THE HAGUE, Netherlands -The Dutch parliament approved a bill legalizing euthanasia yesterday, positioning the Netherlands to become the first nation to openly let doctors help suffering patients end their lives.

Advocates of patients’ right to die voiced praise for the vote, but many Christian groups and others condemned it, led by the Vatican, which said the law “violates human dignity.”

Fending off concerns the Netherlands could become a haven for patients from abroad seeking to end their lives, Dutch officials stressed that foreigners would be unable to meet strict standards under the law for allowing euthanasia.

“There is no possibility for foreigners to come here for euthanasia, " said Wijnand Stevens of the Justice Ministry. “The criteria call for a long-term doctor-patient relationship. They are just too strict for that.”

All 100 seats in parliament’s public gallery were full for yesterday’s vote, in which legislators announced their votes aloud as requested by a Christian party opposed to the bill.

After the 104-40 vote in Parliament’s lower house, the bill was expected to win approval by the upper house early next year and become law.

With the law, the Netherlands would formalize the tolerance it has long held toward euthanasia - thousands of cases are reported every year here and many more go unreported. In 1993, legislators passed a set of guidelines that doctors could follow to carry out euthanasia and - it was understood - go unprosecuted.

Still, euthanasia was a crime punishable by up to 12 years in prison. The new legislation largely adopts the informal guidelines, which say the patient must be feeling unrelenting suffering and know all the medical options.

“Doctors should not be treated as criminals. This will create security for doctors and patients alike,” said Health Minister Els Borst, who drafted the bill.

“Something as serious as ending one’s life deserves openness,” she said after the vote.

The Vatican said the law was “a sad record for Holland,” and spokesman Joaquin Navarro- Valls said it “violates human dignity.”