The Professor of the Holy Monastery of Esfigmenos on Mount Athos, Bartholomew, posted his comment on the discussion about Holy Communion and the Coronavirus on social media:
Original text:
Lately, in the midst of a pandemic, as it should not be, there is a lot of discussion about Holy Communion, about whether one can catch a coronavirus or not by taking it. The issue was raised at the beginning of the pandemic by extra-church circles. The discussion has been going on for months with a number of articles and statements from both sides. One side accuses the other of not having the power to speak on the issue. Or for medical issues and not for matters of faith.
According to our orthodox teaching and faith, Holy Communion is the transfiguration of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the living God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, who from extreme humility embraced human nature, suffered, was crucified and resurrected out of love. for the human! Holy Communion is the "loving" union of Man with God!
These and much more about the sacrament of Holy Communion, as well as about the other doctrines of our faith, we Christians learn from our first steps in the Church! It is very good that these discussions take place constantly within the Church, so that the faithful people know their faith! In the public sphere, however, that is, in public debates with society as a whole, the exact same issues need to be approached and discussed in a completely different way. In society there are not only Christians, but also believers in other religions, non-religious, agnostics, atheists, etc.
In a pandemic, the health of one depends directly on the health of the other. Under normal circumstances, when people share utensils, the chances of a virus being transmitted are greatly increased. In the case of Holy Communion, no matter how much Christians believe that a miracle is taking place, Christ does not allow us to impose our beliefs on others "in a heresy" and in a stupid way.
Christ said "whoever wants" to believe in Him and follow Him. Therefore, we His disciples have no right to impose ourselves on the whole society by saying "you want - you do not want you will believe in our faith that viruses are not transmitted by Holy Communion"! This would be foreign to the orthodox ethos and commandment to love and respect everyone. It is by no means a confession of faith, as it is heard by many. Such a thing would be a kind of "crusade", with disastrous results for the faith itself. Let us not forget that such situations contributed to the prevalence of atheism in the former crusader states of Western Europe.
After all, this controversy is completely meaningless, as it is not possible to identify exactly where and how someone contracted the virus. As long as Christians insist that Holy Communion does not get stuck, the other side attributes all the problems to Holy Communion, especially when a priest may catch a coronavirus. Thus, we Christians, who "bite the bait", who throw us and constantly discuss this issue in public, are also responsible for focusing the whole discussion on Holy Communion.
The Lord, however, taught us to protect the saints of our faith. The saints are not offered for display in the "public square". The saints are not offered for confrontation with society. To publicly invoke our experience and invite for scientific experiments with Holy Communion, to prove our positions and to prevail, degrades the spiritual event and our relationship with God and becomes disrespectful.
Miracles are always done in a secret and invisible way to the material eyes and measuring instruments, in a way that can be easily challenged! Miracles are usually perceived by the spiritual senses of man.
This is what the Lord wants, this is the plan of the Divine Economy, so that people may believe freely, out of love, and not out of the compulsion of material proofs and out of fear. At his Crucifixion Christ did not use miracles, while he could, to convince man. He would then deprive him of the autonomy and the right of choice, with which He has endowed him. Instead, he used His example and sacrifice, calling "in freedom" anyone who wants to follow Him. Even the Resurrection of the Lord took place in secret!
Christ will appear "after glory", in an obvious, miraculous and indisputable way - to every human being - in the Second Coming. People crucified the Lord asking Him "in glory" to come down from the cross and prove that He is the Son of God. Extreme Humility and His Love did not answer this request. At the end of history, people will glorify the Antichrist as God, as he will satisfy them with false "after glory" miracles that they will seek. So, until the Second Coming, the Divine Economy wants the miracles humble, spiritual and visible according to the spiritual condition of everyone.
It is not right to use the saints of our faith and the miracles of God to impose ourselves on others. God does not bless such behavior. Many times we forget that we are disciples of Christ and think that we are exclusively defenders of ideas and symbols of our identity, simply because we happened to be born in this country and baptized by our parents. We are afraid that they are fighting us, we are afraid that we will be lost as an identity and as a tradition. In other words, we look at how we will save ourselves, rather than how we will have a living and true relationship with God and our fellow man. We use the saints of the faith as signs of rivalry. We try to impose ourselves in advance, out of fear that others may impose themselves on us, justifying that we are supposedly defending the faith and God!
Do not be afraid, brothers! Christianity was born and raised in conditions of real persecution! When people had a living relationship with Christ. Today we think that, if our will is not done, our faith will be persecuted! Do not be afraid! Love God and fellow man and everything else comes by itself! Christians do not belong to a closed group, but they must be active members of society, the "salt of the earth"!
Today our faith is perhaps more endangered by some who frequent the temples and cause trouble than by the "day and wise sheep" who, while loving God, may avoid the temples because of the former. Parishes should be communities of love. If we Christians do not stop behaving as followers of a group and if we do not stop dealing exclusively with the protection of our identity, that is, in essence, taking care of our selfishness, we are not going to come into sharing and loving fellowship with the rest of our fellow human beings. Ethnocentrism dissolves, does not unite the Church.
With such an attitude we scandalize all the others. Not only will more people not come to faith, but we and our children are in danger of becoming unfaithful. The reason is that when one day we wake up and realize that God does not act according to our desires, then we will blame God and believe.
The argument "let me who I believe to communicate with, you who do not believe not share" does not apply in the event of a pandemic. We believe, and this is respected by all, but we blackmail the whole of society into believing that what we are doing will not make the situation worse. A pandemic is like a fire, it is transmitted from house to house, it has relapsing fires; therefore, everyone has a direct interest in every possible fire in the house next door.
Decisions in the Church must be made with love and the fear of God, and not with a secular "fear of men" or phobias about the reactions of "angry crowds." The truth must be confessed. The truth will set us free and the Lord will be with us. "Know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 32). It is not possible for the affairs of the Church to be influenced by temporary groups of angry "Pharisees", who call themselves "believers". It is not possible for a savage minority to impose itself on the majority of Christians simply because it shouts and commits violence.
Therefore, let us lovingly follow the commandments of the Lord. Without confrontation, but with love, we can find a solution to all the issues that arise. Faith is not what everyone imagines right and left, nor what happens in the last century alone. Faith is the living relationship of the Church with Christ! The Church is not a simple human organization with centuries of experience, but a theo-human organization headed by Christ, who through the Holy Spirit enlightens the members of her Body to find solutions to issues that arise when they meet and discuss them in spirit. of love.
It is sad that the ultimate sacrament, Holy Communion, is being turned into a point of confrontation and division, instead of a point of communion and unity. What matters is the transfiguration of the Body and Blood of Christ and not the way. Let us not forget that the greatest miracle of Holy Communion is the alteration of our soul, a continuous process of repentance and union with the Lord! Our Church has existed for 2.000 years and will exist until the end, because within It there is an evolving, living and constantly fed relationship between God and man!
In conclusion, the whole issue is not a matter of persecuting Christians or respecting others in our faith. As in the Church all believers are one spiritual body, we must not forget that - in times of pandemic - and all the people of the earth are "one body" in the context of health. If some members of the "body" get sick, the rest are also at risk. Therefore, the concerns of the social body are reasonable, we must respect them and we can not impose our beliefs on everyone!
+ arch. Bartholomew, Professor of the Holy Sepulcher