Special cases of abnormal pregnancies, which are naturally very few, are discussed here: 

+ St. Basil the great: He is one of the Fathers of the Church in the fourth century, he says in his second law: “The woman who aborts herself must be punished as a murderer.  Justice must protect the child who is to be born as well as the woman that plotted against herself. In most instances the woman dies during these acts of abortion. Hurting the child is another murder. It is a duty to take their confessions without delay before death and accept them in the Church after a reasonable period of about ten years and offering remedies according to their repentance.” This means that the woman who kills her baby during pregnancy by using medicinal drugs is a murderer. The period of punishment was reduced to ten years instead for life, after which period the woman is accepted in the Church and offered Holy Communion. The priest may also reduce the punishment if he is sure of her repentance.

The Church from the beginning of Christianity considered abortion as intentional killing and outlawed it. The punishment was to cut off the woman from sharing in Church life and participation in the Holy Communion.

From our previous article, it is clear that abortion is killing of a living human being, even if they are not born yet. Now, what is the opinion of the Bible in abortion?

From all the Biblical texts we saw in the previous article, it is clear that the human life is precious from the womb, and God works in human's life even before their birth.

The Sacred Gift of life:  

The first period of Christ’s life on earth, starting from His birth in Bethlehem and ending by His living in Nazareth, was full of a successive group of events. In this article, I shall try to arrange these events  from the Gospels of Luke 2 and Mathew 2  in chronological order by making use of some incidents proven in history.

During the fourth week of Kiahk, the church readings pertain to the birth of John the Baptist.  For this reason, I have selected some excerpts from the early church fathers to celebrate the life of this great saint.

Purity is the light of our eyes and the garment of our betrothal to our heavenly Bridegroom, our sweet Lord Jesus.   We have to be sure my brethren, that if we desire the life of purity, God will grant it to us.

+ Icons are not just religious portrayal as a means to awaken feelings, but they are also a way through which God is revealed to men. Through icon, we visualize the spiritual world.

Last Sunday, November 20th was the last prayer for the Bethel congregation in their church building before leaving to join another Lutheran Church in Palatine. They invited us to come and join them, so they could pray for us and officially pass on the church to us. We prayed an early liturgy in St. Mary's as we announced before, and went to join them at 10 am.

The words “confess” or “confession” are words commonly found in the Bible and in our prayers. These words can have different meanings depending on the context, so it is worthwhile for us to review these different meanings together: