Health and medicine in the Eastern Orthodox tradition

About This Book

This is the first comprehensive work on Eastern Orthodoxy in the context of health and modern medicine. The book, like the others in the series, has two purposes. One purpose is to help health care professionals (who themselves come from various religious traditions, or perhaps none) to understand how the Orthodox Christian faith is related to issues of health and medicine so that they can serve their Orthodox patients with greater sensitivity. The book is also written to help Orthodox people understand more fully the relation of their tradition to the issues of health and medicine, as well as for those with a general interest in this formative tradition. Of particular note is the emphasis here on the continuously maintained tradition and practice of spiritual healing in the Orthodox church. Whether through the healings of the saints or through the liturgical tradition of concern for the sick, especially in the sacrament of healing itself, holy unction, Orthodox Christianity attends to the concrete and interrelated reality of human illness in its spiritual, psychological, and physical dimensions.