Christians went further.

The earliest Christian witness

The Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas

The Didache, or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," is a short church manual rediscovered in the nineteenth century. Its date is disputed; one widely used reference gives an estimated range of 50 to 120 AD.³ In its list of commandments it says: "you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten."⁴ The Epistle of Barnabas, another early writing, uses nearly the same words: "You shall not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shall you destroy it after it is born."⁵ Both texts place abortion and infanticide side by side, in a list that begins with "You shall not commit murder."

Athenagoras and Tertullian

In his Plea for the Christians, the Athenian apologist Athenagoras answered the charge that Christians commit murder and cannibalism by pointing to their moral teaching: "we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion." He adds that Christians regard "the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care."⁶ In North Africa, Tertullian made the same argument in his Apology (chapter 9): "To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one."⁷

{{strong: The earliest Christian texts that address abortion all treat it as the taking of a human life.}}

"Formed" and "unformed": an honest complication

The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament the Orthodox Church reads, contains a law that seems to draw a line during pregnancy. In Exodus 21:22-23, if men fighting strike a pregnant woman "and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty," but "if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life."⁸ The Hebrew text, followed by most English Bibles, speaks instead of a premature birth where "no harm follows" (NKJV), but the Greek wording gave ancient readers a distinction between earlier and later stages of development.

St Basil the Great knew this distinction and set it aside. In his first canonical letter to Amphilochius of Iconium (Letter 188, canon 2), he says: "The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed."⁹ A bishop who read the Greek Exodus in church refused to make the gravity of the act depend on when the fetus became "formed," and the Orthodox canonical tradition followed him.

The canons: grave sin, limited penance

Three canons, all still part of the Orthodox canonical collection, address abortion directly.

• Ancyra (314), canon 21. For "women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death." The council, "desirous to use somewhat greater lenity," reduced this to ten years of penance.¹⁰
• St Basil, canon 2. After calling the act murder, Basil writes: "The punishment, however, of these women should not be for life, but for the term of ten years. And let their treatment depend not on mere lapse of time, but on the character of their repentance."¹¹
• Trullo (692), canon 91. "Those who give drugs for procuring abortion, and those who receive poisons to kill the fœtus, are subjected to the penalty of murder."¹²

The canons hold accountable not only the mother but those who supply the means. The penalty is penance, a period of exclusion from Communion with restoration "according to the prescribed degrees," and Basil's words show it was meant as medicine: the confessor looks at the person, not only at the years. Basil also notes that "in most cases women who make such attempts die," a reminder of how dangerous ancient abortion was for the mother herself.¹³

What the Orthodox Church teaches today

The Church's teaching on abortion is carried by Scripture, the Fathers and the canons rather than by a conciliar definition of dogma, but it is not an opinion Orthodox Christians may take or leave: it is the constant moral teaching of the Church, and modern local churches have restated it in their own words.

The Russian Orthodox Church (2000)

The Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Moscow Patriarchate adopted The Basis of the Social Concept in 2000. Its section on abortion (XII.2) begins: "Since the ancient time the Church has viewed deliberate abortion as a grave sin. The canons equate abortion with murder." It concludes that "from the moment of conception any encroachment on the life of a future human being is criminal," and states plainly: "Under no circumstances the Orthodox Church can bless abortion." It says the Church does not reject women who have had an abortion but "calls upon them to repent," and the next paragraph says the consenting father and the doctor share responsibility.¹⁴

The Orthodox Church in America (1992 and later)

The OCA's Holy Synod, in its 1992 Synodal Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life, put it without qualification: "Abortion is an act of murder for which those involved, voluntarily and involuntarily, will answer to God." It also wrote that "Orthodox Christians have always viewed the willful abortion of unborn children as a heinous act of evil," citing Ancyra 21, Trullo 91 and Basil's canon 2. The same document calls for "pastoral care which includes recognition of the gravity of the act and assurance of the mercy of God upon those who repent of their sins," and it asks Orthodox Christians to support laws that protect unborn children "while being sensitive to the complexities and tragedies of life in contemporary society."¹⁵ In 2019 the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States, whose statement the OCA's synod "fully embraces," affirmed "the firm conviction that life begins at the moment of conception."¹⁶

The Ecumenical Patriarchate (2020)

For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, approved for publication by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, begins its paragraph on abortion (§25) with the feasts of the Annunciation and the Visitation, when John the Baptist leapt in his mother's womb. It confesses that "Already in the womb each of us is a spiritual creature, a person formed in God's image," says that "the Church has abhorred the practice of elective abortion as infanticide," and teaches that "life begins at the moment of conception." It also recognizes that pregnancies "are often terminated as a result of poverty, despair, coercion, or abuse," and it commits the Church to aid women in unintended pregnancy, "whether as the result of rape or of consensual sexual union."¹⁷

A synodal statement of a local church does not carry the authority of an ecumenical council, but these documents agree and stand on the same patristic texts. {{strong: The modern Orthodox statements examined here all teach that abortion is a grave sin and that human life is to be protected from conception.}}

Scripture and embryology

The Church's teaching rests on the commandment against murder together with passages that speak of God's care for the child before birth. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you," God says to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5, NKJV). The psalmist prays, "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13). When the pregnant Mary greets Elizabeth, "the babe leaped in her womb," and Elizabeth says "the babe leaped in my womb for joy" (Luke 1:41, 44).¹⁸

The U.S. National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus explains that when a single sperm enters the egg, "conception occurs," producing a zygote that "contains all of the genetic information (DNA) needed to become a baby."¹⁹ {{strong: A new, genetically distinct human organism begins at fertilization.}} Science shows when a new human life begins; the Church teaches what that life is. As the Ecumenical Patriarchate's document says, the child in the womb is already a person formed in God's image, and so the deliberate ending of that life is the killing of a human being (see What Is a Human Being? The Orthodox View of Body and Soul and the infographic From One Fertilized Egg to a Human Body).

Mercy, confession and healing

In practice the Church treats abortion as a wound that calls for healing in confession. The 2016 joint statement of the American Orthodox bishops and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops invites "those who may have undergone or facilitated an abortion to turn to Christ with contrite hearts, seeking to overcome their grief through His forgiveness, mercy and healing."²⁰ In 2022 Metropolitan Tikhon of the OCA asked the faithful not to "condemn others but leave judgment to the Lord."²¹

The Ecumenical Patriarchate's document says that because abortion "is always objectively a tragedy, one that takes an innocent human life," reconciliation "must involve the acknowledgment of this truth" so that "repentance, reconciliation, and healing" are possible.²² Any penance is set by the confessor and varies by jurisdiction; it is a pastoral judgment, not a fixed tariff. The early Church's understanding of confession as healing is explored in the infographic Confession and Reconciliation in the Early Church.

The Church's teaching also places duties on the community. The OCA's 1992 affirmations call for men and women to be "assisted in bearing and raising their children," and the Russian Basis asks Church and society to protect motherhood for women who "sometimes have to resort" to abortion "because of abject poverty and helplessness."²³

The hardest cases

When the mother's life is in danger

The Russian Basis addresses this case directly: "In case of a direct threat to the life of a mother if her pregnancy continues, especially if she has other children, it is recommended to be lenient in the pastoral practice." A woman who ended a pregnancy in that situation "shall not be excluded from the Eucharistic communion with the Church provided that she has fulfilled the canon of Penance assigned by the priest."²⁴ The OCA's 1992 text speaks of "tragic circumstances where the lives of mothers and their unborn children are threatened," naming "rape, incest, and sickness," and says those facing them "are to be counseled to take responsible action before God, who is both merciful and just."²⁵ The American bishops in 2019 acknowledged "rare but serious medical instances where mother and child may require extraordinary actions."²⁶

These texts do not call such an abortion good. Fr John Garvey's OCA parish resource says: "Even when an abortion is performed to save the life of a mother (and such abortions are extremely rare), something profoundly tragic has occurred."²⁷

Ectopic pregnancy

In an ectopic pregnancy the embryo implants outside the uterus; "The most common site for an ectopic pregnancy is the fallopian tube." The U.S. National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus explains that it "may be life threatening," that "The pregnancy cannot continue to birth (term)," and that rupture "can lead to bleeding and shock."²⁸ This article found no Orthodox synodal statement that names ectopic pregnancy. What follows is therefore the article's own application of the texts above, not a ruling of the Church: the closest official guidance is the Russian Church's leniency for a direct threat to the mother's life, and since in this case the child cannot survive and the mother may die without treatment, that guidance appears to apply. Families facing it should seek their priest's counsel. The Catholic Catechism condemns "direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means," a distinction Catholic moralists apply to such cases; the Orthodox documents cited here do not use that framework.²⁹

How other Christians answer

The Roman Catholic Catechism teaches that "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion" (2271), citing the Didache. Catholic and Orthodox teaching here is very close; their American bishops issued the 2016 statement together.³⁰

Protestant churches differ widely. According to a Pew Research Center summary, the Southern Baptist Convention holds that "all abortions, except in those very rare cases where the life of the mother is clearly in danger, are wrong," while the Episcopal Church accepts abortion in certain circumstances and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has called the decision a personal one while disapproving of abortion "as a means of birth control."³¹

Objections and replies

"The Bible never forbids abortion."

No verse uses the word. But the earliest Christians, reading the same Scriptures, understood the commandment against murder to include it, and Basil, who knew the Greek Exodus 21, judged that it did not change the Church's teaching.

"No one knows when a fetus becomes a person."

The Church does know. Biology shows that a new human organism exists from conception, and the Church teaches that this human being is a person made in God's image from the first moment, not a thing that becomes someone by crossing a threshold of size or awareness. Basil's refusal to ask whether the fetus was "formed" makes the same point. Even a doubter would be bound: when unsure whether a being is a person, one must protect it.

"Even if the fetus is a person, a woman is not obliged to sustain it."

This is the argument of the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson, who in 1971 proposed to "grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception" and argued that a right to life does not include a right to use another person's body, using the famous example of a violinist connected to a stranger's kidneys.³² The Orthodox reply is that a mother and her child are not strangers joined by accident; the relation of parent and child carries obligations that do not exist between strangers, and the Church's ethic of self-giving love does not treat dependence as a claim one may simply refuse. Because this places real burdens on women, the Church's documents insist that the whole community share them.

"The Church cares about the unborn but not about mothers."

Where that is true of Christians, the Church's own documents condemn it. The OCA, Moscow and the Ecumenical Patriarchate all tie the protection of the unborn to help for mothers, and the 1992 OCA text says that adoption, not abortion, is "the answer to unwilled pregnancy" and that unmarried mothers "are to be encouraged and supported."³³

What we can say confidently

• The earliest Christian moral texts (the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, Athenagoras, Tertullian) reject abortion as the taking of human life.
• St Basil explicitly rejected the "formed/unformed" distinction, and the canons of Ancyra (314) and Trullo (692) treat abortion as homicide for purposes of penance.
• The same canons limited penance and, in Basil's words, made treatment depend on "the character of their repentance."
• Modern Orthodox churches (Moscow 2000, the OCA, the Ecumenical Patriarchate 2020) teach that life is to be protected from conception and that the Church cannot bless abortion, while offering confession, forgiveness and practical help.
• The Russian Church recommends pastoral leniency where the mother's life is directly threatened.

What remains disputed

• The exact date and place of the Didache.
• {{debated: How Orthodox pastoral practice should apply to particular medical cases, such as ectopic pregnancy, for which no Orthodox synod has issued a specific ruling.}}
• How ancient readers used the Greek Exodus 21, which allowed a distinction between earlier and later stages of pregnancy; Basil and the canons refused to let that distinction lessen the gravity of abortion.
• How Orthodox Christians should work for these convictions in law and politics; the OCA asks them to contribute "according to their knowledge, competence, ability and influence," which leaves room for prudential disagreement.

Conclusion

The Orthodox Church did not arrive at its teaching on abortion in reaction to modern debates. It received it from the first generations of Christians, a small minority in a culture that accepted the exposure of infants. Their reason was simple: the child in the womb is a human being whom God knows and loves.

The same tradition knows that the Church is a hospital before it is a courtroom. Basil, who called abortion murder, also told confessors to watch the penitent's heart rather than the calendar. Every human life, at its smallest, has been honored by the Son of God, who became a child in the womb in order to trample down death by death and to offer forgiveness and new life to all, including those who carry the memory of an abortion.

Notes

1. John Garvey, "Orthodox Christians and Abortion," Orthodox Church in America, Parish Ministry Resources: Family Life, vol. 2 (1991), PDF reproduced at https://bioethics.org.gr/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/orthodox-christians-and-abortion.pdf.
2. Hippocratic Oath, trans. Michael North, National Library of Medicine (2002), https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/topics/greek-medicine/index.html.
3. Peter Kirby, "Didache," Early Christian Writings, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html (estimated range of dating 50-120 AD, with a survey of the debate).
4. Didache 2.2, trans. M. B. Riddle, ANF 7, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm.
5. Epistle of Barnabas 19, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ANF 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0124.htm.
6. Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 35, trans. B. P. Pratten, ANF 2, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0205.htm.
7. Tertullian, Apology 9, trans. S. Thelwall, ANF 3, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm.
8. Exodus 21:22-23, trans. L. C. L. Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha (1851), https://ebible.org/eng-Brenton/EXO21.htm; compare Exodus 21:22 (NKJV).
9. Basil the Great, Letter 188 (First Canonical Letter, to Amphilochius), canon 2, trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF2 8, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202188.htm.
10. Council of Ancyra (314), canon 21, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3802.htm.
11. Basil, Letter 188, canon 2 (see note 9).
12. Council in Trullo (692), canon 91, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3814.htm.
13. Basil, Letter 188, canon 2 (see note 9).
14. Russian Orthodox Church, The Basis of the Social Concept (Bishops' Council, 2000), XII.2, Department for External Church Relations, https://old.mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/xii/.
15. Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, Synodal Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life (July 1992), https://www.oca.org/holy-synod/statements/holy-synod/synodal-affirmations-on-marriage-family-sexuality-and-the-sanctity-of-life.
16. "Assembly of Bishops issues Statement on the Sanctity of Life" (31 January 2019), Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/news/headline-news/assembly-of-bishops-issues-statement-on-the-sanctity-of-life.
17. Ecumenical Patriarchate, For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church (2020), §25, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, https://www.goarch.org/social-ethos (read through the Internet Archive copy, https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://www.goarch.org/social-ethos).
18. Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13; Luke 1:41, 44 (NKJV).
19. MedlinePlus, "Fetal development," U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002398.htm.
20. Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Seeking Life, Mercy, and Healing" (2016), as published by the Orthodox Church in America, https://oca.org/News/headline-news/assembly-of-bishops-issues-common-statement-on-sanctity-of-life.
21. Metropolitan Tikhon, "Sanctity of Life Sunday 2022," Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/holy-Synod/statements/his-beatitude-metropolitan-tikhon/sanctity-of-life-sunday-2022.
22. For the Life of the World §25 (see note 17).
23. OCA, Synodal Affirmations (see note 15); Basis of the Social Concept XII.2 (see note 14).
24. Basis of the Social Concept XII.2 (see note 14).
25. OCA, Synodal Affirmations (see note 15).
26. Assembly of Bishops, 2019 statement (see note 16).
27. Garvey, "Orthodox Christians and Abortion" (see note 1).
28. MedlinePlus, "Ectopic pregnancy," U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000895.htm.
29. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2271, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM.
30. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270-2271 (see note 29); 2016 joint statement (see note 20).
31. Pew Research Center, "Religious Groups' Official Positions on Abortion" (16 January 2013), https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/01/16/religious-groups-official-positions-on-abortion/.
32. Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion," Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (Fall 1971), text at https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm.
33. OCA, Synodal Affirmations (see note 15).

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982. Brenton, Lancelot C. L., trans. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: English. London: Samuel Bagster, 1851.
• Ante-Nicene Fathers, vols. 1, 2, 3 and 7: Epistle of Barnabas (trans. Roberts and Donaldson); Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians (trans. B. P. Pratten); Tertullian, Apology (trans. S. Thelwall); Didache (trans. M. B. Riddle). Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885-1886.
• Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 8: Basil the Great, Letters, trans. Blomfield Jackson (1895); vol. 14: The Seven Ecumenical Councils (Ancyra, Trullo), trans. Henry Percival (1900).
• Hippocratic Oath. Trans. Michael North. National Library of Medicine, 2002.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Russian Orthodox Church. The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. Moscow, 2000.
• Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America. Synodal Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life. 1992.
• Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. "Statement on the Sanctity of Life." 2019. And, with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Seeking Life, Mercy, and Healing." 2016.
• Ecumenical Patriarchate. For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church. Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2020. Approved for publication by the Holy and Sacred Synod.
• Metropolitan Tikhon (Mollard). "Sanctity of Life Sunday 2022." Orthodox Church in America.
• Garvey, John. "Orthodox Christians and Abortion." OCA Parish Ministry Resources, 1991.

Other scholarship and reference

• Kirby, Peter. "Didache." Early Christian Writings (online reference).
• MedlinePlus. "Fetal development." U.S. National Library of Medicine.
• MedlinePlus. "Ectopic pregnancy." U.S. National Library of Medicine.
• Pew Research Center. "Religious Groups' Official Positions on Abortion." 2013.

Sources from other traditions and views

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., paragraphs 2270-2275. Vatican.
• Thomson, Judith Jarvis. "A Defense of Abortion." Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (Fall 1971).