The Patriarch of Constantinople and Abortion

There are two U.S. Senators who like to say they are Orthodox Christians.  One of them was even honored by the Patriarch of Constantinople.  Yet both of them are pro-aborts.  Their public statements and their voting records do not comport with the teaching of the Church Fathers, to wit:

Letter to Diognetus: (describing Christians) "They marry, as do all others; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring".

The Didache: "You shall not slay the child by abortions."

Letter of St. Barnabus: "You shall not destroy your conceptions before they are brought forth; nor kill them after they are born."

Letter of St. Clement: "Those who use abortifacients commit homicide."

From St. Basil the Great: "The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. The hair-splitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us."

From St. Augustine: "Sometimes their sadistic licentiousness goes so far that they procure poison to produce infertility, and when this is of no avail, they find one means or another to destroy the unborn and flush it from the mother’s womb. For they desire to see their offspring perish before it is alive or, if it has already been granted life, they seek to kill it within the mother’s body before it is born."

From St. John Chrysostom: "Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gifts of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse you seek as though it were a blessing. Do you make the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the women who are given to you for a procreation of offspring to perpetuate killing?"

So how do these two Orthodox Christian Senators flout the Tradition of the Church? I don't think I fault them as much as I fault their bishops, especially the Patriarch of Constantinople who seems to care more about a tree being cut down than about a child being killed.  Has ever writien an encyclical that can be thought of defending the unborn from abortion?  If he has there is no link to it on his website.  But he did write a book.  In that book he says:

"I also encounter many and diverse issues related to the sanctity of life from birth through death. Those issues range from sensitive matters of sexuality to highly controversial questions like the death penalty. In all such social and moral issues, it is not one or another position that the Orthodox Church seeks to promote in a defensive spirit. Indeed, we would normally refrain from expounding a single rigidly defined dogma on social and moral challenges. Rather, it is the sacredness of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, that the Church at all times seeks to underline."

Wow.  He actually said that in moral issues the Orthodox Church doesn't take one or another position.   Can you believe that?  Well, thank God we do not depend on the bishops to lead us to Heaven, for if we followed Patriarch Bartholomew, the most senior of all the bishops, we might not make it.  Rather, we follow the Holy Spirit who has spoken though the mouths and pens of His Saints.  He has told us what position to promote: The positian that abortion is wrong. Always.  What part of "You shall not slay the child by abortions"  does the Patriarch not understand?  Does he really think there is room for equivication in there?  Is the language too difficult for him?  Does he need a dictionary?

And in the July 20, 1990 San Francisco Chronicle he is reported as having said this...

"We are not allowed to enter the bedrooms of the Christian couples. We cannot generalize. There are many reasons for a couple to go toward abortion."

No.  That is wrong.  That is not the Gospel.  It is Satan.

He should repent or be deposed.