Heart transplantation

AN ORTHODOX VIEW OF
HEART TRANSPLANTATION

By METROPOLITAN PHILARET

The world, including most people who would identify themselves as "Christians," receives every new attainment of modern science as an undoubted blessing to be accepted as a matter of course. Orthodox Christians, however, must be more discriminating, for our hope is not in this world that passes, but in eternal life. Here the chief hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad speaks on the latest such attainment, to and for those whose spiritual consciousness has not been totally deadened by modern worldliness and rationalism (Orthodox Russia, no. 4, 1968).

THIS AGE IS a strange age. We know that throughout the extent of human history there have been moments of spiritual and cultural crisis, of moral decline and restoration; there have been moments also of a so-called "revaluation of values." But only in our age has there arisen in the world a manifestation much more frightening and menacing: namely, the loss of values, their catastrophic disappearance from the life, from the spiritual and intellectual horizon, of contemporary humanity.

One may readily observe today the loss of normal conceptions of nation and family, the loss of the value of life itself, in itself and as the greatest gift of God, and the striving to get away from the obligation to live – in the fantasy-world of narcotics, so to speak in a temporary suicide. And parallel to the disappearance of true values there appear counterfeit values. For today literally everything is counterfeited: Christianity is counterfeited, religiousness is counterfeited, the very Gospel is counterfeited; culture in its best manifestations, the striving for peace, etc., etc. – everything is steeped in lie and falsehood, and a man with a living soul and conscience suffocates in the reign of the lie and the counterfeit.

And in this stifling atmosphere of evident and undoubted spiritual decomposition, the "last word" is the most terrible of all. We speak of the newest "attainment'" of medical science: the transplantation of the human heart.

Here before us is the most terrifying of all counterfeits: the counterfeit of life itselfthis greatest gift of the Creator! A man lives out his life, his powers ebb, the organism dies away, and the heart, this center of the organism's life, is just about to stop... No medicines, no remedies or attempts to prolong, to detain this departing life, can help any longer... But now a solution is found! The man is given a new, strange heart, and with this is introduced into his organism a new, strange life, belonging to another man...

The heart is the center, the mid-point of man's existence. And not only in the spiritual sense, where heart is the term for the center of one's spiritual person, one's "I"; in physical life, too, the physical heart is the chief organ and central point of the organism, being mysteriously and indissolubly connected with the experiences of one's soul. It is well known to all how a man's purely psychical and nervous experiences joy, anger, fright, etc., – are reflected immediately in the action of the heart, and conversely how an unhealthy condition of the heart acts oppressively on the psyche and consciousness... Yes, here the bond is indissoluble – and if, instead of the continuation of a man's personal spiritual-bodily life, concentrated in his own heart, there is imposed on him a strange heart and some kind of strange life, until then totally unknown to him – then what is this if not a counterfeit of his departing life; what is this if not the annihilation of his spiritual-bodily life, his individuality, his personal "I"? And how and as whom will such a man present himself at the general resurrection?

But the new attainment does not end even here. It is intended also to introduce into the organism of a man the heart of an animal i.e., so that after the general resurrection a "man" will stand at the Last Judgement with the heart of an ape (or a cat, or a pig, or whatever).1 Can one imagine a more senseless and blasphemous mockery of human nature itself, created in the image and likeness of God?

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1. Since this was written, a transplant has indeed been made into the human organism of a sheep's heart; and an unsuccessful attempt four years ago utilized a chimpanzee's heart. A recent operation in California presents yet another frightful picture: the transplant of the heart of a suicide. (Trans. note.)


Madness and horror! But what has called forth this nightmare of criminal interference in man's life – in that life, the lawful Master of which is its Creator alone, and no one else? The answer is not difficult to find. The loss of Christian hope, actual disbelief in the future life, failure to understand the Gospel and disbelief in it, in its Divine truthfulness – these are what have called forth these monstrous and blasphemous experiments on the personality and life of man. The Christian view of life and death, the Christian understanding and conception of earthly life as time given by God for preparation for eternity – have been completely lost. And from this the result is: terror in the face of death, seen as the absolute perishing of life and the annihilation of personality; and a clutching at earthly life – live, live, live, at any cost or means prolong earthly life, after which there is nothing!

How far from this is the radiant Christian view of life and death! Imagine a deeply-believing Christian who has labored his whole life on the fulfillment of the Lord's commandments and on the purification of bis own heart, and who finally draws near to that Christian end for which he has prayed and for which he has been preparing his whole life; if suddenly one were to say to him: "Don't you want to live a while longer? Here – we will cut out your heart and put in its place a different one, perhaps an ape's – and you will live for a while yet..." What would a believing Christian answer to this but the words of the Gospel – Get thee behind me, Satan – thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men (St. Matt. 16:23).

See then that ye walk circumspectly, cried once the Apostle, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:15-17). Oh, how circumspectly we must walk in our day – with caution, lest we apostatize spiritually and fall into the snare of the enemy. For in truth our days are yet more evil than the times of the Apostles... And it was not for nothing that in these latter, already post-revolutionary days, one of the Far-Eastern archpastors prayed constantly to God thus: "Cut off the allurement of lies, loosen pressing temptations, and with the power of Thy Grace protect and keep all of us, and grant our hearts to sense the truth."

For contemporary humanity for the most part has lost completely the feeling, the sense, the acceptance of truth and the ability to discern in its spiritual essence what is happening in the world. And the threatening, sorrowful prophecy of the Apostle is being accomplished concerning those who did not learn to love the truth: God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness (II Thes. 2:11-12).

Christian! Remember what life is, and what is death! And thanking your Creator for the most precious gift of His goodness – for your life – use this gift as is proper, so that at the end of your earthly life you may, without clutching faintheartedly at this passing life, die in such a way that upon you may be fulfilled the joyful promise of the Apocalypse: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them (Apoc. 14: 13).