Orthodox Reflections

America is a secular nation in an increasingly secular world. Such is the “conventional wisdom.” Maybe that is true as a general trend, but faith still matters for quite a large segment of the population. A fact the secular world has noticed, and regularly exploits to its benefit. Which is why in the war against “vaccine hesitancy,” the vaccine stakeholders (Big Government, Big Tech, Big Pharma, and investors) are recruiting clergy and churches as marketing allies to increase vaccine uptake. This approach is likely to be effective, as evidenced by this Time article reporting on a recent survey:  ‘Faith-Based Approaches’ Could Help Convince Millions of Americans to Get COVID-19 Vaccines

The results suggest faith-based approaches could potentially help sway millions of Americans into getting vaccinated.

 

The approaches that the surveyed people were asked to consider included a respondent’s religious leader or fellow religious community member receiving the vaccine, a religious leader encouraging the community to get vaccinated, a religious community holding an informational forum on the vaccine, a nearby congregation serving as vaccination site or their religious community providing help to arrange vaccine appointments.

Vaccine stakeholders are counting on Christian leaders to convince their flocks to take the vaccine, usually casting it, implicitly or explicitly, as a “moral duty” to protect others. For Christian institutions, there is a lot of downside risk to this approach. As the current alarm over myocarditis in young, vaccinated men makes clear, we don’t really know much about the effects of these vaccines. These vaccines would not be the first to be withdrawn in history. There have been previous vaccine disasters that even affected presidential races. Any Christian organization or leader lending moral authority to encourage taking these vaccines will end up sharing the blame for anything that goes wrong. Not only in this world, but also the next.

Despite the risks, some Orthodox institutions and leadership are, knowingly or not, already effectively functioning as religiously-based marketing arms of the Covid vaccine campaign. They are doing this in four ways.

1. No Masks for the Vaccinated

As we covered in this article, multiple Orthodox dioceses have adopted a policy of not requiring masks at liturgy for the fully vaccinated. This policy is a not-so-subtle endorsement of vaccination. If you are vaccinated, you are “safe.” If you are not vaccinated, you are a danger to others and must be segregated. This policy sets a horrible precedent and makes a mockery of statements from such hierarchs that getting vaccinated is a “personal decision.” What other “personal” decisions do we expect people to announce publicly in order to attend Divine Liturgy and receive the Holy Gifts?

Perhaps we should reinstitute public confession as well?

An unvaccinated person looking out over a sea of bare faces is going to feel pressure to conform. Especially if the priests, the deacons, and people who are respected in the community are publicly signaling their vaccinated status. Weekly subjugation to that kind of psychological pressure can wear anyone down. “No masks for the vaccinated” is a horrible policy that leads only to bitterness, division, and coercion. It opens the door to further vaccine coercion by these same parishes. Once this precedent is set, where will it end? One of our contributors speculated on how far the concepts of “public health” and “public good” could be stretched in this article on Bishop Benjamin. Fortunately, not all of the American Orthodox Church is going down this bad path.

We got quite a bit of negative feedback on our article covering the “no masks for the vaccinated” policy. We were told by multiple readers that they would not comply with the bishops’ policy and would attend liturgy without masks, even if unvaccinated. In their opinions, the bishops’ did not have the right to require masks for participation in the the Divine Mysteries, and they refused to comply with such a tyrannical order. We do not disagree in principle, and have said as much more than once, including in this article. Many of us who contribute to this site left “masked” parishes to go to “unmasked” ones.

However, if you feel like attending such a parish without a mask, please consider this. If you show up unmasked, and publicly make it known that you are not vaccinated, then you are participating in a principled act of resistance to a bad policy. You are being brave and honest. Let the chips fall where they may. You have our support and our prayers. Your actions may hasten the end of this policy by forcing priests and bishops to confront the problems with it. You are taking away the power of any potential snitches. They can’t report you if you have stood up yourself. Bravo!

On the other hand, if you quietly show up and pass for vaccinated, then you are contributing to the atmosphere of coercion. You are correct that it is no one’s business if you are vaccinated or not. Which is why the “no masks” policy of the Antiochian Archdiocese and the Diocese of the South is the only moral way to go. But if you attend a “no masks for the vaccinated” liturgy without a mask, and thus allow people to assume you are vaccinated – you have now become, unwittingly or not, part of the psychological pressure on your fellow unvaccinated parishioners to get vaccinated. Your bare face could be the last push a fellow Orthodox Christian can stand before submitting to an experimental, emergency use authorization vaccine. In such a situation, wearing a mask is more a sign of resistance than your bare face.

The “no masks for the vaccinated” policy is wrong and needs to be abolished in favor of just “no masks.” Church is our shared haven from the world, to make it a place of coercion and division is to surrender to evil. Those of us who are unvaccinated should not let the bishops who have this policy off the hook for it by quietly pretending to be vaccinated. That could be exactly what the vaccine stakeholders are counting on to help “increase vaccination uptake” and set a precedent for even worse things to come. Nor should the vaccinated rejoice in this policy. Today, my vaccinated brothers and sisters, you are part of the “elect ” with all the privileges pertaining thereto. However, policies change and tomorrow you could be the one wearing a Mark of Cain.

2. Public Testimonials

Could you imagine an Orthodox Bishop posing for a picture partially disrobed while getting his annual physical? Or how about getting a mole removed? Surgery for his bunions? No? Why would a spiritual leader, a successor to the Apostles, share intimate details of his medical care? Sounds ridiculous right?

It is ridiculous.  Except in the case of the Covid vaccinations. For that particular medical procedure, that oversharing is exactly what is happening. Covid vaccine photos of bishops, priests, and Orthodox academics are all over the Internet. A sample is below with some of the most important Orthodox hierarchs in the world.

Many more Orthodox leaders abstain from photos, but still publicize their vaccinations in emails, social media, and press releases. Why is this happening? If this is truly a personal, medical decision then why not treat it as such? Why the need to set a very public example?

It appears that many Orthodox leaders, wittingly or not, are acting as the religious arm of the public relations blitz in favor of these vaccinations. Is that really appropriate? These vaccinations are not approved with long track records of safety and efficacy. They are, in fact, experimental and their clinical trials are not even finished. Pfizer, for example, was given emergency use authorization after compiling only a few months of data. The clinical trials excluded such important population groups as children, the immunocompromised, and those with previous Covid infections. All groups that are now being targeted for vaccination.

The long term effects are unknown. The short term effects include tens of thousands of reactions logged to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System along with more deaths following COVID-19 vaccination than all other available vaccines combined over a 15.5-year period.

Should these leaders, clergy and bishops, by their very public examples, be encouraging people to potentially risk their health? Even worse, to risk their children’s health? Given their status as living icons of Christ, and as successors to the Apostles, at what point does “encouragement” (if that is even appropriate under these circumstances) cross the line into becoming moral coercion? And if things go badly with the vaccines over time, how many Orthodox Christians will feel betrayed by their own leaders? 

3. Just Get the Vaccine

We have watched multiple videos of priests and bishops outright telling the Faithful to get vaccinated.  On social media, it is not uncommon to find priests and academics telling people to just get vaccinated, if for no other reason than to “protect others.” Perhaps one of the most blatant “get vaccinated” articles ever was from the Orthodox Theological Society in America. The article titled Which Vaccine Should I Receive? is an FAQ document on Covid vaccines prepared by three Orthodox Christian health experts – Drs. Hermina Nedelescu, Catherine Creticos, and Gayle Woloschak. We took substantial issue with this document in an article called The Hard Sell on COVID Vaccines.

When telling others to get vaccinated, it is common for vaccine proponents to downplay the risks and overstate the benefits. The risks are substantial. The federal government estimates that one vaccine injury results from every 39 vaccines administered. Compare that to the fact that for Pfizer’s vaccine, you must vaccinate 119 people to prevent one case of Covid. The numbers guarantee you will get more side effects than you will benefits.

Thousands have died, tens of thousands have been injured, and all to prevent a relatively small number of cases of a disease that is only a threat to the very old and the very ill. The cost/benefit ratio for these vaccines is so lopsided that an Orthodox medical researcher on our site wrote:

Here, I am not referring to harm from side effects, but harm from misplaced trust in a product that provides more side effects than it does protection. Justification for any treatment is found only when the benefits outweigh the risks. A quick look at the side effect rates in the tables of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s product monographs shows that although not life threatening in the studies, mild, moderate and severe side effects occurred with greater frequency than the <1% protection afforded by the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine or the 1.2% protection afforded by the Moderna vaccine.

 

Compared to providing Covid-19 protection, these mRNA vaccines are much more effective in enriching their already wealthy pharmaceutical producers, or those who have heavily invested in them. For the public good, it would have made more sense, saved more money, more time and possibly more lives to have put research efforts into other potential Covid-19 treatments, such as Ivermectin, Melatonin, Vitamin D, even the highly controversial Hydroxychloroquin, or anything else that has shown any indication of being helpful either as a prevention or a cure.  Unfortunately, these are all inexpensive drugs with no hope of any appreciable returns for the pharmaceutical industry which relies on new innovations to garner profits, even if those innovations are of minimum benefit with the potential to cause great harm.

The vaccines are of such low efficacy that the “pandemic” is ending on its own without them. This can plainly be seen by comparing the decline in Covid between U.S. States and countries that have low vaccination rates and those with high vaccination rates. There is no discernable difference. In fact, the steep declines in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths occurred prior to, and independent from, any appreciable vaccine-derived immunity.

Rather than being on the side of the weak and the vulnerable, Orthodox clergy and experts who push vaccines are really on the side of rich, powerful pharmaceutical companies for whom the vaccines are a cash cow they intend to keep milking. There are many ways to illustrate this.

First is that natural immunity is being completely ignored. This is the first time in history that vaccines are recommended for those who have recovered from the disease. Multiple studies have confirmed that natural immunity provides excellent protection against reinfection. Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic recently published a study that found “Not one of the 1,359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.” Also troubling, the CDC recommends against testing for immunity prior to receiving the vaccination. There appears to be no valid scientific reason for that, other than perhaps to increase profits for pharmaceutical companies. Why would you risk the vaccine if you were confirmed to be already immune?

Even more troubling, the CDC discourages getting tested for antibody immunity after a vaccination. What could be a valid reason for that, except to perhaps hide how little protection the vaccines actually provide?

Second are the many inducements to get vaccinated. Recent weeks have seen a significant rise in vaccination incentives in the U.S. including: free doughnuts, cake, french fries, hot dogs and pizza, arcade tokens, 10-cent beer, free state park season passes, free Uber and Lyft rides, free marijuana, Cincinnati Reds baseball tickets, a chance to win a full scholarship and even $1 million and $5 million giveaways. And, of course, there is the pressure from religious leaders that we have been discussing.

If you could make a rational cost/benefit case to the American people for getting vaccinated, would you really need to run a lottery promising the chance to win millions of dollars? Or have clergy stump for vaccines? Or continue to force unvaccinated people to wear masks to church?

Such inducements (positive and negative) illustrate a very important point concerning the return on investment of these vaccines – the pharmaceutical companies have turned the job of marketing them over to the rest of society. Marketing drugs is normally an expensive proposition, but not in this case. How wonderful is it to sell a drug that other people market for free and for which you have no possible legal liability for injuries? Welcome to pure profit!

Companies will do a lot to preserve a gravy train like that. Should Orthodox Christians really trust these companies enough, under these circumstances, to endorse their products publicly and encourage others to take them?

Third, Pfizer and the other companies keep expanding their market to new age groups to counteract the loss of revenue from “vaccine hesitancy” among adults. Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla of Pfizer admitted in a Tweet that children are not at risk for Covid, but we should vaccinate them anyway. The only possible benefit from vaccinating children is for adults by “stopping the spread.” Only this is not realistic, as many studies have indicated that children are not serious spreaders of this disease. Even for at-risk adults, the efficacy of these experimental vaccines does not really outweigh the serious risks of side effects. For children, any risk is completely unacceptable as children neither efficiently spread the disease nor are at substantial risk from it.

Vaccinating children is about profit for pharmaceutical companies. Plainly and simply. Pfizer’s first quarter revenue report showed $3.5 billion in revenue from the company’s Covid vaccine. The vaccine is the largest single source of Pfizer’s revenue. The company now anticipates revenue of $26 billion thanks to its COVID vaccine, up from its previous estimate of $15 billion. This will not end, by the way. Pfizer CEO Bourla said that “a likely scenario” is “a third dose somewhere between six and 12 months, and from there it would be an annual re-vaccination.”

There is simply too much money to be made to go back to “normal.” To maximize profit, the pharmaceutical companies want to vaccinate everyone, whether they will benefit or not, and keep vaccinating them at least once a year. 

We should pay close attention to the ongoing concerns over myocarditis in vaccinated young men. It is so alarming that foreign governments such as Canada and Germany have already taken action to protect healthy children under 18. Our own government has merely called for an emergency meeting to consider the problem. Given the influence of drug makers over the CDC, it is quite likely that the initial response in the U.S. will be to ignore this issue until sheer numbers of cases force us to take notice. By then the pharmaceutical companies will have made their billions, thousands of lives will have been destroyed, and those supporting the vaccination of children will be living with regret.

Which makes us wonder why Orthodox leaders are involved in pushing such a transparent and dangerous grift? If the Orthodox Church is associated with medicines that cause long-term side effects, and maybe even deaths, do you think we will escape blame in this world, much less the next?

4. Requiring the Vaccine

One of our biggest fears is that requiring the unvaccinated to wear masks at Divine Liturgy will eventually morph into requiring “proof” of vaccination to even attend. This has happened in other countries. There is no reason to believe it could not happen here. If Orthodox bishops would cave to closing churches, why wouldn’t they cave to requiring proof of vaccination to “protect the least of these?”

So far though, the only American Orthodox institution to require proof of vaccination is Holy Cross Hellenic College. Holy Cross is “requiring that all students, faculty, and staff receive their vaccinations [for COVID] prior to August 17, 2021.” This is a horrible precedent. The Russian Church, and some bishops in this country as well, have fully endorsed the human right of voluntary, informed consent for vaccines. To ignore that principle and demand students receive an experimental vaccine as a condition for pursuing ordination is both immoral and outside the scope of Holy Tradition. Further, it has already been announced that community colleges in Massachusetts will not be requiring vaccination for Fall attendance. This is a purely voluntary move on the part of Holy Cross.

We pray that this action does not become a precedent for other Orthodox institutions. Especially since all of the vaccines available in the United States rely in some way on the use of aborted fetal cells. Many Orthodox bishops have excused this fact by claiming that the “greater good” of the vaccines outweighs the association with an abortion that happened long ago. This is a specious argument, at best, given that Covid is not an “emergency.” All across the U.S. and the world, emergency orders and states of emergency have been lifted. If there was an emergency, there certainly isn’t one now that could justify continuing with unproven and potentially unsafe vaccines. As noted, there is also little evidence of vaccine efficacy. Under the circumstances, any Orthodox institution requiring a Covid vaccine is selling its soul for pottage, as any association with abortion harms the prolife witness of the Church. The world wants us to be hypocrites. For the sake of our Christian witness, we must not oblige.

Conclusion

The only moral position for the Church to take is in favor of voluntary, informed consent on vaccines. To us, supporting an essential human right and protecting Orthodox Christians are valid pursuits for the Orthodox Church and her associated institutions. On the other hand, we can see no valid reasons for Orthodox bishops, clergy, academics, and experts to explicitly or implicitly “market” experimental, unapproved drugs. Especially since they are linked to aborted fetal cells. The vaccines are controversial, and for good, solid, evidence-based reasons. The Orthodox Church and her leaders should focus on growing the Kingdom, and not on marketing vaccines.

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Update 6/11/2021 – In an ironic twist, not five hours after publishing this article about Orthodox clergy and institutions marketing vaccines from pharmaceutical companies, one of our contributors brought to our attention that: 2021 Athenagoras Human Rights Award to be Bestowed Upon Three Scientists whose Extraordinary Efforts Led to Covid Vaccines

The three receiving the award are the CEOs of Pfizer, BioNTech, and Regeneron. The following is a quote from the article linked above:

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros hailed the choice: “I am personally grateful, and grateful on behalf of the entire Church and all human beings of good will, to these brilliant scientists. Through their leadership, the hard work of their teams and by the grace of God, they have been leaders in producing and delivering life-saving vaccines. No one this year is more deserving of this prestigious award than these three men, who have done so much to bring the world out of this scourge that has devastated so very many lives.”

This will age badly depending on what happens in the next few months with the vaccines. The Greek Archdiocese may be rethinking this by the time October rolls around and the award is actually given. We suppose the article should have include a fifth way Orthodox Christians shill for pharmaceutical companies – Giving Awards. 

Irene is a clinical educator with over 25 years of health care experience. She is a member of the Greek Archdiocese of America.