{"id":6424,"date":"2011-07-31T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-31T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=6424"},"modified":"2011-07-31T10:58:30","modified_gmt":"2011-07-31T17:58:30","slug":"met-jonah-on-marriage-family-sexuality-and-moral-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/met-jonah-on-marriage-family-sexuality-and-moral-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Met. Jonah: On Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and Moral Living"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Metropolitan
Metropolitan Jonah<\/figcaption><\/figure> Beloved Fathers, brothers and sisters in Christ,<\/p>\n

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:6-10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In our own lifetimes we were blessed by an act of prophetic witness in July 1992, when the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America issued the magnificent \u201cAffirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life<\/a>.\u201d Two decades later we Orthodox who live in the diocese that includes our nation\u2019s capital city need to be reminded of some of the moral verities contained in the Affirmations. It should be obvious to any attentive observer that those verities are under increasing assault by the intellectual, social, and cultural elites in this country\u2014and even by many of our public officials, particularly in the federal government headquartered here in Washington, DC. More alarming is the erosion of those moral verities within some of our Orthodox congregations. <\/p>\n

The dire need to preserve and protect the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception has been the focus of the annual encyclical of the OCA primate for Sanctity of Life Sunday each January for many years. I wish to remind you, in the prophetic spirit of the apostles, that the Holy Mystery of Matrimony and the moral limits of human sexuality are ancient traditions of the Church not subject to whatever winds of change may be blowing through our society at the moment.<\/p>\n

The 1992 Affirmations enunciated clearly and forcefully the following principles and guidelines among others:<\/p>\n