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)