Orthodox Hierarchs of France expressed concern about assisted suicide legalisation

Concern has been expressed by the Orthodox bishops regarding the initiatives to legalise assisted suicide in the French Republic.

France’s Canonical Orthodox Bishops met in Paris for their regular meeting on November 23. The talks were chaired by His Eminence Metropolitan Dimitrios of France (Ecumenical Patriarchate).

The concerns come in the context of legislative efforts to replace the term “laisser-mourir” (to let someone die) with the expression “faire mourir” (to cause someone’s death), which the hierarchs say “would be an abyss calling into question the essential convictions of many faithful people.”

Furthermore, the hierarchs underscored that making such a decision would directly oppose the gradual and patiently developed medico-ethical equilibrium of the current laws.

“The Orthodox bishops of France express their deep concern concerning the excesses of the development, within our societies today, of a legal-societal ethics more and more detached from any form of transcendence and of all the essential values which have forged our legal and ethical corpus for centuries,” reads a press release of the Assembly.

The hierarchs also discussed the tense situation in the Middle East and the local and national challenges they face.

His Eminence Metropolitan Iosif, Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of Western and Southern Europe, and his assistant bishops Marc of Neamț and Nectarie of Brittany are members of the Assembly.

Photography courtesy of Aeof.fr
Source: basilica.ro