Orthodoxy and medicine: the problems of dialogue

  1. Lemma
  2. Православие и медицина: проблемы диалога
  3. Russian
  4. Asliturk, Miriam
  5. Ethics - Scientific theories and disciplines > Medicine
  6. 28-07-2018
  7. Решетников, Евгений [Author]. Православие и медицина: проблемы диалога
  8. Церковь и Биоэтика: Церковно-общественный совет по биомедицинской этике при Московской Патриархии.
  9. bioethics - artificial intelligence - Cloning - biomedical technology - Russian Orthodox Church - in vitro fertilisation
  10. Click Here
    1. <p>Решетников, Евгений (2008). Православие и медицина: проблемы диалога. Церковь и Биоэтика: Церковно-общественный совет по биомедицинской этике при Московской Патриархии. Retrieved from: <a href="http://bioethics.orthodoxy.ru/biblioteka/khristianstvo-i-meditsina/240-">http://bioethics.orthodoxy.ru/biblioteka/khristianstvo-i-meditsina/240-</a> </p>

    1. Archbishop Evgeny mentions that many people from his congregation ask questions about their medical treatment and whether it is ethical or not. Nowadays, the Russian Orthodox Church priests should know how to answer. Bioethics in particular have become a common ground for dialogue between doctors and religious people. Bioethics as well as religion sees life as a gift of God, the ultimate value. Bioethics seeks saving life and keeping the integrity of the human personality. 

      Archbishop Evgeny argues, however, that nowadays many doctors abandon the right path and violate basic ethical principals by participating in advanced medical experiments. Is it ethical to realize every medical experiment that technical progress has made possible? Science comes close to the greatest mystery of life that is the creation of human being. Will this new human have all same features as we have, such as a unique human soul? If this human is artificial then how can God can put the divine hypostasis in him or her? According to the author, an experiment for artificial fertilization is theomachism. The church teaches that new human life is a mystery that comes from the mystery of marriage. Through marriage man and woman become not two but one body. He wonders if people born through in vitro fertilization can have the same features as those born out of the mystery of marriage.

      Archbishop Evgeny also argues that medical experiments with fertilization may create a human subordinate to biotechnologies and therefore to other people. This changes the balance of power dramatically because it is only God that can have power over human lives. The author concludes by stating that politicians, doctors, and scientists must develop sensibility toward ethical aspects of technical progress in medicine. Otherwise, he argues, humanity will end up living in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.