Tamassos, Cyprus, February 1, 2022
Photo: romfea.gr
The Cypriot House Human Rights Committee began a debate last week about euthanasia becoming legal for terminally-ill patients.
MP Irene Charalambidou, who heads the committee, commented that the choice is between a serene pain-free and respectable death and a crucially painful one at the last stage of terminally-ill patients, reports in-cyprus.
However, the Orthodox Church, to which about 75% of the Cypriot population belongs, stands against euthanasia.
Speaking on Cypriot television last week, His Eminence Metropolitan Isaiah of Tamassos explained that the Church’s stance is well known and can’t simply be changed, reports SigmaLive.
For the faithful the matter is simple, Met. Isaiah says: God Himself controls life. “For us, that’s where the issue ends.”
The difference between the secular and spiritual view is that the latter includes a belief in the afterlife.
“The argument is that euthanasia is a redemption, a deliverance from the torment of suffering, and thus one is entitled to rule over his own death. This is a pseudo-argument. Pain is a process of spiritual cleansing and entry into the afterlife,” the hierarch emphasized.
In modern ethics, everything centers on the individual, but in theology, man is made in the image of God, and lives not as an autonomous unit but as a relationship with his fellow man and nature, Met. Isaiah explained.
The discussion about euthanasia takes us back to the first instincts where man didn’t realize the value of his soul and returned to pagan theories that devalue life.
“It’s not a dignified death, euthanasia—it’s assisted suicide. It’s a combination of murder and suicide, not redemption and relief from pain. Priests are very close to people in terms of pain. The clergy are the ones that people call for support when they’re in pain and suffering,” the Metropolitan concluded.
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