UOC bishop: You cannot treat your soul as "tribal offspring"

One of the babies born by surrogate Ukrainian mothers for foreigners. Photo: a video screenshot of the BioTexCom clinic on the YouTube channel

Archbishop Theodosius (Snigirev) of Boyarka, the vicar of the Kyiv Metropolis, commented on the situation with 46 infants from the “Venice” Hotel in Kyiv, born by Ukrainian surrogate mothers for foreign families and temporarily kept in one of Kyiv hotels because of the quarantine.

"Surrogate maternity as a phenomenon is unnatural and immoral. After all, this is not about animals but about people who have a soul. And each surrogate mother and each child sold is not just 'biological species' but sensible and eternal souls," he stressed in an interview with a UOJ correspondent. “It is impossible to treat a vulnerable human soul as cattle, as a "tribal offspring". At least, this cannot be done in a civilized society.

That is why surrogacy is prohibited in most developed countries of the world, the bishop noted.

He reminded that the Orthodox Church categorically warns people against surrogate maternity and recalled the "Fundamentals of the Social Concept", which states that this method "traumatizes both the bearing woman, whose maternal feelings are trampled and the child who may later experience a crisis of self-awareness”.

"At least two human souls who have become the dearest to each other, mystically close to each other are suffering," explained the hierarch of the UOC. “The invisible ties between the bearing mother and the child are torn. ‘Here is the heritage from the Lord: children; the reward from Him is the fruit of the womb’ as said in the Psalms (Psalm 126; 3). Such pain, sooner or later, in one form or another, will also affect the biological parents who gave their seed, for when the natural law established by God is broken, everything ends up in suffering.

He explained that the pain of the Church for surrogate mothers, their children and families who buy such babies is not the "moralization of churchmen”.

"The Church opposes every human sin, vice or lie with one primary weapon - its preaching of eternal truth, the doctrine of Christ. Its word is not a simple moralization aimed at ‘perfecting the world’. No. The word of the Church is always about God and His laws, even when these laws contradict the comfort and 'happiness' of man," explained Archbishop Theodosius.

The hierarch of the UOC stressed that the word of the Church is always addressed to those who are ready to listen and hear it because conscience can keep a woman from an act fraught with great bitterness and life disappointment.

"If an adult (even if not churchy) decides to take such a serious step in life as surrogate maternity and does not care what the Church says about this, then he/she will be doomed to drink this bitter cup to the bottom, to know disappointment from their personal experience," he concluded.

Earlier, the media reported about the capital's hotel at the Surrogate Maternity Clinic, which houses 46 babies born by Ukrainian surrogate mothers. These children cannot be taken out of the country by their foreign parents due to quarantine. The owner of the clinic told the “Ukrainski Novyny” (“Ukrainian News”) online edition that the scandal was deliberately developed, and now the problem of exporting the children from Ukraine will be "solved quickly".

Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko) of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol said later that surrogacy is an anti-Christian phenomenon.

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