By Metropolitan Nektarios of Kerkyra
We are not entitled to take responsibility for what does not belong to us. It is inconceivable to read how there are spiritual fathers who threaten with a penance to abstain from Holy Communion those who are vaccinated! Our spiritual authority is to "bind and loose" sins and not to deal with medical issues and to make our personal positions and views positions and views of God and the Church.
It is a delusion to shift the events of the times to an eschatological level and take risks by scaring people that the end of the world is near.
It is a delusion to think that those who have been vaccinated have become followers of the Antichrist.
It is a delusion to believe that the freedom of our will is abolished with the vaccine. This freedom is an element of the image of God given to us by the Holy Spirit.
It is a delusion to claim that a person can take away the freedom of will from his fellow man, if he does not give it to him consciously. Even if the freedom of our body is violated, the freedom of our thought and will cannot be abolished. Otherwise, man becomes a god.
The pandemic will complete its circle. But which Church will remain in the minds of the people? If we do not mobilize, to reorganize our parish life and ministry, we will be left alone? We cannot remain inactive under the guise of a pandemic. The masks inside the church do not bother us. Complacency and excuses that the coronavirus is to blame makes us forget our mission. Let us return to the liturgical services, to the catechism classes, to philanthropy, mobilizing our parishioners.
We are called to bear our cross. To empathize with each of our Christian brothers and sisters. Let us always accept them with kindness and love. To show them Christ and not our own views. To give a true testimony of faith, but not with extremism and fanaticism in any direction. The Church is composed of unity and oneness. We operate as persons of reconciliation, we are instructed, we walk in the path of salvation and not of self-justification. "Everyone has a place in the Church, as long as they work with love for their brethren."
Source: Excerpt from the lecture "The Church After the Pandemic". Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
It is a delusion to shift the events of the times to an eschatological level and take risks by scaring people that the end of the world is near.
It is a delusion to think that those who have been vaccinated have become followers of the Antichrist.
It is a delusion to believe that the freedom of our will is abolished with the vaccine. This freedom is an element of the image of God given to us by the Holy Spirit.
It is a delusion to claim that a person can take away the freedom of will from his fellow man, if he does not give it to him consciously. Even if the freedom of our body is violated, the freedom of our thought and will cannot be abolished. Otherwise, man becomes a god.
The pandemic will complete its circle. But which Church will remain in the minds of the people? If we do not mobilize, to reorganize our parish life and ministry, we will be left alone? We cannot remain inactive under the guise of a pandemic. The masks inside the church do not bother us. Complacency and excuses that the coronavirus is to blame makes us forget our mission. Let us return to the liturgical services, to the catechism classes, to philanthropy, mobilizing our parishioners.
We are called to bear our cross. To empathize with each of our Christian brothers and sisters. Let us always accept them with kindness and love. To show them Christ and not our own views. To give a true testimony of faith, but not with extremism and fanaticism in any direction. The Church is composed of unity and oneness. We operate as persons of reconciliation, we are instructed, we walk in the path of salvation and not of self-justification. "Everyone has a place in the Church, as long as they work with love for their brethren."
Source: Excerpt from the lecture "The Church After the Pandemic". Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
