Cessation Of Artificial Life Support

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin of the Moscow Patriarchate considers the cessation of artificial life support:

"No doubt, there are cases when it’s not clear whether a soul still remains in the body, when the body doesn’t show any signs of conscious life, though some of its functions can be preserved. Perhaps, in such cases there’s no sense to artificially preserve bodily activities with complicated equipment..."

"A Christian remembers that the most important, real life starts beyond the limits of this world when a person worthily faced the end of his temporary life, with repentance, prayer and readiness to meet God – it’s not customary to artificially preserve life in his body when he doesn’t show any signs of conscious life. It is not in Christian tradition, our predecessors have never done this,” the priest said.