Did you ever think you'd hear a church leader encourage you to get it on? That's precisely what the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church is doing - saying in a sermon Jan. 30 that married couples should not feel guilty about having sex and doing so without specific intent to conceive.
Of course, should they happen to conceive, that wouldn't exactly be a bad thing, according to Archbishop Christodoulos during his sermon. He called lovemaking "a blessed act of marriage" that is "a gift God has given to man and it should not be considered a sin."
The Orthodox Church is involved in a campaign to reverse Greece's declining birth rate, the Associated Press says, a trend which has forced closings of many primary schools and led the government to mull reorganizing pension plans and mandatory military service.
Christodoulos also said the church may start summer camps for young marrieds to let them "deepen their relationship and avoid eventually joining the growing number of divorced Greeks," the AP says.
