Orthodox Reflections

Our son and his fiancée don’t feel at home in the Western Rite parish we have attended since Covid began. They prefer the Greek parish he was raised in. On the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt, our son planned to receive a blessing before a six-month stint of active duty. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Many Covid restrictions at the Greek parish were recently relaxed or lifted.  Cheered by the return of some normalcy, quite a few parishioners had been less than zealously following the remaining protocols. This state of affairs had so angered the priest, that he used his entire homily to severely scold his wayward parishioners for their sinful degeneracy. He denounced their failure to keep their masks securely over both nose and mouth. Some were even removing them entirely once in their pews! Parishioners had failed to social distance in the communion line. There was hugging and other physical contact between family groups! There were parishioners removing their masks while in line to receive communion, instead of immediately before the chalice. He was disgusted that parishioners getting some Eucharist on their lips had wiped their mouths on the cloth. Worst of all, some parishioners were still trying to kiss his hand when receiving a blessing.

There were other breaches of Covid etiquette, but I won’t bore you with all the details. Our son described his priest as “completely indignant.” Instead of preaching repentance on St. Mary of Egypt Sunday, the priest chose to verbally berate his flock for their insolent disregard of the tenets of Holy Faucism.  After such a tongue lashing, our son felt awkward approaching his own priest. With his fiancée, he quietly exited the church after dismissal and came home.

Our son will now ship out to a potentially dangerous active duty rotation without a blessing. From birth, he has always had a blessing before major travel. This time he wanted one, but was too afraid of his own priest to even approach him. Perhaps next time, he will decide he doesn’t want or even need a blessing.

The Greek parish is all alone among the local Orthodox in its faithfulness to Covid. Our Western Rite parish never had many restrictions, and has long since discarded the few it once had. The local Serbian parish simply ignored Covid the entire time. They are none-the-worse for it. The local OCA parish has announced an end to all restrictions (including masks) at the end of May. Our state is wide open. A few localities have mask mandates, but they can be comfortably ignored by anyone who chooses to breathe fresh air. But for the Greeks, there is no end in sight.

Which makes any thinking person ask, why?

There is no scientific basis for the policies the Greeks are so dedicated to enforcing. Masks, social distancing, attendance limits, and even lockdowns are predicated on the novel notion of asymptomatic viral spread. The asymptomatic spread narrative was effectively destroyed by the publication of a Chinese study involving nearly 9.9 million individuals. It revealed not a single case of COVID-19 could be traced to an asymptomatic individual who had tested positive. This result was confirmed by a meta-analysis published in JAMA by researchers in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and the Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. If you are under 70, then your chance of dying from the virus after casually meeting with people who have no symptoms is 0.00035%, or 1 in 285,714.

Not only are masks unnecessary, they are also ineffective. Mask-specific research failed to find any benefit to them. Whether one mask, or the currently recommended double masks, they simply don’t work against an aerosolized virus. Now that 15 days to slow the spread has become more than a year of misery, experience has given us a lot of empirical evidence attesting to the futility of mandatory masking. When you compare areas with mask mandates to areas without, the ones without do the same or better.

There is no evidence in favor of the effectiveness of masks to “stop” a virus, but there is plenty of evidence that they cause harm. One study of over 25,000 school-aged children identified 24 distinct health issues associated with wearing masks. The study demonstrated that masks harm children physically, psychologically, and behaviorally. Not just children are impacted. This is a link to an article with over 20 documented reasons why masks are harmful.

I often wonder, how many young Orthodox children no longer remember what church was like before everyone wore a mask and what has that done to them?

The laptop class can throw on a mask for 15 minutes while grabbing a latte and congratulating themselves on their outstanding civic virtue. School kids and blue collar workers wear wet, dirty, disgusting pieces of cloth over their mouths for many hours at a time. This practice has made many ill, quite a few seriously. An example is the wife of a local politician who made her employees wear masks all day long. She did as well, until all-day masking sent her to the doctor. This is from her social media post about her mask-induced illness:

I went to the doctor today with a droopy eyelid and a swollen neck. Turns out what started as a slight case of maskne (a true condition, comes from wearing a mask), turned into something worse. One eyelid has drooped and my neck is swollen. Chances are my throat would have closed up if I hadn’t sought treatment. The doctor put me on a heavy duty prednisone treatment. I am COVID vaccinated and if you see me maskless in public, it’s not a sign of disrespect to you. I will totally social distance.

She has already been vaccinated and wearing a mask made her very sick. Yet she still feels the need to apologize to her husband’s constituents for not wearing a mask around town. This obsequiousness on her part to the new normal helps explain why the Greeks are so attached to Covid interventions.

Masks, social distancing, and even lockdowns are all part of a new civic religion. It is not about science. Not real science anyway with its frumpy concerns about facts and data. No, this is about being a good person and conforming to the approved narrative. It is all about faith. Think of the mask as the new baptismal cross – at a glance you know who is and who is not “on your team.” It is the mark of a true believer. Especially when you wear two masks, alone and outside. 

The Greek Archdiocese is run by men who rub elbows with the ruling elites around the world. For them, virtue signaling in the approved manner is practically second nature. They know all the right people. They have all the right opinions. They wear all the right masks.

Or it could be just garden variety psychosis. The relentlessly negative reporting of the past year plus the Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) seem to have driven a goodly portion of our population completely insane. Among the affected, there is an ongoing competition to be the most terrified of a disease with a 99.9% survival rate for those under age 70. Have some Greek Orthodox gone over the edge and now cling to magic talismans the way they should cling to Christ? Should the Church really be promoting that level of fear? Or should we be teaching people to overcome fear and live Orthodox lives?

It could be more sinister, of course. There are reputed links between the Church of Constantinople and both Freemasonry and the forces behind the Great Reset.

Regardless, the motivations really don’t matter at this point. In June 2020, we wrote a letter to the Greek Metropolitan of Atlanta asking him what would be necessary for our Greek parish to get back to normal. What objective measures would indicate things were now “safe?” His Eminence had no answer for us then, nor does he have one now. Neither does Fauci nor anyone else in the government, as you can see from this exchange with Rep. Jim Jordan. 

Over the past year, poor leadership in the Church has hurt many souls. It is past time for all Orthodox parishes in all jurisdictions to stop waiting for an “all clear” signal from the CDC or any government agency that may never come. As we approach the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it is time for all of us to be about our Father’s business. His blessing and protection are all we need.

Nicholas – member of the  Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America, a COVID refugee from the Greek Archdiocese