An instructive image: Christ, the Most-holy Theotokos and St. Stylianos blessing and protecting those who carry the blessed Cross of family life in Christ. A repentant woman wails of her sin of abortion. To the right, the New Herod of Abortion is depicted personified, with the physician helping her, and women bringing them their babes out of love of pleasure, hardness of heart, indifference, etc. (source)
Note: Here Elder Paisios, with the divine illumination that he has, shares what a terrible sin and blight upon the entire world the sin of abortion is. He (and I) are not using this as a ruse to support any specific political candidate or party. And the Elder would never support those who would use violence to make a statement against abortion providers or patients. But may his words grant us all the contrition to realize how great a sin abortion is, and how we might all return to Christ in repentance, acknowledging the sacred image of God that is every human being, even from our mother's womb.
St. Paisios: "Abortions
are a terrible sin" (amateur translation)
-Elder,
one forty year-old woman, who has grown children, is three months
pregnant. Her husband threatened that, if she does not have an
abortion, he would leave her.
If
she has an abortion, her other children would pay with sicknesses and
accidents. Today, parents kill their children with abortions and do
not have the blessing from God. In olden times, if a small child was
born sick, they would baptize him, and he would die like an angel,
and was more secured.
Parents
had other older children, but they also had the blessing of God.
Today, they kill their older children through abortions, as they
strive to keep them alive while they are sick. Parents run to
England, to America to heal them. And they continue to bear children
even more sick, because they, if they sought to make a family, they
could again give birth to sick children, at which point, what would
happen? If they bore a few children, they would not run so much for
the one who is sick. He would die and go forth as a little angel.
-Elder,
I read once that every year, in total there are 50 million abortions
and 200,000 women die from complications.
They
kill the children because they say that, if the population would
increase, there would not be enough to eat, in order for humanity to
be preserved. There are so many uncultivated areas, so many woods, so
that, with today's tools, for example, they could plant olive groves
to give to the poor. It's not that they would cut the trees and there
would be no Oxygen, because there would be trees to replace them.
In
America, the wheat burns, and here in Greece, the fruit falls into
the rubbish heap, etc. while in Africa, the people are dying from
hunger. When people were dying from hunger in Abyssinia, because they
had a great drought, I told a well-known ship-owner friend to help in
these circumstances, to go to the rubbish dump and to load up a boat
to take [the surplus foodstuffs] there for free. They didn't allow
him to do this under any circumstance.
Icon of the Holy Innocents (source)
-How
many thousands of embryos are killed every day!
Abortion
is a terrible sin. It is murder, and of course a very great murder,
to kill unbaptized children. Parents must understand that life begins
from the instant of conception.
One
night, God allowed me to see a terrible vision, to inform me
regarding this matter! It was the evening of the Tuesday of Bright
Week 1984. I had lit two candles in two tin cans, as I always do even
while asleep, for all those who suffer spiritually or bodily. To
those I include the living and the reposed. At midnight, as I was
saying the [Jesus] Prayer, I saw a great field surrounded by a fence,
studded by wheat that had just begun to grow. I stood outside the
field, and I lit candles for the reposed and placed them on the wall
of the fence.
To
the left there was a dry place, full of rocks and cliffs, which was
shaking continuously from a very strong cry from thousands of voices
that break your heart and make you shudder. And even the toughest
man, if he would hear it, would be unable to remain unmoved. As I was
experiencing these heartbreaking cries, I asked within where these
voiced were coming from, and what was happening with all that I saw,
and I heard a voice tell me: “The field studded with wheat that has
just sprouted, is the Cemetery with the souls of the dead that would
be raised. At the place which was shaking from the heartbreaking
cries are found the souls of children who were killed through
abortions!”
Following
this vision, I was unable to rest from the great pain that I
experienced for the souls of the children. I could neither lie down
to rest, though I had been busy that whole day.
-Elder,
can something be done to remove the law regarding abortions?
Yes,
but the Nation, the Church, etc. must be moved to inform the people
about the consequences of declining birth rates. The Priest should
explain to the world that the law regarding abortions is against the
commandments of the Gospel. Doctors, from their own positions, should
speak of the risks that follow the woman who has an abortion. See,
the Europeans had royalty, and left this as an inheritance for their
children. We had the fear of God, but we lost it and did not leave an
inheritance for the next generation, and for this we legalize
abortions, political marriage, [etc.]...When a man disobeys one
commandment of the Gospel, he alone is responsible. When, however,
something that clashes with the commandments of the Gospel becomes
the law of the land, then the wrath of God falls upon the whole
nation, that it may be chastened.
Christ blessing the children: "Let the children come to me, and do not forbid them, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven..." (source)
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!
