ABSTRACT
Orthodox bioethics is a prescriptive as well as descriptive, insofar as it's ultimate purpose is to indicate what the great nineteenth-century Alaskan missionary Metropolitan Innokenty Veniaminov called 'the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven'. In the realm of bioethics particularly, science provides basic facts about the world, while theology seeks to interpret those facts, to discern their significance for human conduct and human destiny. In an authentically Christian perspective there is no opposition between science and religion. A scientific approach to the biblical documents and to their origin and development provides with a great deal of useful information about the canonical writings. Bioethics that focuses on the beginning of human life also considers matters such as abortion. It also evaluates procedures such as preimplantation diagnosis (PID), together with the risks they entail. The vision of God and the human person makes Orthodox bioethics fundamentally different from all forms of profane or secular moral teaching.
