Letter to the Orthodox Church
Unfortunately we found no text the Orthodox Church's position on animals. Therefore, a friend of the animals wrote a letter to the head of the Orthodox Church in Istanbul.
The letter:
His All Holiness Bartholomew
Archbishop of Constantinople
Rum Patrikhanesi
Ferner-Halic
TR 34220 Istanbul
Türkei
19.7.2002
Dear Mr. Patriarch,
From an article in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" dated June 19th. 2002, I learned that you are intensively engaged in nature und environmental protection. I am much delighted about it since as a free journalist I am also engaged in these themes.
So, I'd like to ask you some questions which have already been stirring
me for some time:
What about the statements form the side of Christianity concerning animals?
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, animal experiments are for instance
justified and it is said that man should not give his love in the same way
to animals as he is supposed to give it to people. The Protestant Church
does not take any clear position on this subject of animal protection, but
she does not protest either against animals being for instance tormented
which is unfortunately a common procedure in our highly civilized world.
This is why I consider it remarkable that you, in the person of the highest representative of the Orthodox confession, consider apparently nature as one of your heart concerns, as it is mentioned in the quoted article. And now to my questions:
1. What is your point of view concerning animal experiments? Is man allowed
to cruelly torture animals though it is questionable whether the result
of animal experiments can be transferred to humans?
2. Is man allowed to squeeze animals together in smallest compartments and
transport them under brutal conditions over long distances as it is done
nowadays in our industrial animal breeding? Not enough, to this add the
harmful results for the environment due to mass breeding: e.g. air pollution
by excrements and methane gases, water pollution and harming the microbiology
of the soil by over fertilization.
3. What is the Christian point of view as to butchering and eating animals?
In the beginning of Genesis God recommends to men the fruit of the fields
as to be their nutrition – so to say a vegetarian nourishment. Later
(in the story of Noah) it is said: “all that which is moving should
be your food”. Man was supposed to spread fright amongst animals and
hunt them. God, who just had saved the animals, is said to have told this
to Noah! Isn’t this a contradiction? Isn’t is possible that
here some of the words of God had been falsified by the caste of priests?
For how can God, the Almighty, contradict Himself? The same is also valid
for the killing of enemies of Israel? Could the God of love have really
said this? Or did men change this according to their will?
4. What about hunting? In some special regions of Italy hunting was abolished
without that any kind of animals there unproportionally increased. Animals
are regulating themselves. Is hunting – by which so much suffering
is inflicted upon animals – justified, seen from a Christian viewpoint?
I would like very much to know how you, as being one of the competent and leading Christians, are seeing these things. Perhaps it is possible that from your church there emits an impulse in order to think over these questions on the grounds of an ethic and responsible Christianity.
Yours sincerely,
A friend of the animals
Up until now no answer to this letter has been received. If you know an answer to these questions, please inform us.
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