Oriental and Eastern Orthodox take common stand

Canada's Oriental and Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions which are members of the Canadian Council of Churches recently offered official hierarchical approval to the ecumenical agency's "Statement of Convergence on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide."

Representatives of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada, the Orthodox Church in America, and the Coptic, Armenian and Ethiopian churches drafted a common letter to their respective hierarchs expressing unity and unanimous approval of the statement.

"We, the Orthodox delegates, believe that life is an act of God's creation, and a sign of it, thereby being a sign to the world of God's love," the common letter to the hierarchs states. "Euthanasia decisions violate this order of God's dispensation; no matter how well-meaning, how seemingly merciful, deliberate euthanasia is a substitution of man's sinful reasoning for God's judgement, an interference with God's plan.

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