Flattening the Curve: reflections on faith, challenge and opportunity for Orthodox Christians

In the ninth hour of the Church we pray, "For better is one day in Thy courts, than thousands elsewhere." (Psalm 84, verse 11).  With Christians prevented from attending church, in the Covid-19 pandemic,  a renewed appreciation of the temple of Christ has occurred, for many Orthodox believers.

 Loss of employment, the closure of schools and businesses, the cessation of tourism and travel have compounded fears of pandemic sickness and death.  Covid-19 has challenged the world-view and philosophical beliefs of believers and non-believers alike.  

The Church has emphasised that we can connect to God and His grace in prayer, such as in the streamed liturgy, that for a time has replaced collective temple worship.  Fr Lev Gillett (1893-1980) wrote: “There is a eucharistic grace that transcends the visible sacrament, which the soul that longs for its Saviour can receive at all times."1.

 With public health concerns about the eucharistic chalice and spoon transmitting disease, fuelling restrictions preventing many from communing, the Church has emphasised that the eucharist cannot make us sick. Paul Evdokimov wrote: For “the eyes of faith after the epiclesis, quite simply there is nothing else on the diskos and in the chalice, except the body and blood of Christ." 2.

There is real opportunity to connect with and reclaim Orthodox people.  Through technology, catechesis, choir practice and parish meetings continue, albeit via a new medium. 

None of this is to deny the spiritual austerity of the present moment. Months without a eucharist challenges Christians, and for many, the isolation and disconnection cannot be easily bridged via the internet.  It has been a great joy to have believers share with me that they are praying the hours and typika at home.

For me there has been personal growth and a sense of responsibility to do my best in the absence of priestly ministry in  our cut-off parish. The liturgical hours on Sundays and feast days continues. Now as restrictions begin to use, we have the shared joy of people entering the house of God, the courts of the Lord again.  St Paisius proclaimed, “Nowhere it is written that those who hoped in God were abandoned…” 3.

Footnotes: 

1   A Monk of the Eastern Church (1990) Our Life in the Liturgy: Be My Priest, Crestwood, SVS Press), 1990) 102.
2  P Evdokimov, In the World, of the Church: A Paul Evdokimov Reader, (Crestwood, SVS Press, 2001), 254.
3  St Paisius,  Little Russian Philokalia, Vol IV: St Paisius Velichkovsky,  (New Valaam, St Herman Press, 1994), 90.

Living Orthodoxy amidst the Coronavirus today

If Orthodoxy is not just for Sundays, but is for all of our life, then it is to be lived and experienced with the heart of faith.  Nowhere is this more needed than now, in the Coronavirus, where millions of Orthodox believers world-wide are unable to go to church, and many cannot easily access the sacraments.  

The 18th century Elder, St Paisius Velichkovsky wrote:"According to our faith, the grace of God also is given to us.  If faith is small, little will be given.  If we believe more, we shall be vouchsafed more grace for patience.  Nothing happens to us apart from God's providence and His ordering." (Little Russian Philokalia, Vol. IV St Paisius Velichkovsky, St Herman Press, New Valaam, AL, 1994, p. 126)

In the parish where I serve, we can't get a priest to come until all this is over, and we've already not had a priest for over two months. 

There is a real need to try and install in oneself faith that is big enough to rise to the challenge of this unique pastoral and personal spiritual situation.  The Psalmist in psalm 50 wrote: "A broken and contrite heart, God will not despise".  We can't go to confession right now.  We can't receive Our Lord in the eucharistic gifts, gathering as a community in our temple, at least not yet.

We can however seek to install in our lives a faith that is not small. Before our icons our home can become a temple of God.  Elder Cleopa of Romania wrote that prayer "which takes place with the intellect in the heart has great significance, for it unites our soul with Jesus Christ and through Him with the Father..." (Elder Cleopa of Romania, (2013), The Truth of our Faith: Volume Two The Christian Mysteries, Uncut Mountain Press, Thessalonica, Greece, p. 109)  

Elder Cleopa also says that we can commune with God by keeping His commandments, and commune with God by reading the Holy Scriptures.  These grace filled tools are open to us right now, in our homes, priest or no priest.

This Coronavirus hit the world in Great Lent, depriving us of a normal Pascha.  In my own church, reader services of Pascha were served, from the Acts of the Apostles, through to the typica. 

When I came home Divine Liturgies were being streamed around the world. I felt gratitude to those monasteries and churches live-streaming services, and preaching that deification in Christ, theosis is still possible, that a faith that is not small can be lived today. 

More than just Sunday......... reflections of an Australian Orthodox deacon, on meaning, work, prayer and just why life within Orthodoxy is so meaningful

I hadn't expected to start a blog in the midst of this existential crisis  that is the Coronavirus.  I am an Australian Orthodox Christian, who came to Orthodoxy at the age of 17, some 41 years ago, and for the last two years have been an ordained Russian Orthodox deacon.

I live and serve in a Russian Orthodox parish that has had no resident priest for 20 years, and almost all the Russian faithful have passed on. Our congregation is small, mainly Serbian, served by intermittent visiting Serbian priests in the main. I lead Reader services on Sundays and significant other days. 

I earn my living as a hospital social worker, so there's no staying home from work for me.  I get to experience the needs of people concerned about the Coronavirus risk and impact.

It is precisely in a crisis that we need faith, in Christ and His Church and it needs to be more to us than just a Sunday thing.  Whatever  the world might say, the Church offers  2000 years of tradition and a spiritual way of life that is right for every age and every person.

The Church offers even now so much to us.  We can have a beautiful icon corner in our own home.  We can pray the hours in our homes.  We can sanctify our homes with burning incense, and the light of an icon lamp can dispel the darkness of Corona isolation at home.  We can share live-streamed services and there is so much liturgical and educational canonical resources on You Tube. 

My responsibility last Sunday  was to go to church and pray behind locked doors because the light of Christ through the Church cannot be extinguished   

So please join me as I reflect on the journey we are sharing where work and life in the Church are so challenged by this cloistering of families and communities.  Let us take comfort in the fact that millions of Orthodox are with us, in their homes, before their icons and God is with us. 

"Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt:11 28)