Orthodoxy

Universalism, Fundamentalism, and I think I took a wrong turn

Buckle in; this is a long one.  So I just finished reading (finally) David Bentley Hart’s treatise on universalism, That All Shall be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation.  I avoided it for a time because of a disappointing review by my good friend Giacomo (here).

But it lays plain the very thoughts I’ve had about Hell for many years, starting with a story of an autistic child traumatized by the realization of what Hell means.  I was that child myself, 40 years ago, and the trauma never left, leading to a spiritual OCD or scrupulosity of the type often experienced by those of us raised in fundamentalist religious groups.  Not only did I fear that one unrepented slipup before death could lead to eternal Hell, but I constantly inwardly groaned for and prayed for the souls of both the dead and the living, afraid that most of them were in Hell, including all Catholics born before Luther came along (because they–I was taught–went to Hell because nobody knew to say the Sinner’s Prayer).

I inwardly groaned constantly in prayer for the souls of the 3000 killed on 9-11, especially when the pastor in our EFCA church said most of them went to Hell.  One day on the way out the door to work, I thought of a hypothetical Muslim woman living her life in, say, Saudi Arabia just as I would do, piously following her faith, doing housework and taking care of kids and dealing with husband and the like, then going to Hell because she wasn’t a Christian.  None of it seemed fair, yet my religion told me my doubts were heretical.

I looked at the Separation of the Sheep from the Goats again, and none of it said people who weren’t Christians went to Hell.  It was all about behavior: who cared about their fellow humans, and who didn’t.  I even wrote this down.  Yet I felt like a heretic.  Several years later, it was a relief to find that Orthodox thinking was the same as mine.

When I turned away from Evangelicalism entirely and into the Presbyterian Church (USA), I thought I was done.  This was a moderate church, so as I said, I could go back and forth from conservative to liberal and back again and stay in the same church.  I was interested in their views on abortion and gay rights, which seemed refreshingly moderate.  Then I read in the denominational magazine that there are universalists in the church and this is okay, so I started seeking them out.

I learned about five patriarchates in the Early Church and universalism being the accepted view, and looked for historical backing for this claim.  I asked my new Orthodox friend Richard (the Narcissist) what Orthodoxy says about this, and it seemed to back this up.  Treatises such as the River of Fire and St. Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Soul and Resurrection made my heart erupt with joy and stop doubting or despairing over the existence of God (at least temporarily).

At first I looked at Orthodox beliefs and despaired that I couldn’t join that church because of its regressive views on homosexuality, women, and abortion.  But I kept researching Orthodoxy and couldn’t resist the siren call of the theology, the artwork, the incense, the supposed ancient Christianity (as opposed to endless variations of Scholasticism, Reformation, Wesleyism, Pietism, Calvinism, etc. etc.).  Now we had the Energies of God, Tartarus and Hades and Gehenna instead of Hell, no Total Depravity, no Wrath of God, no Penal Substitution…. It was like a dream.

Incidentally, as I work on this, the song Wings of a Butterfly by HIM has come up in my Master Playlist, which is my media playlist of all my records and tapes and CDs, digitized and combined with all my MP3s.  That song came out while I was researching these things, and I played it over and over again late at night while the household slept and I surfed the Web for information on Orthodox theology.  It reminded me of this search and of Richard, who I was also talking to about Orthodoxy.

St. Gregory of Nyssa became my patron saint.  I got the name “Nyssa” in my Internet handle from Doctor Who, but discovered St. Gregory’s name in an encyclopedia one day in my teens, which surprised me.  I didn’t know Nyssa was a real name, rather than one made up for the show.  It used to be “Nyssa of Traken,” later dropping “of Traken” because some BBS bullies turned it into NOT, but picking up “the Hobbit” in 2001 because MSN Messenger said there were too many Nyssas.  It was only later that I knew anything at all about St. Gregory of Nyssa.  After I learned he was a universalist, I also learned he was a kindred spirit, so I took him as my patron saint in 2009.  Now I learn that DB Hart is enamored with St. Gregory as well, and I think, “Another kindred spirit!”

For many years, I was satisfied in Orthodoxy.  The doctrine was perfect; my church was ecumenical and allowed for different opinions on politics and religious practices; there were no headscarves or Harry Potter hatred; women wore pants and sometimes even tennis shoes in church; women did the readings and had a lot of power in the church; nobody talked about Toll Houses or Father Seraphim Rose; wives held jobs and used birth control; it wasn’t at all fundie.  To this day I have no idea how the priest in those days voted.  His daughter was definitely a liberal.  The Net-o-doxy I found on Internet forums was just a strange strain of fundamentalist fervor that had nothing to do with real-life Orthodoxy.  Richard told me not to let the Net-o-dox keep me away from Orthodoxy.

At first I still followed the idea I’d been raised with, that the Church and the Bible define what is correct; I was moving in a liberal direction regarding all sorts of things, but some quotes from the Fathers convinced me that original Orthodoxy condemned abortion, homosexual behavior, etc., so I had to go with that.  The Net-o-dox also got me thinking for a time that the Right way of doing things was for a parent to stay at home with the children rather than using Day Care.  My liberal drift was temporarily halted.

I’m not exactly sure why I veered back on track again.  Something hit me one day and made me think I was spending too much time on the Orthodox forums and needed to get back onto the Goth forums I’d been neglecting.  Shortly after this, the spell was broken, my mind cleared, I started looking more at science instead of religion for science facts, remembered that women should do whatever is best for their family, started watching the Daily Show and Colbert, and wondered what had come over me.  But I stayed on the Orthodox path, joining officially in 2009–completely coincidentally on the feast day of St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Now I fear that I may have made a wrong turn somewhere.  For one thing, I never have reconciled myself to the church’s insistence on full burial instead of cremation.  It seems a waste of money and usable land to me.  But I had other things to think about.  In the past decade, I was distracted by things like recovering from the narcissistic abuse and spell put over me by Richard and his wife, then the fear and loathing brought on by a narcissistic sociopath named Trump becoming president.  2020 came and COVID brought out the worst in people, severing relationships and showing us just how sick this country is now.  Fascists and their guns are threatening the peace of everyone, shooting up shopping malls and schools, threatening officials, rumbling about Civil War.  There was no time to pay attention to what was going on in the Greek Orthodox Church of America.  I had no idea until it hit my own church.

Our Archbishop said we could use separate spoons for the Eucharist when the churches opened up, but all of our Metropolitans refused.  So I refused to go to church until I got my vaccine.  So we were to follow all these rules of social distancing and masking, yet share a spoon with a couple dozen other people?  We might as well sit next to each other and breathe on each other!  Believing the Eucharist protects you from disease has proven to be magical thinking and false; not only did I find anecdotal evidence of disease spreading that way, but there were news reports of COVID spreading through Serbian Orthodox funerals.  I write about this here.  But finally, just in time for Eastern Palm Sunday 2021, I had my J&J shot and the antibodies had time to propagate.  I came and I shared the Eucharist for the first time since February 2020, when we celebrated the retirement of our last priest.

Then after church, as I waited by the door for my husband to pick me up, a new person I didn’t know started yelling and screaming and pointing her finger at the parish president and some other new person I didn’t know.  I’d seen her online, so she’d been masking up for a while, but for some reason she chose this day to yell about it.  She said that in Greece they call them “clown masks” and that the nuns at the local monastery were trying to get rid of the Metropolitan for requiring them.  Another person I knew rolled his eyes; the other new person said to the president, “She’s right.”  I was tense and upset and wondered what the frick was going on in my church.

In the time since, I’ve discovered things changed a lot in the COVID year.  New priest, new people, new influx of tales about what the nuns in that monastery say about this or that.  Visits to the monastery.  Politics and culture wars in the sermons.

Going through old posts on my blog, I’m reminded that I’ve doubted my conversion in the past, but chosen to stay put.  These posts are here and here; they go into detail I don’t have time or space to put in this post.  They’re from 2013 and 2018–so, basically, every 5 years is a crisis of faith over one thing or another, and something makes me stay put.

But my liberal beliefs are staying put as well.  I’ve put 20 or 30 years of thought, observation, and research into them.  Up until now, I was able to keep going to my church despite them.  But what happened in the COVID year to change everything?  How did we go from priests who don’t tell you how to vote or think, to a priest who tells you the right thinking about everything from what school to put your kids in to what party to vote for?  How did we get a priest who says the government is evil?  Sure I’d hear things like this in the church basement from parishioners or the archon.  Sure the last priest occasionally complained about culture wars.  But I could roll my eyes and ignore it, keep going on, remember that we have Democrats in the church.  What changed?

I’ve been doing research, posts on Reddit, Google searches, whatever I can find.  And this sums it all up:

The Greek church in America has been infected by a network of spiritually abusive, fundamentalist, and financially/ethically questionable monasteries planted by the late Elder Ephraim.  While I enjoyed the peace of my own ecumenical church, Ephraimite teachings have been spreading throughout America, especially in my own Metropolis.  Many people–fervent believers, active in their churches, NOT Easter-Christmas Christians–have left the church over this.  A decade ago, a Monastery Review Committee was even put together to investigate these monasteries and make recommendations–only to have their report put on a shelf six years ago to never see the light of day.

My research has revealed that I, with my liberal ideas and horror at Ephraimite teachings, have a LOT of company in the Greek church.  Many people just like me have hoped the archdiocese will become more open and inclusive to both women in clerical roles and LGBTQ+.  But of the many issues causing parishes to leak members, this spread of Ephraimite ideas is one of the major reasons devoted members of the Orthodox church are leaving it for good.  There have been reports of people going into the monasteries and being spiritually abused; one person, Scott Nevins, even committed suicide on the steps of the Arizona monastery.  I never heard about any of this until now, even though it all happened in the past decade.  And my local monastery, part of the Ephraimite network, keeps popping up in reports I find.

Ephraimite ideas include the Aerial Toll House heresy, encouraging married couples to live as brother and sister, fundamentalist practices for women, us vs. them, following the Elder and not ecumenical priests, they’re “spiritual” and ecumenists are not.

Some of the Ephraimite ideas remind me of things Richard told me back in the long-ago times: his complaints that my church was too ecumenical, too Western.

I fear that Richard’s influence, and a spell woven over me by love-bombing Orthodox forums, may have led me in the wrong direction.  Don’t listen to the Netodox, they said.  Don’t listen to the fundamentalist sites; they’re not truly Orthodox, they said.  Now there’s been a fundamentalist backlash all across this nation, and it’s infecting politics, culture, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Evangelicalism, everything.  We have conmen such as Jay Dyer, the Monomakhos site, Josiah Trenham, and others, telling us falsehoods about religion and politics, and saying this is Orthodoxy.  The woman-hating incels and MRAs are telling us to reject feminism and be manly bodybuilders if we want to be Orthodox.  I never used to hear about this local monastery at church, but now I keep hearing in sermons and in the basement what the nuns think about politics, COVID, burial practices, religion….. Now we’re doing annual trips there.

One sermon praised Kyle Rittenhouse and said the nuns were praying for him.  Another denied racism exists in the church.  Another said that teachers are making our kids trans, so we have to pull them out of public schools, and we have an evil government, and oh by the way, don’t be afraid to discipline your kids.  (“Discipline” in what way, exactly?)  God doesn’t make people trans, that sermon said, so teach your boys to be men and your girls to be women.  Then after the sermon, a parishioner went up to the priest and said, “I blame the parents.”

That was three months ago.  I haven’t been back since.  That was my What The F*ck moment, though really it was the culmination of a series of WTF moments.  But I haven’t officially left because my mind is still reeling, my heart is still sunk, I found a potential new spiritual home, but just jumping out of my church home of 16 years is frightening and dismaying.  I fear letting people down.  But I look around–Reddit, Facebook, Twitter–and find many other Orthodox believers who have either left the church or are seriously considering it over these same things.

Here are my best sources of information on the Ephraimite monasteries, including a blog post written by one of the members of that Monastery Review Committee:

What is an Ephraimite?

Go Truth Reform

Who Lost Chicago? by Bill George Stotis of the MRC

Religious Pluralism, Fundamentalism and Contested Identities in North American Orthodox Religious Life: The Case of the Greek Orthodox Church in North America by Professor Frances Kostarelos

Video of the above presentation

News Report by NBC affiliate in Arizona on spiritual abuse in Ephraimite monastery there, parts one and two

But what I really wanted all along was to be a Universalist!  I didn’t want to escape the spiritual abuse of fundamentalist/Evangelical churches, only to enter another spiritually abusive church!  I didn’t want to escape the lie that Christian=Republican, only to find it again in a new church!  I feel bait and switched.  I thought these things were not present in Greek Orthodoxy in America.

GOARCH archbishop called “woke” while OCA bans individual thought

So two things are going on at once in two different Orthodox jurisdictions in the USA:

First, our GOARCH archbishop is taking fire for daring to baptize the baby of a gay couple.  I am greatly encouraged by signs like these, from him and our local Metropolitan Nathaniel, of an opening of the church to more inclusive ideas.  For example, the Metropolitan told my church at his last visit that we should have altar girls.  Now I don’t think the Archbishop is necessarily advocating for gay marriage, but at the very least he doesn’t seem to feel that the gender/marital arrangement of a baby’s parents should affect whether the baby can be baptized.

Adapt or die–As more and more young people see the vast difference between the regressive ideas of conservative churches and what’s going on with their own friends and science/medicine, we’ll see the steady decline of all but the oldest and most extreme members of such congregations in the future.  I’m pretty sure that most churches don’t preach that the sun revolves around the Earth anymore, and even the Catholic church apparently abandoned the “Evolution is Evilution” mindset years ago.

But of course, we can’t possibly introduce any sort of love or change into our churches, because they’re full of Pharisees (see the essay I wrote on this nearly 20 years ago).  Already Archbishop Elpidophoros is getting pushback, with all sorts of angry blogs and objections from the Greek Church and a Greek Metropolitan (hey, we’re American now, not Greek!).

I strongly suspect that if Jesus were to physically come back and walk among our churches, there would be a lot of yelling going on, right before they took out an AR-15 to execute him for blasphemy for saying that we should ditch the guns and accept people on the queer spectrum and call them whatever they want.

But on the other hand, the OCA has just made a statement that basically bans everyone–even laypeople opining on their own websites–from deviating from the official church position that the queer spectrum is full of deviance and perversion.  Anyone who violates this is subject to excommunication now.  So you have to ignore your own eyes, your own knowledge, your own conscience, and CONFORM to Groupthink lest you be tossed into outer darkness.

Giacomo Sanfilippo of Orthodoxy in Dialogue is being persecuted for defending LGBTQ+

My friend Giacomo runs the site Orthodoxy in Dialogue, which has quickly become the standard bearer for LGBTQ+ people gaining acceptance in the Orthodox Church.  And this has made him a target for a fundamentalist contingent which has a lot in common with MAGAs, many modern white Evangelical/Fundamentalist churches, and a certain anti-Francis segment of the Catholic Church.

We have learned a lot about gender variations over the past 2000 years, things which people just didn’t know back when the Bible was written, just as with human reproduction (people used to think there were little men in sperm) and astronomy.  If the Church truly is not against science, then it has to admit when it’s pushing views that are hopelessly antiquated.  But some people are against any kind of change even when it’s desperately needed.

Many of us want people to be allowed to marry whoever they want and stay in full communion.  This isn’t about allowing licentiousness or promiscuity or pedophilia in the church–homophobic tropes where people just assume if you’re gay, you must be in favor of these things as well.  Society in general has been moving toward acceptance, but some just want to drag us backwards again.

For several years, Giacomo Sanfilippo has been subject to various attacks for trying to change hearts in the Orthodox churches so they can be safe spaces for believers who are LGBTQ+.  He’s been slandered, libeled, sued for defamation, and now he’s been doxxed on Twitter. They’re trying to get him in trouble with his bishop.  It’s being done by a group of people who claim to be “Christian” and call him and his allies “wolves.”

But I’ve seen a sample of their behavior online, and–to paraphrase John Fugelsang–I’ve seen atheists who are better Christians than these people.  They have no idea what Christianity is.  They’re the pack of wolves.  They harass, troll, abuse, and give Christ a black eye with everything they do.  They need to get off the frickin’ Twitter, sit down with the Red Letters of Christ, and come to repentance for the hate that fills their hearts, because right now it’s Satan they’re serving, not God.

So The Ancient Way Forum has been taken over by racists?

I used to be a daily visitor to The Ancient Way forum, 15 years ago.  It’s where I learned about Orthodoxy and finally decided to join the Church.  I was Nyssa the Hobbit there, too.

Wow. I’m so glad I left TAW years ago.

Wow. Looks like the racists have taken over and won’t let anybody support BLM or call out racism in the church: christianforums.com/threads/the-ca

Just, wow.

And the racists over there–I RECOGNIZE THEM.  I REMEMBER THEM.  So no, it hasn’t “changed.”  I guess they just didn’t show their true racist a**hole colors back then.

The thread has been locked, and I don’t know how much attention this post will get over there, but I just wanted to call it out: TAW is NOT SAFE.  It’s not the haven I once saw it as, so many years ago.  I’m also looking over some other threads that have posted lately, and it’s a frickin’ cesspool of hate and regression.  It makes me sick reading what’s there nowadays.  And they apparently don’t allow anyone to come in and disagree with them.  It inspired me to post this on Facebook:

If you listen to or read Rush Limbaugh/Hannity/Ben Shapiro/Breitbart/OANN/etc., unfriend me now.
If you follow Mens Rights Activists, incels, or red pillers, unfriend me now.
If you think it’s justified for cops to shoot unarmed people just because they “didn’t obey” some command or other, unfriend me now. Slave masters used to use the same reasoning.
If you can watch videos like that of Philando Castile and still say racism had nothing to do with that cop gunning him down, unfriend me now.
If you think the alt-right isn’t so bad, unfriend me now.
If you like to say “radical Left,” unfriend me now.
If you think it’s racist to call out people for being racist, unfriend me now.
If you think BLM is racist or Marxist, unfriend me now.
If you think Confederate flags are fine, unfriend me now.
If you think it’s great to dance on the grave of RBG, unfriend me now.
If you think women need to submit, or that Kamala Harris’ debate performance was “unbecoming,” unfriend me now.
If you think Trump is the Second Coming, unfriend me now.
If you think it’s fine to put refugees and migrants in concentration camps, and to do whatever it takes to keep them out of our country, unfriend me now.
If you refuse to listen to why women are scared about losing their rights, unfriend me now.
If you beat children, unfriend me now.
If you refuse to see why many people are scared they’re about to lose their health coverage, unfriend me now.
Seriously, anybody who holds “values” like the above, is incompatible with mine. I want nothing to do with people like that. I’m reading through an “Orthodox” forum with “Christians” saying some things like that, and it’s making me sick to my stomach. These are not “Christian.” These are not “moral.” These are not “values.” They are immoral and the spirit of antichrist.

[Note: I didn’t see all of this on TAW just now, though I probably would if I looked long enough.]

Update 10/15/20: I just posted this on Facebook:

So tired of being told that Christians can’t possibly be Democrats/Biden supporters/BLM supporters/etc. So tired of people saying this on social media, on Orthodox forums. So tired of people being upset when they find out a Christian celebrity is against Trump, an LGBTQ supporter, a Democrat, etc. So tired of people tying Christianity to the GOP as if there were anything Christian about it.

 

Don’t force me to share a common spoon during COVID

First the American archbishop said that we should use separate spoons.  Then regional metropolitans, including ours, began to direct their parishes that no, we will NOT change any communion practices.  When people praise these metropolitans, I think, “You’re praising people for making it impossible for people like me to take Communion for a year and a half; you’re praising people for possibly condemning thousands to contract COVID.”

Yet GOARCH has published articles (see below) explaining that sharing communion spoons is NOT the unchangeable from-the-beginning Tradition people think it is.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck knowing that established science is FACT–confirmed by experiment and reproduction of results, not subject to what you think about it–and how disease spreads.  Social distancing–wearing masks, not kissing the icons, not wiping your mouth on the communion cloth, no coffee hour, sitting apart–seems all for naught if you stick a spoon in your mouth that somebody else just had in their mouth.  That’s the way germs spread!  In an article I link below, Fr. Alkiviadis C. Calivas writes,

Some who wish to retain the common spoon believe it is sufficient to teach the communicants to tilt their head back and open their mouth wide, so that the priest may drop or pour the sacred elements into the mouth of the recipient. The aim of this method is to avoid touching the communicant’s mouth and lips. However, this model is not fail-safe; it does not guarantee the desired outcome.

I’ve tried that, only to have the altar server tell me to close my mouth on the spoon.  And my mouth is small, according to my dentist; my jaw has TMJ; I simply can’t open wide enough.  The priest nearly always seems to dribble the wine all over my face, and now they say they don’t want us to wipe our faces on the cloth.  If there is some “special” way to receive that avoids all this, I’ve never been taught how to do it.  I greatly miss the communion cups I grew up with.

It feels like many in the church insist on sacrificing health for the sake of “tradition”–and will end up killing many of us, while this disease spreads without any sort of vaccine or reliable treatment expected for another year.  Even for those who survive, yes that’s most people, but we don’t know yet what all the long-term repercussions will be.  We’re already seeing the body adversely affected in other ways, in children, the young and healthy, middle-aged, and elderly.

I do know that many times I’ve come home with some kind of illness that somebody at church had.  How do you KNOW it didn’t come from sharing a spoon with them?  You’d have to do an actual experiment using the scientific method to prove this.  Has anyone ever done this?

Before COVID, I shared the spoon because I could count on my vaccinations and strong constitution to keep me safe from dying from something spread at church; not this time.  This puts us in the same camp as the Evangelicals who went to church during the shutdowns saying they’re “covered by the Blood”–and then they got sick with COVID and many died.  We have many stories of churches around the world holding services or other meetings during COVID, only to have large numbers of the congregation get sick and even die from it.  Obviously, God is not miraculously keeping these people safe after not following health guidelines.

During the Spanish Flu of 1918,

In the deeply pious Spanish city of Zamora, for example, the local bishop defied the health authorities by ordering a novena – evening prayers on nine consecutive days – in honour of Saint Rocco, the patron saint of plague and pestilence. This involved churchgoers lining up to kiss the saint’s relics, around the time that the outbreak peaked. Zamora went on to record the highest flu-related death rate of any city in Spain, and one of the highest in Europe. —The Guardian

This Thing isn’t over yet, and a second wave is expected.

Catholic churches have changed their practices to reflect the COVID risk.  They’re the closest church to us in theology and practice, and even they are taking this seriously.  The Protestant churches I was in as a young person, all had individual cups with grape juice in them.  Only the Orthodox are forcing people to share a spoon to commune, with some people making it a litmus test of faith to browbeat those of us who don’t think this is safe.  It’s not HOW the communion is given to us that is the absolute unchanging Tradition-That-Must-Never-Change: It is the elements of the communion, the bread and wine, that are important.  Everything else is subject to change.  Remember that when people started doing this, they didn’t know about germs.

From this article by Fr. Alkiviadis C. Calivas, I’m surprised to learn that the Orthodox church hasn’t even been doing this for 1000 years.  The practice used to be more like the Catholics, with bread distributed into the hand and then the chalice offered by the deacon.  In fact, using a common spoon was initially seen as an Innovation, which is frowned upon in Orthodoxy.  He writes,

The method by which Communion is administered is purely functional. It serves a practical purpose. Thus, as warranted by needs and circumstances, a local Church in its collective wisdom and authority is free to adapt, modify, and manage the method by which Holy Communion is distributed. Whatever method a Church chooses, the single most important concern is that it does not violate any dogmas and that it is appropriate; that it upholds and maintains the dignity of the sacred act of communing.

We learn from St. Nikodemos that during plagues priests were known to use arbitrary methods to administer communion to the sick and dying. In a comment on canon 28 of the Penthekte Synod, he chides the clergy for using unsuitable methods to deliver Communion to the sick. He recommends a more appropriate method. He writes: “Hence, both priests and prelates must employ some shift in time of a plague to enable them to administer communion to the sick without violating this canon; not, however, by placing the holy Bread in currants, but in some sacred vessel, so that the dying and the sick may take it thence with tongs or the like. The vessel and the tongs are to be placed in vinegar, and the vinegar is to be poured into a funnel, or in any other manner that they can that is safer and canonical.”

St. Nikodemos’ brief note is significant in two ways. First, he insists the vessels used for Communion be sterilized with vinegar, a popular disinfectant from ancient times. This is an acknowledgment that the vessels or instruments used for communing could be contaminated by dangerous parasitic microbes. Second, he insists that the instrument be fitting for the purpose.

In the past forty years several worldwide deadly epidemics, AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and MERS provoked fear among the people. Presently, the world is experiencing another more frightening global threat: the pandemic coronavirus or COVID-19, a contagion with lethal force which has upended all social, economic, political, cultural, and religious norms. People are justly apprehensive and frightened. The disease has already infected millions of people and claimed the lives of thousands globally. As with the preceding epidemics, the highly contagious coronavirus has many people wondering and questioning the continued use of a common spoon for Communion.

The real fears, reservations, and apprehensions of the people should not be dismissed with an air of superiority or a call to greater faith, as if the act of communing is void of human considerations and the limitations of the created order. People want to feel safe, listened to, and protected by their Church. They do not want to be exposed to unnecessary risks, nor should they be.

Statements like, “the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ, and the medicine of immortality,” or “the Eucharist is a divine remedy, a divine medicine,” may be true. But they are not sufficient to calm the fears and concerns of the faithful. People are not questioning the sacred character and identity of the Holy Gifts but the reliability of the instrument by which the Gifts are offered to them.

…

Orthodox sacramental theology, distinguishes between what is mystical and what is physical. The divine realities in each sacrament are distinct from the material elements by which they are mediated. We believe and confess that the eucharistic Gifts—the bread and wine—are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ through the prayer of the Church and the power and operation of the Holy Spirit. The change, however, is mystical and not physical. The bread and wine preserve their natural properties and qualities and are bound to the natural laws of their kind. The mode by which the transformation of the Gifts takes place remains a profound mystery. But we know by faith that the change occurs, so that Christ may become our food in order to impart his life to us (John 6:56).

The communion spoon is an imperfect material object. It does not share in the incorruptibility of the risen and deified Body of Christ which is really present to us through the eucharistic elements. On its own, the spoon is simply a spoon, a utensil. Its dignity is derived from its use as the instrument by which the Body and Blood of Christ is offered to his people. Long ago, it replaced an older venerable form of communing. The use of a spoon to commune the people was an innovation.

From my Twitter last night and today:

“ARGH–The Archbishop says to allow separate spoons, but our Metropolitan won’t let us do that. Even the Catholics aren’t doing this. >:(  ”

“I guess I’m not taking the Eucharist until a vaccine comes out. I had held out hope that our Metropolitan would be sensible after the Archbishop directed the use of separate spoons.”

“And to be frank, I never did like the practice of sharing spoons. I have to avert my eyes to not get grossed out, have to block out from my mind where it’s been. I’ve always wished we’d do separate cups, like I grew up with.”

“I believe in science and the scientific method. I cannot believe that something is safe from contagion just because a religious leader tells me it is or that I have to have “faith.” We saw Evangelicals say they’re “covered by the blood” and then get COVID. Same thing.”

“The right keeps dismissing us as being “afraid” of COVID, of acting with “fear.” It’s not fear: It’s recognizing how disease spreads, and acting to prevent that. Sharing a spoon with a sick person makes you sick.”

“Fact: I have come home from church with an illness countless times.”

In listening to the Archbishop’s comments about this, I am very relieved to find out that my views on sharing a spoon–not just during COVID, but generally–are actually very common among, as he termed it, the “younger generations.”

People have been condemning the archbishop lately for everything he does.  Whether right or wrong in other issues, I really don’t know (though I’ve heard some rumors).  But his support of hygienic practices during COVID is Correct, and his marching with the BLM protestors is Correct.  Supporting the closure of churches during COVID is also Correct, because churches are a prime spot for disease to spread during pandemics.

If you doubt this, just read the history of the Spanish Flu.  People complained back then about churches being closed, same as now, and when they defied the orders, the Spanish Flu spread rapidly through the congregation and lots of people died.  Science is not subject to your belief system; it is the way the world works.  We’re not supposed to test God by handling snakes to “prove” that He won’t let us get bitten.

WTF is wrong with this country lately?  Refusing to wear masks and even yelling at people who do?  Being safe from disease didn’t use to be a partisan issue!  Lately it seems like you have to check your brains at the door regarding illness if you’re a Republican–and also in some branches of Christianity.

BTW, yeah I know I haven’t posted here about the protests going on the past couple of weeks–but my Twitter is a completely different story.  I’ve been following the BLM protests and posting about them on Twitter and on Facebook.  If you want to keep up with my political retweets and rants, best to follow me on Twitter, where I’m much more active than I have been on my blog lately.  There’s just too much going on all the time, and I don’t have the time to blog about everything.  On Twitter, I can just share something or make a quick comment and get back to the multitude of tasks I have to do every day (like the housecleaning which I’m *supposed* to be doing right now).  So follow me here.

Update 6/8/20:

Eastern Orthodox priests from Russia, Belarus, and Georgia also have argued that sacramental wine contains strong alcohol in which diseases perish.

But most medical experts reject that premise.

They note that the very strongest fortified wine contains no more than 20 percent alcohol — and that most wine contains around 12 percent alcohol.

The U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the ethyl alcohol found in hard liquor can destroy less aggressive viruses. But it says ethyl alcohol should be at a concentration of 60-80 percent in order to be potent against influenza.

…

The Federation of Hospital Doctor Unions in Greece — home to one of the oldest and most influential branches of Orthodox Christianity — has also weighed in on the spoon debate.

It warns that no exceptions should be made to state health warnings “for religious, sacramental, or metaphysical reasons.” —Source

Also see this letter from an OCA priest about the current situation.

Update 8/14/20:

Just today I saw these guidelines from the CDC which confirm this is a dangerous practice:

Who needs to quarantine?

People who have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19—excluding people who have had COVID-19 within the past 3 months.

…

What counts as close contact?

  • You were within 6 feet of someone who has COVID-19 for a total of 15 minutes or more
  • You provided care at home to someone who is sick with COVID-19
  • You had direct physical contact with the person (hugged or kissed them)
  • You shared eating or drinking utensils
  • They sneezed, coughed, or somehow got respiratory droplets on you

So basically, if you shared a spoon at church with someone diagnosed with COVID, you should now quarantine for 14 days!  And if you get the rest of your household sick, you’re isolated from work etc. for even longer than that:

What if another household member gets sick with COVID-19? Do I need to restart my quarantine?

Yes. You will have to restart your quarantine from the last day you had close contact with anyone in your house who has COVID-19. Any time a new household member gets sick with COVID-19 and you had close contact, you will need to restart your quarantine.

Update 2/21/23:

I posted this on Twitter at the time, but apparently never here.  An important update proved that sharing spoons and ignoring responsible hygienic practices is dangerous during pandemics.  Before the vaccine came out, Serbian hierarchs and others went to the funeral of a fellow hierarch who died of COVID.  Mourners partook in the Eucharist and did the usual funeral rites, without masks or social distancing.  COVID then spread through them.  These Serbian hierarchs refused to accept that anyone could catch disease and die from church practices.  It is magical thinking to expect that you are supernaturally protected from disease by the Eucharist.  Here is a BBC article describing the incident, and also with links to other articles.  The Daily Beast also had an article on Greek Orthodox dropping like flies; if you doubt the DB’s veracity, you can check the links they give.  Over and over again during the pandemic, we heard that people don’t get sick from the Eucharist.  But here’s proof that they do!  Will we still hear the same claim over and over again?  Probably.  Cognitive dissonance is strong.

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