THE
P RTAL
August 2015
Page 7
From Patmos to Oxford
Jackie Ottaway and Ronald Crane conclude their interview with
His Eminence, the Most Reverend Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
His Eminence covered so much ground in the course of this fascinating interview that trying to compress
his thoughts into a single article proved impossible to do without losing much of value. If you missed it,
Part One may be found in the June 2015 edition.
Orthodox position? Divorce has been permitted in
the Christian East since an early period going right
back to the fourth century, long before there was a
schism between the Churches. It is interesting that the
We were fascinated in his reply. “Yes, there are question of divorce came up at the Council of Florence
differences here if not of fundamental doctrine then in 1439.
at least differences in the pastoral practice of Catholics
and Orthodox. Before I come to divorce, let me
mention another question. In the Orthodox Church,
artificial methods of birth control are permitted
between a married couple.
We were anxious to hear what His Eminence Kallistos
had to say to us about the forthcoming Synod on the
Family in the autumn.
Humanae Vitae
“Therefore, we do not agree with the fateful
document Humanae Vitae, issued in 1968. We consider
that it is within the conscience of married couples
to decide how many children they will have and at
what intervals. We certainly would believe that every
marriage should be open to the bearing of children if
that is possible, but we would see it as a matter of the
conscience of individual couples, guided as appropriate
by their spiritual Father, to decide whether they would
use artificial methods of contraception and therefore
limit the number of children that they would have.
“Now that is the first question where Catholics and
Orthodox differ, but I think there is still a continuing
discussion now going on among Catholics within
some circles. There are Catholics who are not entirely
happy about the Humanae Vitae line.
changed positions
“Artificial birth control was widely forbidden in
the Orthodox Church say fifty or sixty years ago,
but we never had a definitive statement of the level
of Humanae Vitae. In practice, it was noted that there
was a gap between what the Church taught and what
people actually did. Now in due time, the Orthodox
have altered their pastoral teaching on this and I think
that this is a fairly widely accepted approach that I
have just outlined. It is worth remembering that the
Anglicans at one time condemned contraception, but
they have subsequently changed their position.
“Now let’s come to divorce. The Anglican Church
used to be extremely strict on divorce. What is the
contents page
“The Latins raised the question, “We hear that you
grant divorce and we [