Christians (maybe especially Orthodox Christians) desperately need to recognize that science has been making enormous strides in uncovering the history of humanity and previously-unknown laws of the universe, before clinging to a literal interpretation of Genesis and taking a generally hostile stance towards modern science. We are not sinking back into pre-modern ignorance of the physical world any time soon, in fact incredible developments e.g. truly artificial life/genetic engineering can be expected in the near future, so I suggest we reconcile ourselves to this reality.
I think there is an assumption here that those who reject
human evolution as improbable or impossible (acknowledging that SOME living organisms DO exhibit adaptive change over time) are "clinging" (a verb connoting fear) to certain understandings as literal, though I don't think, in general, that educated Orthodox Christians would insist that everything described in the Bible must be understood literally.
In fact, I would point out the danger of putting the natural sciences in an unwarranted psition of authority, or more accurately, of accepting widely held modern materialist interpretations of scientists (who can only come to conclusions through their science about the material world, anyway) as inerrant truth. The real danger is the idea that, because the natural sciences seem to be gaining knowledge over time, that the ability of scientists to think about said accumulation is correspondingly improving; indeed, that such improvement is inevitable. I think such an assumption to be seriously in error, approaching what I would call "science-worship". The problem that I see is that while the sciences may have made gains in technical knowledge, the philosophy governing thinking about such things has not only failed to improve, but has drastically degraded. In ither words, we are becoming idiot-savants, having more and more knowledge, and less and less of both wisdom and reason.
On genetic engineering, the very first book I would refer you to is GK Chesterton's "On Eugenics and Other Evils". One must recognize the enormous capacity for evil that is not only possible, but likely to be realized. The great evils approaching in this ability to do incredible things combined with an utter lack of wisdom guiding what ought to be, or not to be done, are horrifying, to those who can see this.
We agree that the natural sciences should be respected in their proper place, and that mindless fundamentalism is not Christian wisdom. But modern scientists do not have the essential keys to help us understand even this world, let alone the realities behind it. They see a silhouette of a man raising a knife over a sleeping victim, when, if the curtain be drawn aside, we would see a doctor at an operating table.
