Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our Holy Orthodox Church is in crisis, especially in Canada.
By using Covid-19 as a pretext, the Archdiocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Canada is ignoring and undermining both the clergy and laity in their protests and pleas to continue the Holy Traditional Paradosis of the Single Communion Spoon. (See His Eminence’s Sermon at Prophet Elias Church here.)
Additionally, the Canadian Archdiocese is unilaterally, forcibly, and in direct defiance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, directing its clergy to implement multiple communion spoons which are subsequently “sanitized” or “sterilized.” The method of spoon sanitization has no clear directive from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada, and targets the very Body and Blood of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, who is the Life of the world, our High Priest, the Offerer and the Offered. We find this to be a blasphemous and heretical innovation which undermines the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist and the core teachings of the Orthodox Church on multiple levels. For more information, please see additional posts providing more information on multiple spoons and the traditional communion here, here, here, and here.
This arbitrary innovation of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada, which oversees the entire Canadian nation from coast to coast, opens the door to heresy and the Ecumenist ambition of introducing the Shared Communion Chalice between various Heterodox creeds without any genuine conversion to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church. The practice of multiple spoons is not only being encouraged in the Greek Orthodox Churches of Canada and the USA (please see open letters to His Eminence Sotirios of Canada and to His Eminence Elpidophoros of the United States) but has also made inroads in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox Churches. If the church you frequent is currently using the single communion spoon, it may not continue to do so much longer. The heretical practice with multiple communion spoons must be stopped here and now in the afflicted Orthodox parishes before it infiltrates other Orthodox churches.
By prohibiting the Single Communion Spoon, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada has demonstrated the following infractions:
- FAILURE to obey the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople which STRICTLY PROHIBITS any change to the mode of distribution of Holy Communion unless two criteria are met: a) a specific national or state law that prohibits the traditional mode of distribution of Holy Communion and b) written permission provided from the Ecumenical Patriarchate to change the mode of distribution of Holy Communion because of such a law. Currently, there is no Canadian national or state law that prohibits the traditional mode of distribution of Holy Communion. Additionally, there is no written permission from the Ecumenical Patriarchate to change the distribution of Holy Communion in Canada.
- FAILURE to consult with legal counsel to ascertain the legal rights of the Greek Orthodox Church in Canada according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- FAILURE to correctly interpret and recognize the legal flexibility provided by various Canadian government and public health policies which use citations such as “advice” or “guidance” or “recommendations” or “which may” and refusing to acknowledge that such terms are not indicative of national or state law.
- FAILURE to recognize and act upon various public announcements made by Canadian government officials, such as the Ontario Associate Minister of Health on an online consultation to numerous Orthodox clergymen that the government will not police church activities and MPP Christina Mitas that there is no Ontario law prohibiting Holy Communion by means of a single spoon. Please see her video here on that topic.
- FAILURE to recognize that several Ontario municipalities have submitted to the Greek Orthodox Church of Canada in writing that they will NOT FINE or CLOSE CHURCHES and that the churches are free to commune by any manner they so choose. Please see this article for additional legal analysis.
- FAILURE to properly and transparently consult with or heed the advice of the Canadian Greek Orthodox clergy or the protests of the faithful laity, marginalizing them and undermining their faith, by labeling them as ‘extremists’ or ‘idolaters’ or ‘uneducated’ for upholding the Holy Traditions of the Orthodox Faith by means of the Single Communion Spoon.
- FAILURE to properly and correctly interpret Holy Scripture, the Church Fathers and Church History on the establishment of the Sacrament of Holy Communion by Christ and the authentic reasons for the evolution of its distribution from the Holy Common Chalice to the Holy Common Spoon.
- FAILURE to unify the Greek Orthodox Church in Canada, by promoting disagreement, defiance and schism amongst the practising Greek Orthodox Christians of Ontario and Canada because of the unwarranted and non-canonical directive to arbitrarily deviate from the Holy Traditional Paradosis of the Single Communion Spoon.
In this illegal and ungodly manner, multiple communion spoons are being arbitrarily imposed upon the pious Orthodox Christians of Canada, whose spirit and conscience is so grieved that many are leaving their parishes and seeking spiritual asylum for themselves and their children in other canonical Orthodox churches.
Let us all together with ONE voice bear witness for the ONE Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church whose Life is nourished by the ONE Body and Blood of Christ, delivered by the ONE Common Communion Spoon.
Please make your voice heard by signing and forwarding this petition.
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Oh you poor confused Americans…such ignorence. So get this—for years As an orthodox Presbyterian in Africa within 36 hours of preparing the fervent sacrament, the Very body and blood of our Saviour Lord God Jesus Christ, with 26 hours it had turned green from mild. Real faith is to say, if I am to die then it is God,s will but please don’t jump off a building and expect angelic help.Not .Splat. Precedent, in many epidemics, the Holy utensils were cleansed with vinaigrette. Now this person who wrote “ how do you know….etc during the epiclesis p
” is already in serious trouble…be obedient, stop thinking like wanker Protestant’s and put on y our orthodox phoneme. It is not heresy to use different spoons— it is heresy to deny Holy Communion and if the
Lord wishes to transmit a virus through the act of receiving Holy communion so be it, but the list of Orthodox dead from COVID is. Very very long list. Wake up.stop arguing about nothing, and get back to your obedience, your faith of Love which is Orthodoxy.
Gerasimos
Not sure about your story, but the biggest red flag is that not once in decades have we ever seen a priest not consume all the Eucharist after liturgy unless it was being saved for presanctified. Then it is often saved up to three days and then served with ill effects. So to be honest, no one thinks you have any clue.
Dear Elias:
I am very sorry that you feel this way. I do not wish to argue with you but I have a few questions for you if you please:
Is it not a heresy to wash the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ down the drain or to throw it in with sanitizing chemicals because some remains of the Holy Eucharist are going to be present on the multiple spoons?
Is it not a heresy to even “clean” the multiple spoons of the Body and Blood of Christ who is Himself, a cleansing fire?
The only reason multiple spoons are here is because of the virus. Is it not a heresy to even suggest that we need multiple spoons because we now assume that His Body and Blood can transmit disease? When we had leprosy, tuberculosis and other plagues why were these diseases never transmitted through Holy Communion before? What is broken now that needs to be fixed?
Is it not a heresy to even suggest that a spoon – or any utensil – that is coated in the Body and Blood of Christ is capable of transmitting disease?
Since you believe that the Body and Blood of Christ are in the chalice and on the spoon – any spoon – does it not bother you that the Body and Blood of Christ (not the spoon) is being treated in this manner?
I do not honour spoons, but if you honour the Body and Blood of Christ, then what is the heresy, and who is the heretic or schismatic when you do such things to the Holy Eucharist?
I have one more question for anyone who can answer it…
If God is watching us, as we now carefully (by avoiding disease transmission with multiple spoons) distribute His Body and Blood which He voluntarily broke and spilled for us on the Cross; or if He is watching us as we sanitize remnants of the Holy Eucharist with chemicals because we are afraid of getting a disease from HIM, our Saviour who conquered DEATH (but cannot conquer a virus), then how can we know for certain, that when the priest does the prayer of Epiclesis for the Holy Spirit to descend and change the bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Christ – how do we know that the Holy Spirit actually condescends to make this transformation happen, knowing in advance that people like you are about to treat the Holy Eucharist in this manner? After all, the priest does not control the Holy Spirit by reciting the prayer of Epiclesis. The Holy Spirit is God and no one can control Him.
He imparts His Grace wherever and whenever He wishes.
So, how do you know that God will actually impart His Grace to the bread and wine to transform them to His Body and Blood when He knows in advance that the Holy Gifts (not the spoon) are going to be disrespected and desecrated, discarded and sterilized in this manner?
How can you be certain that when you commune in this manner, that you are actually receiving the Body and Blood and not just bread and wine because God is not stupid and maybe He has removed His Grace from such liturgies?
In Matthew 15:8, Christ said “…You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men…”
So, again I ask, is God still willing to condescend to this level? Or has His Grace departed from us? When the priest says, “with fear of God, faith and love, draw near,” when we are about to receive the Holy Eucharist, is it still the Holy Eucharist when we draw near without faith?
That is my question because this is NOT a spoon issue, Elias, this is a Eucharist issue. The issue is not about the spoons themselves; it’s how the Holy Eucharist is being treated – an issue which NO hierarch has dared to discuss.
I do not know the answer to my question, Elias, but I do know that treating Him the same way as you would treat your dirty dishes is a horrifying, satanical and blasphemous heresy, because only Satan would dare do such a thing.
I hope and pray that through the tearful prayers of the Holy Theotokos, whose fast begins today, God will have mercy on me, a sinner, by leading our hierarchs to repentance, a right teaching of Christ’s Truth, and a right manner – the Orthodox manner – of handling the Holy Eucharist.
I believe the only Heresy here is how you honor this single spoon so much as to define the Body and Blood of Christ’s essence by its use. Shame on you heretics. You are the heretics. I’ve been watching people receive, with humility and love, from one spoon or many spoons, and they receive joyfully. To define or try to the essence of what the body and blood is or what can and cannot live within it is indeed heretical and western. Again, you are the heretics by using a late, practical innovation like a spoon, to define what Christ is. What did the church think the Body and Blood was before the spoon was used? Stupidity.
So is Metropolitan Alexios a heretic?
https://theorthodoxworld.com/greek-orthodox-metropolitan-alexios-of-atlanta-opposes-archbishop-elpidophoros-the-tradition-of-the-common-spoon-is-the-way-the-orthodox-church-teaches/
And we are not only aware of the method of distributing communion prior to the spoon, we posted a video
https://orthodoxreflections.com/response-to-archbishop-sotirios-speech-on-communion/
The use of the traditional manner is not being called a heresy. I myself have received it in this manner for 60 years. The way you try to present the traditional manner, over any other option, definitely is heretical.
Dear Elias,
Spare us your false indignation. Please don’t lecture us about heresy. We do not worship nor believe the spoon is more powerful than the divine body and blood of Jesus Christ. That is the trap set by those who rationalize the need for separate spoons, by those who believe that a communal spoon is capable of contaminating Holy Communion and by extension us. Therein lies the issue.
This growing controversy is not merely about spoons. It is about WHY the method of dispensation has changed, and NOT about the method itself. The method of dispensation has changed out of a fear that Holy Communion is infectious on a communal spoon, hence the imposition of multiple spoons. That’s the context. Separate spoons implies that Holy Communion is contagious and the Archbishop’s decision reinforces this ill-conceived notion. When we rationalize the need for separate spoons because we fear that a communal spoon is capable of contaminating Holy Communion, God Himself, and by extension us, then we have to stop and question why and what we believe we are receiving in the first place.
Furthermore, while the method of dispensation has changed throughout the Church’s history, these changes have never been hastened by a fear that Holy Communion is contaminable and therefore capable of transmitting diseases. Whether it was the Archbishop’s intention or not, his decision has nonetheless breathed life into this twisted and dangerous line of thinking: I want to receive Holy Communion but I don’t want to catch anything so I will do so on a separate spoon. In Greek we call this παραλογισμός, an absurdity and aberration, which in this context is also blasphemous.
Excellent summary. God bless you eternally!