Orthodox Reflections

You are the Church, I am the Church, We are the Church, and We are in this Together

Tenant Farmers

When our Lord walked upon the earth, He often found Himself at odds with the gatekeepers of the Jewish community. How could this be? How could the leading Jews, experts in the law, not recognize their Messiah who was foretold by the Prophets?

Something had changed. The Jewish faith had changed. While they claimed to be the one and only, the original Hebrew Faith, they had in fact drifted into something foreign to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As for Abraham, He had recognized the Lord when He with two angels had paid him a visit. But, the majority of the Jews of Jesus’ day did not recognize who it was before them and the times they were in. They had no clue that in a few short decades, everything in the Jewish experience would be rocked with the destruction of Jerusalem and the leveling of the temple. Not one stone would stand upon another.

In our Lord’s confrontation with the Jewish hierarchs, He spoke these words:

Then began he to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time.  And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty.  And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out. Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him.  But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?  He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, “God forbid” (Luke 20:9-16).

What was Jesus saying? He simply laid out the facts – who was who and what was what. According to Our Lord, the Jewish scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests, were the “husbandmen” tending the vineyard on behalf of Our Lord. In modern terms, these “husbandmen” were tenant farmers; all clergy are tenant farmers whose single purpose is to bring forth fruit. If this vineyard is not bearing fruit, these tenant farmers will have some explaining to do when the Owner returns.

But these tenant farmers do not labor in the vineyard alone. We, the Faithful, are there with them. We bake the prosphora. We clean the candle stands. We mow the lawns. We contribute the money needed to pay the priests and keep the lights on. We witness to the truth of the Orthodox Faith in the world. We raise the next generation of Orthodox Christians. All the Faithful, together, are responsible for bringing forth fruit so that Our Lord might be pleased.

Yet, we—the laity—are often left out of critical decision-making processes. Many protocols—even health edicts—are made on our behalf without us having any input. We are treated as second class citizens in the Lord’s vineyard, rather than as full partners with the clergy in working for Christ’s Kingdom. This is not how the Church was meant to be. All the Faithful, clergy and laity alike, are needed to labor in unity for the Church to fulfill her mission. Even the structure of our divine services attests to that fact.

Perhaps nothing illustrates the co-laboring of the clergy and the Faithful more than the Divine Liturgy. The Roman church permits a clergy-only mass. Their philosophy is that the priest’s duties are totally independent of the laity and continue whether the people are present or not. Such clericalism[1] inherently makes the laity second-class believers. This mentality is totally foreign to Orthodoxy because for us, canonically, a liturgy without the people present is not a liturgy at all.

God made the clergy (bishops and priests) for the Church, not the Church for the clergy. Their authority is one of stewardship and not ownership. Outside of their prescribed duties, our clergy join us in (hopefully) ascending the ladder of salvation.  We are all in this together. As one body of believers, it is our joint duty to cultivate and care for the vineyard of the Lord.

The unity of the clergy and the Faithful, however, has been harmed by the unilateral imposition on the Faithful of mandatory masking and compliance with government intrusion into the affairs of the ecclesia such as church closures, attendance limits, and contact tracing. Many faithful Orthodox Christians disagreed with these managerial decisions that directly affected their health. We believed them harmful and out of keeping with the historic witness of the Orthodox Church. Would the Church Fathers have accepted streaming liturgy as real liturgy fully compliant with the canons? Can anyone honestly imagine St John Chrysostom—exiled more than once by the empress—caving so quickly to government mandates? Would St. Ignatius have accepted church closings on his way to martyrdom?

Bishops tried to turn compliance with their decisions into moral imperatives. However, these were clearly managerial decisions, and when it comes to managing the vineyard, the Faithful have a God-given role to play. The Church and her mission belong to them as well as the clergy. All voices and perspectives need to heard so as to clearly see the potential dangers ahead of us.

Almost everywhere in the United States, the current Covid crisis has greatly quieted down, as have the bitter controversies over the bishops’ decisions. One major problem, however, still looms over us and needs to be addressed immediately. This is the assumption of moral, and potentially legal, liability of some Orthodox clergy in encouraging everyone, regardless of age or physical condition, to take a Covid vaccine.

Liability for Practicing Medicine

As an insurance professional with over 20 years of experience, I understand how liability works. In my professional opinion, some Orthodox clergy (bishops and priests) have potentially incurred serious and unrecognized legal liability. Many clergy have endorsed certain medical opinions concerning the vaccines by publishing them on social media, in pastoral letters, and referring to them in sermons. Their presentation has frequently been completely one-sided, even though opposing medical claims have been put forward by accredited physicians and researchers. Competently judging between competing medical claims is totally outside the field of expertise of most clergy, few of whom attended medical school prior to the seminary and this can, in fact, be construed as a way of practicing medicine. Nevertheless, clergy, particularly ranking clergy such as bishops, are considered  “persons of trust” in our legal system. The courts place extreme burdens on how they use their positions to form people’s choices that could result in personal harm. 

Courts do not even consider “negligence” as a defining issue in such a case, though proof of negligence can make the court’s judgement worse in terms of adding punitive damages. Rather, courts go directly to “proximate cause”: If the bishop’s or priest’s actions influenced any medical decision that later turns out to be harmful, the cleric is on the hook for causing that injury. This is how all tort law works, whether auto accident or medical malpractice.

In both direct and indirect ways, many Orthodox clergy are currently encouraging people to receive Covid vaccines (effectively practicing medicine):

Requiring masks in liturgy encourages young, healthy people to get a vaccine for a disease to which they are not at risk. The vaccine makers are exempt from lawsuits. The Orthodox Church and her clergy are not. If any person becomes injured—in any way shape or form—from a vaccine because a bishop, priest, or other Orthodox authority encouraged it, explicitly or implicitly, then they have caused harm and are fully liable for those injuries.

By the very act of choosing some doctors’ opinions over others, Orthodox clergy are effectively practicing medicine. Particularly in the case of Orthodox bishops, an endorsement gives validity to the doctors and not the other way around. Among faithful Orthodox Christians, the bishops have the authority and not doctors. In people’s minds (what the courts care about), endorsed medical opinions become semi-canonical (so to speak), as if the authority of the bishops has incorporated them into Church teachings.

There is also a moral dimension in addition to the legal one. Because bishops have united themselves to some doctors’ opinions, the good reputation of the Orthodox Church rides on that judgment. If the bishops, and the opinions they endorse, are grossly wrong, then the Church’s validity as a source of truth (and Truth) has been injured.

Clergy are not the only ones giving medical advice in the name of Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Theological Society took it upon itself to encourage everyone to take a vaccine, including pregnant women. Risking the lives of babies and children when no medical necessity exists is highly immoral, shameful behavior. Further, Holy Cross Hellenic College has mandated that all faculty, staff, and students must be fully vaccinated by this Fall. This despite the fact that the vaccines are still emergency use authorization only (not FDA approved), are still experimental, cause known side effects in younger men, and that mandates violate the important human right of voluntary, informed consent.

Going forward, all bishops, priests, and Orthodox organizations / institutions should take the safest and most beneficial route which is to advise the Faithful to conduct their own research and speak to their own doctors before taking any vaccines. No one should employ any coercion to encourage vaccines such as requiring masks for the unvaccinated in Church, or requiring vaccines as a condition for participation in any Church-related activity such as seminary attendance. All clergy and those representing the Church should make no endorsements (implicit or explicit) of vaccination for any cohort of patients. No one should publicly favor only pro-vaccine medical opinions, especially since many of them are bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical companies making billions off these vaccines. Rather, bishops and Church-affiliated organizations / institutions should strive for a balanced, fair presentation of all sides to foster free, honest debate in furthering the right of all people to voluntary, informed consent or refusal to any vaccines.

It’s time for Orthodox clergy, theologians, administrators, etc. (particularly bishops) to humble themselves, admit their limitations, and stay with their mission – making the Lord’s Vineyard fruitful. It is equally time for us Faithful to step up as co-laborers of the clergy, and to bring our own talents and perspectives to the service of Christ and His Kingdom. We serve in the Lord’s vineyard. If we fail to labor diligently together, then He is well within His rights to award it to other tenants who will.

 [1] https://www.cathinfo.com/the-sacred-catholic-liturgy-chant-prayers/the-action-of-the-mass-is-performed-by-the-clergy-alone/

John Lee – an Orthodox Christian, jurisdiction withheld by request

To reiterate a point made in this article, leaders of all types but especially bishops must be very careful of their words. We have documented many times on this site where bishops have written or said things such as, “Wear a mask. It won’t hurt and it might save a life.” The bishops even demanded small children wear masks, against all moral and common sense. We have disagreed with those sentiments and published information showing that yes, actually, it can hurt. But we were ignored.

On 6/30, JAMA Pediatrics published a study that concluded, “Today the Journal JAMA Pediatrics published a study which looked at the impact of masks on children. The study was led by a researcher in Poland who was joined by six other doctors from Germany and Austria. The researchers concluded there was a significant build up of carbon dioxide in children using masks, to levels that are well beyond what is considered healthy for indoor air by the German government.”

All year in schools and in churches, and even today in some parishes (if they are following their bishops’ directives on vaccines) children have been choking on harmful levels of carbon dioxide. Leaders, please listen. Science changes, and you will be held accountable in this life and the next for not using the discernment God gave you.