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'''''Contraception''''' is the term used to describe an the intentional prevention of the conception of a childor impregnation. This term may also be used Thus contraception here does not refer to describe the intentional prevention of pregnancy[[abortion]], which may or to those contraceptive techniques understood to be defined differently from conceptionabortifacient in nature.
==Synopsis==
As [[Paul Evdokimov]] wrote, "In the age of the Church Fathers, the problem of birth control was never raised. There are no canons that deal with it."<ref>Evdokimov, p. 174.</ref> The Orthodox bioethicist [[H. Tristram Engelhardt]], Jr., agrees, writing, "Despite detailed considerations of sexual offenses by ecumenical councils, and by generally accepted local councils, and despite a recognition that marriage is oriented toward reproduction, there is no condemnation of limiting births, apart from the condemnation of abortion."<ref>Engelhardt, p. 265. </ref>
Opinions about contraception have varied in the Orthodox Church. There is complete unanimity that no form of contraception that is abortifacient is acceptable and there are definitive ecumenical canons that proscribe abortifacients. The Fathers of the Church, such as Ss. Athanasius the Great, John Chrysostom, Epiphanios, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Caesarious, Gregory the Great, Augustine of Canterbury and Maximos the Confessor, all explicitly condemned abortion as well as the use of abortifacients. Ss. Jerome and Clement of Alexandria have also explicitly condemned coitus interruptus (withdrawal) in their discussions of the sin of Onan. The Fathers of the Church have not expressed opinions on the "moment" at which life begins, so that our clear distinctions between non-abortifacient and abortifacient contraception may be anachronistic, and may not have existed in the minds of the Fathers. Consequently these Fathers' condemnation may extend to all contraceptive methods. However there are a range of opinions in the present day on the issue of non-abortifacient contraception.