Cord Blood

[Anastasios]

I'm not sure whether the passages where the fathers speak about the heart should be taken to refer to the physical heart, but since St Philaret was of the opinion that heart transplants would violate our faith, I think that holds weight. I am not decided on the issue yet, as I have not really had much time to think about it in depth and pray about it, but I certainly would not want to find myself in a position opposed to the Fathers, and I take St Philaret's teaching seriously.

As for other organ transplants, I have no problem with them with the above caveats in mind about their source.

[drewmeister2]

I'm not sure whether the passages where the fathers speak about the heart should be taken to refer to the physical heart, but since St Philaret was of the opinion that heart transplants would violate our faith, I think that holds weight. I am not decided on the issue yet, as I have not really had much time to think about it in depth and pray about it, but I certainly would not want to find myself in a position opposed to the Fathers, and I take St Philaret's teaching seriously.

As for other organ transplants, I have no problem with them with the above caveats in mind about their source.

I listened to a set of cassette tapes a few years back with Fr. Alexey Young speaking on a topic at a conference and he emphasized that the heart is both a physical and a spiritual organ. I will try to find out the exact name of the tapes and post it here.

[drewmeister2]

I started to look around for some more articles to see what has been said about whether the Fathers, when speaking of the heart, really referred to the physical heart or to a non-physical, spiritual heart. I haven't really found much online, but I did find something else on orthodoxinfo from Fr. John Romanides (http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/phronema/pa ... -nous.aspx). In footnote number 3, he seems to interpret St. Gregory Palamas's referral to the heart as not meaning the physical heart, but rather to the "deep heart". So it seems that there may be some disagreement on this matter.

What is rather interesting is that when I was searching for more Orthodox references about the heart, I found some secular studies that have arisen about the function of the heart, arguing that it functions more than just as a pump.

Some other food for thought (I have not found any writings on this, this is just my own thoughts on the topic) is that it does seem that God deemed that the physical heart be tied to our souls, because whether the heart is still beating or not determines whether we still have time to repent. Virtually all of our other organs could fail, but as long as our heart is still alive, we still have time to repent and save our souls. But once our heart stops, there is no more time left.

Father Anastasios, have you found any other writings on whether the Fathers were referring specifically to the physical heart? I have found plenty of references to the heart in the writings of the Fathers, but not much in the way of whether they meant the physical heart or not.

(PS. I was loaned the tapes that I mentioned in the previous post; hopefully I will be seeing the people who loaned me the tapes soon so that I can find out the name of the tapes).

[Pravoslavnik]

With all due respect, may I suggest that it is important to interpret the use of the word "heart" by the Holy Fathers in the context in which it was written? What, precisely, did the Holy Fathers mean by the word "heart"? Did this word, perhaps, connote something about human emotion and volition? Was it used to describe such attributes of the limbic system of the brain?
Consider that many of the Holy Fathers also believed that the earth was essentially flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the universe was a mere 6,000 years old. These scientifically erroneous beliefs do not invalidate the truth of their theological teachings, but indicate that they were created men, living and writing in a particular historical context.

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  Should we not be circumspect and judicious about concrete, overly "literal" interpretations of their words?  St. Augustine certainly believed as much.

[mmcxristidis]

[quote="Pravoslavnik"]
Consider that many of the Holy Fathers also believed that the earth was essentially flat, that the sun revolved around the earth"

Could you please give a few examples from the writings of the Orthodox Holy Fathers where they state the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around the sun ?

[Catherine5]

I agree with Prav about the beginning of history on earth as being unimaginably longer than the dating given by those first generations as a mere 5,000 or so years old.

I think the last poster mentioned the sun twice by mistake. Never mind, one can never have too much sunshine in my book!

[mmcxristidis]

I agree with Prav about the beginning of history on earth as being unimaginably longer than the dating given by those first generations as a mere 5,000 or so years old.

I think the last poster mentioned the sun twice by mistake. Never mind, one can never have too much sunshine in my book!

Yes, thanks for catching that. Of coarse I meant to say the sun revolves around the earth