The Orthodox Church has been transmitting the Grace of its mysteries for two thousand years in the well-known blessed way in order to “heal the soul and body.”
The Church was never bothered by the modern rationale of disrespectfully questioning everything. On the contrary, it has been experiencing and performing a great miracle. Is it possible for God’s Communion to cause sickness or the slightest harm? Is it possible for the Body and Blood of our Lord to contaminate our body and blood? Is it possible for a daily experience we have been living for two thousand years to be questioned due to the rationality and the shallowness of our time?
Believers, healthy and sick, have been receiving Holy Communion for centuries from a common holy chalice and by using a common holy spoon, which we never wash and never disinfect, and yet nothing has ever happened to anyone. The priests, who go to healthcare institutions, as well as to institutes for infectious diseases, offer Holy Communion to the faithful, which eventually increases their lifespan.
Holy Communion is the holiest thing we have as a Church. The people are offered the greatest medicine for the soul and the body. This is the teaching and the experience of our Church. Those who do not believe in the miracle of the Resurrection of the Lord, those who question the virginity of His mother after giving birth to Him, those who deny the fragrance of the holy relics, those who despise the Holy of Holies, those who are blasphemous and against our Church, those who seek to eradicate even the slightest trace of faith, they actually capitalise on the opportunity so as to insult the sacrament of the Holy Communion.
If it is true, the fact that the Anglican and the Catholic Churches decided to stop offering Holy Communion to the faithful, for precautionary reasons in the fight against the virus, in England and in New Zealand respectively does not show prudence and freedom. On the contrary, it shows that there is a huge gap between them and our Church. Our Church offers the Holy Communion as it truly believes in the holy sacrament of which it preaches its virtues. The other “Christian groups” implicitly concede that their holy mysteries lack Grace and Communion with the Lord as it seems that they slowly move away from their ecclesiastical identity. Life without Holy Mysteries is like a serious illness without medicine.
Unfortunately, the real problem is not the virus that causes flu – as the media claims – nor the virus that has caused global panic – as medical associations claim – but the virus that causes disrespect. This virus is actually the “germ” of disbelief. The best vaccine against this new kind of virus is our conscious participation in the sacrament of Holy Communion, which cannot be challenged by anyone. Our response to this unholy challenge is our own lives.
It would be wise for our spiritual fathers, provided that there are not people who hold sway over their minds, to urge the faithful to go more often to church to receive Holy Communion during these difficult times “in the fear of God” but also “with the faith and love that are in connection with Him.”
