Fertility is a great blessing, as the Scriptures proclaim: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD” (Psa 128:3–4 [127 LXX]).
Because fertility is not a disease to be cured but a blessing proclaimed upon the couple during the wedding service, it should be received with great joy and thanksgiving. Certainly, wisdom is called for regarding the size of one’s family, and great discernment must be exercised. From the Scriptures and Apostolic Tradition, these principles may be enunciated: procreation is intrinsically associated with the gift of sexual union within the bond of Holy Matrimony; “Let marriage be held in honor among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled” (Heb 13:4; see Q359); and although children are to be welcomed by married couples, not every marital act must have the intent of procreation in order to be blessed and holy (Sng 1:2; Sng 1:13; Sng 4:5; Sng 7:3; Sng 7:7–8; Sng 8:1; Prv 5:19).
The Orthodox position has therefore been expressed in these terms:
Some contraceptives have an abortive effect, artificially interrupting the life of the embryo at the very first stages of life; therefore, the same judgments apply to their use as to abortion. But other means, which do not involve interrupting an already conceived life, cannot in the least be equated with abortion. In defining their attitude toward non-abortive contraceptives, Christian spouses should remember that human reproduction is one of the principal purposes of the divinely established marital union, and that the deliberate refusal of childbirth on egoistic grounds devalues marriage and is a definite sin… Spouses should make such decisions together, with the counsel of their spiritual father, who should, with pastoral prudence, take into account their concrete living conditions, age, health, and degree of spiritual maturity, caring above all for the preservation and strengthening of the family. (Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, XII.3; cf. 1Co 7:5; Mat 19:11)
In the rite of Holy Matrimony, the Church places crowns upon the heads of the bride and groom, crowns of the Kingdom, and crowns of martyrdom: for married love, like the love of Christ for his Church, is a daily laying down of one’s life for the other (Joh 15:13; see Q492, Q562). So, the Church prays as she crowns them: “O Lord our God, crown them with glory and honor!”, and marriage, thus lived, becomes what the Fathers call it: a school of love, and a path to the Kingdom.
