The Orthodox Church hasn’t issued a binding dogmatic statement on evolution. There’s no ecumenical council decree, no universal creed-level pronouncement that tells you exactly what to think about Darwin or the age of the earth. What we do have is a consistent theological framework that must be preserved, whatever scientific theories come and go.
That framework matters more than the science. Genesis isn’t a biology textbook. It’s not trying to teach you about genetics or fossils or the Cambrian explosion. The creation accounts are theological, they tell us who God is, who we are, why the world is broken, and why we need Christ. When you read Genesis in church, you’re hearing about God’s sovereignty, humanity’s unique calling as image-bearers, the entrance of death through sin, and the promise of redemption. You’re not getting a scientific journal article from 1500 BC.
What Orthodox Christians Agree On
We all confess that God created everything out of nothing. The universe isn’t self-existent or eternal in the way God is. Creation is good, not evil or illusory. Human beings are unique, made in God’s image, not just smart animals. We’re called to communion with God, to theosis. And something went catastrophically wrong. Sin entered the world, death came through sin, and we’ve been dying ever since. Christ came as the New Adam to defeat death and restore us.
Those aren’t negotiable. How you square them with evolutionary biology? That’s where Orthodox Christians disagree.
Some Orthodox theologians and priests are comfortable with theistic evolution, provided it doesn’t erase human uniqueness or deny that death is the result of the Fall. They read Genesis as ancient Near Eastern theological poetry, not as a competing scientific hypothesis. They point out that the Church Fathers themselves disagreed about the “days” of creation, St. Augustine thought God created everything instantaneously, St. Basil took the days literally, Origen saw them as symbolic ages. If the Fathers could disagree about the mechanics, maybe we have room to think carefully about modern science too.
Other Orthodox voices reject evolution entirely. They argue that evolutionary theory inherently contradicts Scripture because it requires death before Adam, and St. Paul is clear that death entered through sin. If animals were dying for millions of years before humans showed up, how can death be the wages of sin? They insist on a historical Adam and Eve, a real garden, a real fall that happened in space and time. Some modern elders and saints have taught a young earth and six literal days. That’s not fringe, it’s a real position held by serious Orthodox Christians.
Fr. Lawrence Farley, an OCA priest, has written that we shouldn’t embrace “creation science” as if it’s required Orthodox teaching. He says Genesis wasn’t written to answer the questions modern science asks. But he also doesn’t dismiss the theological stakes. The question isn’t just about fossils. It’s about whether death is natural or the result of sin, whether humanity fell from somewhere or evolved upward, whether we need a Savior or just better education.
What This Means for You
If you’re coming from a Baptist background here in Southeast Texas, you might’ve grown up with young-earth creationism as the only acceptable Christian position. You might be surprised that Orthodoxy doesn’t have an official party line. If you’re coming from a more liberal Protestant church or from academia, you might be surprised that many Orthodox Christians do take Genesis quite literally and aren’t embarrassed about it.
The Church gives you less certainty on the scientific questions than you might want. But she gives you absolute certainty on the theological ones. You don’t have to have an opinion on the age of the earth to be Orthodox. You do have to confess that God created you, that you’re broken by sin, and that Jesus Christ trampled down death by death.
What you can’t do is treat Genesis as disposable mythology or reduce human beings to accidents of chemistry. We’re not highly evolved apes who invented God to cope with mortality. We’re fallen image-bearers who were made for eternal life and lost it, and who are being restored by the incarnate Son of God. That’s the non-negotiable center.
The pastoral advice most Orthodox teachers give is this: hold your scientific opinions loosely and your theology tightly. Be humble about what Genesis does and doesn’t tell us about paleontology. Be stubborn about what it tells us about God, humanity, sin, and salvation. Don’t let either fundamentalism or scientism become your functional religion.
If you want to read more on this, Fr. Thomas Hopko’s “Speaking the Truth in Love” podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio touch on Scripture and science occasionally, always with that same balance, theological clarity, scientific humility. The goal isn’t to win a debate about the Cambrian period. It’s to know God and be transformed into His likeness. That’s what Genesis is actually about.
