Pagan Spoon – Gotta Laugh
I suppose we could file this one under the “Things Could Always Be Worse” department.
We here in the States have had our problems with some of our bishops during this whole COVID scare. But to my knowledge, not one of them has called any of us a “pagan”.
On the other hand, Metropolitan Sotirios, of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada, did just that. He just put out an encyclical entitled:
“Do You Worship the Communion Spoon? Then You Are a Pagan”.
Can’t get any more declarative than that, I’d say.
And I do suggest that you read it. We certainly don’t want anybody to take this out of context. Or not see the nuances. You know, the usual reasons. Anyway, here it is so you can read it for yourself:
https://www.gometropolis.org/website/june-july-2021-viewpoint/
Anyhoo, apropos of nothing at all, His Eminence doesn’t allow himself much wiggle room, does he? If anything, he doesn’t give those who see things differently any chance at all. He just up and calls them names.
I wonder, how he’s going to react when the Wiccans and pagans, in general, react to his intolerant missive?
Come to think of it, this kinda goes against the whole ecumenist Kum-ba-ya kinda thing that Archbishop Elpidophoros of the GOA just put out the other day, doesn’t it?
Yikes.
The precious BODY and BLOOD of our Lord and Saviour makes contact with the “common spoon” not for forgivness and healing of soul and “BODY” but for transmission of the virus??? Really???
Ron, you got me to thinking: instead of a common spoon, why not have multiple chalices? Or simply a hundred Dixie Cups? The altar boys could gather them after the service and burn them.
“…a hundred Dixie Cups? The altar boys could
gather them after the service and burn them.”
But that would increase the carbon footprint!!!
The Green Patriarch might not be best pleased…
OK, Brendan, you got me. I didn’t think this one through.
If anyone has the address of this Bishop, please send him the following link. Pfizer has been fined $4.7 billion over the last 20 years for all sorts of devious marketing and lies.
This Bishop has been bought! He never told his flock about the Nuremberg Code, now did he? He is a shill for Vanguard Investments whose secret shareholders are sitting on Mount Olympus playing chess with our lives. These sociopathic swine are destroying children across the globe.
https://usareally.com/8550-pfizer-was-fined-nearly-usd-5-billion-for-healthcare-related-offenses-and-drug-or-medical-equipment-safety-violation
Check out the Johnson & Johnson rap sheet, AstroZeneca debauchery, and Moderna’s back story if you interested in truth.
If anyone has the address of this Bishop, please send him the following link. Pfizer has been fined $4.7 billion over the last 20 years fir all sorts of devious marketing and lies.
This Bishop has been bought! He never told his flock about the Nuremberg Code, now did he? He is a shill for Vanguard Investments whose secret shareholders are sitting on Mount Olympus playing chess with our lives. These sociopathic swine are destroying children across the globe.
https://usareally.com/8550-pfizer-was-fined-nearly-usd-5-billion-for-healthcare-related-offenses-and-drug-or-medical-equipment-safety-violation
Check out the Johnson & Johnson rap sheet, AstroZeneca debauchery, and Moderna’s back story if you interested in truth.
Because only beer can be served in disposable cups.
“Where is the humility? Can you not see your luciferian egotism? . . . . . Become an example and lead everyone to get their vaccines. So we could finally save ourselves from this accursed coronavirus disease.“
Well that sums it up nicely, we are to set aside our ego and save ourselves and everyone else from death. Anathema! Anathema! Anathema!
Apparently he is a “Grand Commander
of the Order of Phoenix of Greece” …
https://www.gometropolis.org/metropolitan/biography/
so what is a silver spoon or thirty to him?
Jacob, in my opinion it is not a question which is worse. Such comparison implies that we should choose the other problem and forget the present one in the discussion. Then someone else will prove that there is yet another even worse problem, #3, so forget problem #2 too and go to #3. Saint J.Chrysostom advises that it not one or the other but both, i.e, In
this case both problems should be discussed (one after the other).
George,
In my opinion the fact that the Antiochian and OCA Bishops demanded the covering of the Icons of Christ (living humans including children) in the Church is a much, much bigger scandal. The poison and fear brought into our Churches will brake the Youth. When the Bishops and Priests don’t believe why should our Children? Also we have priests and Bishops pushing vaccines which were made and or tested using aborted babies. All bigger scandals than the spoon. Might as well add the spoon to the list though.
“The poison and fear brought into our Churches will break the Youth” . . . destroying future generations of the Church. You can’t expose kids to something like this and expect them to continue to believe in the Mysteries or the blessed healing properties of an icon when both are confiscated at a time when they are needed the most.
This message from our hierarchs has proved to them that the Truth revealed by the Church is negotiable. After all, how powerful can it be when we can just drop it at will? Kids will never forget this message, i.e. the things of the world are more important than the Church, doctors know more than the Church, and we must defer to the professionals in a crisis. Turning to the Church is just something we do when we’re not being tested. God cannot protect or preserve us. We need physicians to tell us what to do, for a doctor’s opinion supersedes anything the Church might have to offer in terms of healing, physically and/or spiritually.
Interestingly, the Georgian Church had no restrictions and I don’t think they had anyone in their midst who died of COVID. George and I, both at higher risk, continued to live our lives communing with other families of all ages, and we’re still here. The other families are here, as well. George is a pharmacist who wears no mask and is surrounded by sick people every day. Of course, we take care of ourselves, and going to Church is a big part of that. When the parishes closed down, we sought out people who took the need for the Church a little more seriously.
Were we scared? A little but not so much that I would want to change the Church. I’m sure our hierarchs would find me naive, in spite of all the time I’ve spent with doctors implementing various programs across the United States because the hierarchs think they know better.
They’re just sure the media is telling them the truth. Of course, they don’t know anything about the Great Reset or the requisite population control that goes along with it. They don’t know that Dr. Robert W. Malone, the scientist who invented mRNA, has said that among vaccinated people, for every one person saved, two will die. They don’t know what the virus is, how it was created or why. They don’t know the extent to which the number of cases is being exaggerated. They don’t know that if anyone even is even suspected of having COVID it will show up on the death certificate and be counted as a “covid death.” Doesn’t matter if it wasn’t the primary cause of death.
They don’t know the test we use to determine a COVID infection can alter the results through how it’s configured. It probably never occurred to them that people might have a motive for keeping those numbers high.
Or maybe they know and just don’t care. They say we don’t care because we don’t wear masks. We don’t wear them because they are inadequate in addressing the problem. They probably don’t understand that, either.
So who are the ones who are actually naive? Those who love the Church or those who don’t know what they’re talking about and think nothing of redirecting that which doesn’t belong to them while removing it from those to whom it was given?
Truthfully and wisely stated Gail. AMEN!
Who do we trust on the Holy Eucharist and the true theology and teaching of the Orthodox Church?
Do we trust the truthful teaching, witness, and authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Apostles, the Saints, The Fathers, the Theologians, the Teachers of the Church, and the millions of other righteous and faithful shepherds (deacons, priests, bishops, and archbishops) throughout the entire history of the Orthodox Church?
OR
Do we trust the “authority” of __(fill in the blank)__?
https://orthodoxnet.com/blog/2020/06/impossible-for-holy-communion-to-carry-germs-or-diseases/
If my eventual death is listed as a covid death when it certainly wasn’t, I’m going to ask God’s permission to haunt the doctor.
I think He should let you, too.
I was talking about the Georgian Church here. “In their midst” refers to clergy/laity.
“Interestingly, the Georgian Church had no restrictions and I don’t think they had anyone in their midst who died of COVID. George and I, both at higher risk, continued to live our lives communing with other families of all ages, and we’re still here. The other families are here, as well.”
I can’t speak to anyone on the “unnamed” list, but His Grace Bishop Lazar (Samadbegishvili) of Borjomi and Bakuriani of the Georgian Patriarchate did not die of COVID. He had a lot of health concerns and had undergone surgery to remove a tumor.
“Unnamed”? It would be nice if your arguments were more specific, not vague.
Let’s be honest, the whole COVID cat is coming out of the bag. Data is being revised. Final analysis: we’ve been had.
George, would you share any links to the revised data please? I am very interested in reading up on that. Thanks!
Revised data on what, specifically?
Hi Gail,
George alluded to the “Covid cat coming out of the bag.” What specifically is he referring to? Is the data related to level of infections being revised? Or the number of deaths?
Thank you !
The data changes every day! No, he meant that the “vaccines” were not as safe as the CDC, Pfizer, and Moderna are leading us to believe.
There are several doctors who have been saying the same thing: Dr. Carrie Madej, Dr. Robert Malone (who developed the platform for the vaccine), Dr. Yeadon (Former Pfizer Chief Scientist), Dr. Sherie Tenpenny,& Dr. Jane Ruby.
Would recommend you watch Stew Peters’s interviews with them.
In order to understand where they’re coming from, however, you have to have a healthy respect for truth. And this is across the board.
I have been in healthcare for decades and I know how easy it is to come off sounding like you know something when you don’t; especially when it comes to software. I would put the vast majority of the “fact-checkers” into this category. Many are volunteers. In fact, they often hide their identities/backgrounds so they won’t be discredited.
One day Google is going to be just one list after another of fact-checkers and nothing else! It’s not usual to see several of them on the same page when you do a simple search.
I also know, from experience, that social platforms like FB have changed their algorithms to suppress the truth. Now, they don’t even bother to tell you when they drop you.
For example, I posted an article about blue-eyed bees who sleep in the orange flowers of saguaro cactuses on 7/13/21 and they STILL haven’t circulated it. Why? Probably because it came from the Epoch Times. Talk about “busy little bees!” FB is the worst. Come visit my page and see this for yourself (Gail Zink Sheppard).
The article is interesting, BTW, and the pictures are adorable! https://www.theepochtimes.com/photographer-captures-stunning-blue-eyed-bees-sleeping-in-orange-arizona-desert-flowers-at-night_3870163.html?fbclid=IwAR3zn6bRxqQT45OluPDKCzlQbk-hIamPJLT7zAsCu7ruqMs-wVjJZEhXaqI
The FB fact checkers didn’t let you post because of the glaring, dangerous error in your post: those little guys are resting in the blooms of a globe mallow, not a saguaro. I, for one, feel the world is much safer knowing FB cares so much about my knowing the truth about every little thing that they prevented your post!
Hahaha…thanks for the link…I’ll watch out for them in the globe mallow in my yard!
They probably caught me on something else. I said “orange Arizona desert flowers” on FB. (I said “saguaro” here for some reason.)
I posted another article on 7/26 and it still hasn’t been circulated! At least YOU responded to my story. My stories are getting lonely. 🙁
Jacob,
I agree 100%. The mask( face amulet) in my view is the main tool used by Satan to demoralize and dehumanize everyone!
“Face amulet”! I love it!
Jacob, I see your point, however, the multiple spoon scandal still seems like an order of magnitude to be more scandalous.
Right off the bat, the kissing of icons is not all that universal. Having been a cradle Orthodox all my life, I’ve seen many pious people merely cross themselves and make a slight prostration. So from my perspective, it’s not the same thing (or as scandalous).
My opinion though.
George, the covering of icons is the mandatory face mask wearing. We are the most precious and valuable icons in the Church. Our priests and bishops demanded the icons be covered with a mask. I was sickened when I would visit a mask mandating Antiochian church to see 2 and 3 years with face coverings.
No forbidding of veneration of icons in my area.
It hit home for me how obscene the whole mask wearing thing was when a clergyman came out of the royal doors with a colorful mask on against his vestments while holding the chalice. I am not judging him, it just brought it all home to me how wrong it was.
And yet I am sure it will go poorly for me for disobeying my bishop but I just couldn’t do it and I couldn’t bring myself to have my family keep doing it. Nor could I stop venerating icons nor tell my family to stop venerating icons.
Something that I have been mulling over for the past few days in the wake of the new Delta variant scare is how fear is being used to abrogate any discussion of morality. This is similar to when this all started and parishes were closed followed by very problematic directions to parishes without discussion about whether it was right. Instead it was all about fear. Fear of illness, fear of death, fear of getting sued, fear or being persecuted by the authorities. Any voices in the Church raised to the contrary are quickly silenced, ignored, etc…
I was reading directives of my diocesan bishop on Wednesday night and from the tone of his letter there is to be no discussion of the moral issues or health risks associated with the vaccine. Rather there is a blanket statement that on the whole the Orthodox Bishops around the world have concurred that it is ok. Sounds too much like the “..safe and effective..” and how dare you point to the hundreds of thousands maimed and tens of thousands killed by the vaccine. To say nothing of the moral issues of a so called vaccine (a vaccine that only works against the spike protein and not the virus) that hijacks your cells in a form of genetic manipulation. This type of bio-manipulation is very dangerous and I would argue fundamentally immoral to the point of abomination and goes beyond the use of aborted fetal cells. The catch phrase “..alleviating suffering and death…” has been stretched too far.
So I have decided to say no. I had COVID, classic symptoms, and all not a positive PCR test with no symptoms mind you. Maybe it was by the grace of God because otherwise I would not have the strength to refuse the vaccine. Or I could be wrong and I or any of my family could perish because of my pride but I still think it is the right thing to do.
I work in an organization focused on finding and developing the latest technology so I have visibility of where we are and where the popular winds are blowing. This type of genetic manipulation is the path to transhumanism with modified people. Transhumanism is abomination, you don’t start down that path and they say “just kidding”.
Great post, Dan.
There’s also *huge* financial incentives to keep covid and its endless variants going on forever. Oh how big pharma can keep profiting off of the endless vaccines and new “drugs” that they plan to create for a long time! Heck, Biden just gave them $3 billion of our tax dollars to do so!
And don’t you know it, Ivermectin can knock covid out quick and can end the pandemic. But oops, it’s cheap and not profitable, therefore it’s censored!
It’s very low risk, yet the powers that be suppress its use and silence its discussion. Why?
Fascinating:
https://youtu.be/oMA7o8olHzY
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Millions of Americans still want to think that we’re governed by kind-hearted Episcopalian grandfatherly types who only want the best for humanity…. Well, we see what we want to see. It’s much tougher to see reality as it is.
Straight from the mouth of the Freemason Grand Commander of the Order of the Phoenix.
This is the same Canadian bishop that blesses and allows Giacomo Sanfilippo –the proud and openly gay formerly deposed priest who preaches LGBTQ dogma, supports transgender insanity (even for children), and constantly savages and defames many Orthodox priests online– to commune on a regular basis in Greek Orthodox Churches in Canada.
Eventually all the aboveground “Orthodox” churches will take the Mark of the Beast, which seems to be where all this fake pandemic, vaccines, vaccine/health passport system is headed. Some are more eager to submit than others.
When this was tried before (or maybe it was when Toronto banned communion) there were shouts of Anaxios from the lay people, if anyone remembers that video.
Sotirios should be watching his back or he may be ousted by his own lay people.
Where to begin…?
I won’t bother, but I will say that with each passing day I become ever more more certain that I am (humbly, I dare say) among those about whom they say, “You are mad. You are not mad like us.”
Lord have mercy on His faithful.
“Do You Worship the Communion Spoon? Then You Are a Pagan”.
Do You assume we Worship the Communion Spoon? Then You Are an idiot.
He’s one of these people, I presume, who also believe that the Ouranos is punishing us with hurricanes because we drive cars too much.
You don’t have to go that far North to find behavior not all that dissimilar. Shortly after we left his church (and explained why) our former OCA DoS priest, in a homily in the middle of Divine Liturgy, referred to the parish we went to as Orthodox snake handlers who were tempting God by not following common-sense rules – which included multiple spoons. He used that term not once, but at least twice – and said it again late last Fall when St. Seraphim in Dallas was serving communion the same exact way we were. The same priest, as of last night service, still has yellow post-it notes on the icons reminding filthy germ-laden parishioners not to kiss the icons.
Yeah the OCA DoS can be crazy. I won’t go into specifics on a public forum like this, but yes, it’s an ecclesiological Wild West. Priests can do anything, and no one cares.
Fr Lawrence Farley wrote an article making that comparison with snake handlers. Who is this Canadian to criticize our Southern religious heritage? (1 Samuel 17:26, John 1:46)
Farley is the Sean Hannity of the OCA. He exists to make the approve narrative digestible…
Furthermore, whatever problems they had, the snake handlers had amazing faith. It certainly takes death to the world to pick up vipers and drink poison. I’m not saying we should do that; just that they were taking the Bible at face value.
When converts talk about the need to revive Celtic Christianity, I often joke that when I think of Celtic Christianity, I think of snake handling. Celtic Christianity is that kind of wild, unashamed abandon that the snake handlers embodied. Celtic Christianity is Confederate General Thomas Jackson. It’s fire breathing Baptist preachers. It’s street evangelism. It’s burning Beatles records and blowing up abortion clinics. It’s screaming and weeping and losing yourself in the Dionysian. I am Celtic Christianity.
Celtic Christianity is not some 7th century Roman Catholic saint with a name I can’t pronounce.
I recommend “Salvation on Sand Mountain” as a fascinating account from someone temporarily embedded in the snake-handling culture.
I LOVE that book.
I also love Sand Mountain. There are no laws. You can drive around drunk and throw bottles at mailboxes, and no one cares.
The way he describes the ecstasy reminds me of how people would describe acid trips. I think it’s a similar thing (having experienced neither of them). You find something deep inside you, but it’s not something good or enlightening. You dig to the bottom of your soul, and it’s covered in mud.
I think this is the first time anyone has told me he has already read the book! I used to have a large book about the history of snake-handling churches with such a great collection of pictures on our coffee table. (My interests are often somewhat off the main road.) My wife endured this for a couple years but finally prevailed upon me to put it on one of our shelves. Now I don’t know where it is, but it sure did spark some fun conversations!
Austin, thank you for this post. I appreciate your comments about . . . [Editor Note: Not posted because it could lead to a defamation suit.] His over the top love of masks and lockdowns was startling. Although I guess it shouldn’t have been….
Everything not withstanding, and not subverting any theological points,,,,from a scientific perspective, both silver and copper alloys are excellent biocides, fungicides, bacteriacides,,, as such the inherent properties they possess are to purify that which they touch and vice versa. Also the alcohol from our liturgical wine along with the boiling hot water of dilution enhance these properties of silver and copper alloys,,,,so to all those skeptics out there, from a scientific, pragmatic, secular perspective any risk from the use of a common spoon is eliminated. Lastly, as I was instructed, you do not wipe the spoon with your lips but allow the host to be dropped into your mouth. Ergo, the father’s of our church were very intelligent in their use of wine, hot water, silver and gold alloys, and dropping the host in the mouth. God has given great pragmatic knowledge to supplement our our theological principles. Religion and science go hand in hand to assist us in creating a better world. No of this is said to challenge any theological precepts, but to indicate the universal wisdom of the father’s.
I was taught (OCA) to close my lips around the spoon and my priest called the other way the “bird mouth way the Antiochians do it” haha.
I wonder if it ever sticks to the spoon or goes flying off into someone’s eye if you try to “drop” it into a squirming two-year-old’s mouth, as an example. Dropping it into someone’s mouth sounds like a recipe for disaster, to me.
My lips should be covering the Body and Blood of Christ on the spoon to protect it from landing somewhere it wasn’t intended to go.
Ive seen it done both ways but personally, I agree with you & prefer to wrap my lips around the spoon. It’s just easier.
I also have no problem with receiving the Body in my hand and drinking the Blood directly from the chalice.
That’s just me.
George,
I had to laugh when I read your comment about taking communion in the hand and drinking directly from the chalice. Though I know the spoon was added for practical reasons (reasons I have no desire to change), this was, of course, the way it was once done.
But what prompted my laughter is not the idea of changing back to the original practice. It is the idea that according to the multiple spoon logic, we would then have to do away with the chalice or any other vessel, Unless we go with paper cups or Protestant-style communion trays with the little shot glasses, suspending a liquid in mid-air without a vessel would be quite quite a feat!
This is only one aspect of this multiple spoon nonsense that our detractors have clearly not thought through.
George and Gail,
Yes, I happen to be a GOA wilderness dweller myself. And, as you stated the Greek way is for your lips to engulf the spoon. And at least the receiving of the body in the hand and drinking from the chalice has not only historical precedence, but this is the way the clergy receive the body and blood of our Lord up to the present day.
The apologists for multiple spoons will point to larger parishes that have either two priests or a priest and a deacon distributing communion to the faithful as being morally equivalent. However, I believe the is a false equivalency because the underlying motive behind the multiple spoons is that the spoon may carry disease. Secondly the faithful are still partaking as a community and not individually as if their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are bags of toxic waste.
George,
My comment was not posted. Did I say something objectionable? Or is this simply a glitch of some sort?
Not sure. Don’t recall it.
The silver and copper mechanisms you mention are indeed correct, and explain why normal viruses and bacteria cannot make it.
However, in times of plague the Holy Tradition of our Church (as described in the Rudder by Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain), instructs the priest to put the spoon in vinegar after communing a sick person, and pour the vinegar at the foot of the Holy Altar Table.
The Russian Orthodox Church based its decision from March 2020, to wipe the spoon after each communicant with an alcohol-imbibed wipe, on this aspect of the Holy Tradition.
What a malignant narcissist.
This rant from this masonic bishop is one way to lose the faithful – to tell his flock that they suck.
Those holy bishops and clergy who truly draw the faithful to Christ never go out if their way to tell the faithful as a group how terrible they are.
This “bishop” in Canada will presumably go with his jurisdiction and formally become an Eastern rite Catholic fairly soon. So the appropriate response is to ignore him.
Plus, as others have pointed out, he’s a freaking freemason. If an Orthodox bishop doesn’t know that being a mason is incompatible with our Orthodox faith, then there’s no point in even having a conversation.
I pity those who feel stuck with him as their bishop. May Christ show them a way out.
Why do we persist in name calling and pointing the finger at masons,,,it seems that these people are our scapegoats for everything,,,and this does not pass the sanity test on many levels. Unless we have proof of what we say, a provide such proof,,,perhaps we should be more prudent
Did y’all see the Orthodox covid survey ? Very interesting. Shows how different jurisdictions dealt with it. https://orthodoxreality.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TenQuestionsAndAnswersAboutPandemicImpact1.pdf
The bottom line screams loud and clear. Be brave, hold fast, and keep the Church open.
Unsurprisingly the GOA seems to have been almost decimated by the lockdowns, especially in terms of in-person attendance after the pandemic.
There was a previous study done (I think by the same people) that showed that the GOA had lost over 100K parishioners between 2010-2020 (pre-pandemic 2020), makes you wonder how much WORSE it is now that this study has come out.
All-in-all ROCOR seems to be the winner in all of this. But, it would be curious to see how the other “larger” jurisdictions fared (i.e. Antiochians & Serbians). I was under the impression that the Antiochians were pretty strict too.
“The communion spoon is merely an instrument. It is a vehicle through which Holy Communion is given and nothing else.”
That sounds Protestant.
I wonder what he thinks about the Virgin Mary the Theotokos ? Was she “just” a vehicle to bring God into the flesh? I know the spoon is not exactly the same— but you have to see that it’s not just an ordinary spoon like you have in the kitchen drawer.
“The communion spoon is merely an instrument. It is a vehicle through which Holy Communion is given and nothing else.”
Sure. And the Chalice is just the same in this regard…or is it?
How is it that we are blessed by a chalice filled with unconsecrated wine? Yet we are. Why? Because these vessels, including the spoon, are holy – set apart, consecrated to God specifically for the purpose worship (and for no other purpose). Moreover, they are made holy (and not just consecrated by man) by direct contact with God. Does this remind us of anyone?
Bryan, your intuition is spot on.
It’s “just a vessel,” nothing more? For heaven’s sake, even his own own liturgical practice speaks volumes to the contrary, but apparently for some it is “just a ritual” Watch this video of the Great Entrance – in a parish of the P of C no less . What do we see? The same thing (more or less) that we all see in the Great Entrance, as well as the same thing I’ve witnessed in multiple jurisdictions when many clergy are serving. What is that in the hands of one (or possibly two) of them? Well my word, it’s a spoon! And not just any spoon. It is the spoon that is holy for all the reasons stated above. But hey, if it’s “it’s just a vessel” why not allow a priest or any of us to take it home to eat our morning breakfast cereal? Would that be allowed? Of course not! Why? Because it is holy. And why is it reverently carried in the Great Entrance when there enough clergy to do so? Because it is holy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EkViuzzFvU
I recall a certain Babylonian king to dared to consider consecrated, holy vessels to be “just” vessels. Things didn’t turn out so well for him.
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
Brian G and Brian, thank you for your perceptive insights regarding the sacred liturgical vessels and utensils. Once consecrated, each of them–chalice, diskos, star, spoon, and lance–may never be used for non-eucharistic purposes, and only the major clergy (including the minor order of sub-deacon in some jurisdictions) may handle them, but always with awe and reverence.
The cavalier attitude toward the sacred spoon demonstrated by so many Orthodox Christians recently–including bishops and priests–is one of the most dispiriting of the adverse effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the life of our holy churches.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Brian.
The one huge red flag that caught my attention is when he says…
“Be the first to get vaccinated. Become an example and lead everyone to get their vaccines. SO WE COULD FINALLY SAVE OURSELVES from this accursed coronavirus disease.”
Emphasis is mine, but it seems quite clear where his wealth of knowledge flows from. Maybe he should pay more attention to his own parting words.
“Everything else is a product of your luciferian egotism.”
I am sorry to break the echo chamber bubble of this comment section, but the Metropolitan’s words on vaccination are consistent with the position of the Greek Orthodox Church:
https://orthodoxtimes.com/church-of-greece-vaccination-is-the-only-solution-to-stop-the-virus/
https://orthodoxtimes.com/archbishop-of-athens-you-can-choose-either-the-vaccine-or-the-grave/
and also with the position of the Archbishop of Cyprus, who declared that all nonvaccinated employees of the Archdiocese will be fired:
https://orthodoxtimes.com/archbishop-of-cyprus-the-archdiocese-employees-who-are-not-vaccinated-will-be-dismissed/
There are similar positions in the Russian Orthodox Church, the English translation of Metropolitan Tikhon Shevkunov’s Appeal can be found at:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Forthodoxie.com%2Fa-propos-de-la-vaccination-appel-durgence-du-metropolite-tikhon-chevkounov%2F
Oh, we know that they are in complete agreement and are walking in lockstep. –But they’re walking the wrong way.
There were a few times in the history of the Church when the hierarchy was in error, and only a handful of people stood for the truth. However, I do not think we are in such a situation.
For one, it is hard to believe that the governments in countries where there are autocephalous orthodox churches: Putin, Erdogan, the Greeks, Assad, the Romanians, the Albanians, etc, are all colluding with the American government to force the orthodox hierarchs in the old countries to come out in favor of the vaccine.
The much more likely explanation is the one hinted by Metropolitan Tikhon Shevkunov:
It is clear to me that there are big foreign interests behind the anti-vaccine movement (just ask yourself who pays for all the anti-vaccine movies). They are the ones responsible for the initial spreading of the virus (remember when one could fly from Wuhan to Milano but not to Beijing and when people were calling Trump racist for stopping the flights from China). And these foreign interests are now trying their best to boycott vaccination efforts in the West and in Russia, by fooling many innocent naive people into believing and spreading anti-vaccine lies.
Apostasy includes a variety of things like a lack of leadership, an unwillingness to follow tradition, running the Church as if it were a secular entity, promoting an adversarial relationship within the hierarchy, and demonstrating a general lack of love for the Body of Christ. It’s also about an unwillingness to protect the tenents of the faith by entertaining ideas like same-sex marriage, open communion with other churches, and merging with entities that have different ideas about Christ and the Church.
It’s not about a position on a vaccine. Nor is it about boycotting anything. When you boycott something it can be for a reason that has nothing to do with the product. You hate the company because their brand targets children, the company is purportedly involved in sex trafficking, the CEO said something you didn’t like, etc. There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with the product.
No one that I know of is spreading anti-vaccine lies. They are spreading the truth; a truth many people don’t want to face even though there is a deluge of evidence, not just here in America, but around the globe. It’s the people who choose to remain in the dark who are naive.
I believe (actually I know) there are big foreign interests involved only they want us to take the “vaccine.” Those that are protesting are not anti-vaxxers. I’d feel the same way about any substance that could stage a biological attack within my body using my immune system, eventually killing me.
If a kitchen cleaner was shown to do that in animals and the animals died when they encountered the same product somewhere else, I would not want that product in my sink either.
So it’s not about a “vaccine” where a dead or attenuated virus is injected into the body to produce an immune response. It’s about injecting a piece of synthetic material into the body that instructs the cells to make a protein the human body doesn’t make. It is completely foreign to the human body. Just because they hope it will innoculate people against COVID doesn’t mean it can or it will. (Doesn’t mean this was their true purpose, either.)
What we do know is many people are getting sick from the injection to the point where they die.
Those people who make it through the injection process may later die when they encounter one of the 7 coronaviruses capable of causing human illnesses, ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as the Middle East respiratory syndrome. This is what previous animal studies have shown but the pharmaceutical companies skipped the animal trials for the COVID “vaccine”.
All this to fight a virus that for the most part does not affect children and for 80% of the population doesn’t even cause one to get sick. COVID is almost 100% curable. Those who are dying from it generally have other life-threatening issues due to a variety of reasons including age.
I am not going to turn my body into a protein-making machine that kills its host.
I have read all the anti-vaccine arguments, and I think they are just muddying the waters. The numbers are clearly in favor of the vaccines:
The chance of dying from the virus is roughly 1% for the overall population, 10% for people around 70, and 0.1% for people around 30 (a bit worse for the indian version than for the chinese one). This is the data for most of the countries of this planet (except Belarus, where there are some statistical inconsistencies, there is a fun article about that at https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/01/belorusian-covid-death-data-are-self.html ). It is hard to believe all of them are lying.
The chance of dying from the vaccines is around 1/1.000.000 for Johnson and Astra-Zeneca, and around 1/10.000.000 for Pfizer and Moderna. This is from the countries which do such statistics. Again, it is hard to believe all of them are lying.
Of course, many people have no problems from the coronavirus. But many do, and die a gruesome death. Several people whom I knew did. A priest who survived told me that he had such a hard time breathing (on oxygen) that he could not even pray.
One can also ask a moral question: if vaccination reduces 10 times my chance of infecting somebody who has a 10% chance of dying, is it my Christian duty to do it, given that my risk of dying is 1/1.000.000. The Greek and Russian hierarchs I mentioned in my previous message seem to think this way.
And it is also consistent with how Christians behaved in the plagues of the first millennium, when they brought water and food to the sick. This improved the chance of survival of the sick form 40 to 60% (for Cyprian’s plague, an Ebola-like disease) but resulted in a 40% probability of dying for the Christians. And to think that today’s Christians are avoiding the vaccine because they are afraid of a 1/1.000.000 chance of dying …
Thanks for responding.
I would argue there is a LOT of money to be made here and no downside.
Pfizer was previously caught lying by the Department of Justice and ordered to pay $2.3 BILLION to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products. It was the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the DOJ’s history. That’s lying. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history
Vaccinated people are also making others sick.
There is no Christian directive that suggests you must take an experimental drug in the hope it will keep you from infecting others with a disease (that I know of). Using this as an excuse is probably what they call “virtue signaling.”
My arguments to no one in particular:
* * *
Moral Considerations:
1) Is it ethical to be vaccinated when you know it can make other people sick with bleeding disorders?
2) Is it ethical to knowingly put your health at risk and wind up in the hospital, costing taxpayers 10Xs more than what it would cost for the same services for other things?
3) Is it ethical to stand by and watch others being penalized for making a different decision due to legitimate concerns for their health?
4) Is it ethical to vaccinate children without their parent’s approval.
5) Is it ethical to vaccinate children for COVID, period, as children rarely get it.
6) Is it ethical to prevent non-vaccinated people from being with their families to the point wherein some cities they are removing the children from their environment.
Practical Considerations:
1) Does it make sense to have something injected into your arm that has made thousands and thousands of people sick, some of whom ended up dying?
2) Should you take a potentially toxic substance and inject it into your body, not knowing how it will affect you down now or down the road, to keep you from getting a virus that virtually goes unnoticed by 80% of the population and is 99.97% curable?
3) Is it reasonable to inject yourself with something that comes from a pharmaceutical company (Pfizer), who is free of all liability, when that company was previously ordered by the Department of Justice to pay $2.3 BILLION to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products (the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the DOJ’s history)?
4) Is it logical to disregard the results of previous animal studies where 100% of the animals died due to the COVID antibodies created by the injection of the vaccine?
5) When technology is brand new, do people usually recommend buying the first product off the assembly line?
6) Would you play Russian roulette with a six-shooter and 2 bullets? Because according to the inventor of the mRNA vaccine, for every person who is saved by the vaccine, 2 will die.
Finally, why would someone inject something into their body that is associated with hundreds of thousands of injuries and death within the span of a few short months?
In exchange for what, exactly?
Why would one risk their health (and perhaps life) to do anything?
Even in the best-case scenario, most people feel sick for several days after being injected? What makes that so compelling? To me, it would be like making reservations in a foreign country for a meal advertised to make you sick.
There can be but one reason people do this and you’re right: I think this is about fear.
But I am not the one who is afraid. I am not afraid of getting COVID or dying from it. I never was but now there is no longer a reason to take a vaccine; particularly one that has so much against it.
Having a healthy respect for the potential to do harm is the opposite of fear. It’s a survival instinct. Perhaps that is why my relatives way back in the early 1800s died so late in life!
Supposing there are people behind the vaccines who know of it’s deleterious health effects, but who nonetheless push these bad vaccines on unsuspecting populations in order to achieve some hidden agenda, be it money or power. We might assume that such “evil geniuses” would not receive the vaccinations, perhaps making it easy to identify them.
So where are the supposed “evil geniuses?” Is it Bill Gates? He was publicly vaccinated. Is it Donald Trump? He was vaccinated. Vladimir Putin? He was vaccinated with Sputnik V. Although it’s perhaps unclear whether Chinese President Xi Jinping has been vaccinated and shown preference for either of China’s Sinovac or Sinopharm vaccines, he is now openly calling for an end to intellectual property rights on Covid vaccines. Thus, I don’t get the sense that Xi Jinping is one of the “evil geniuses”.
So where are they? The evil geniuses must be hiding somewhere, I suppose.
I would look toward the United Nations and the families who created them.
It’s an interesting dichotomy. Evil has no God so it thinks it can recreate the world at will. – Good, on the other hand, has no interest in interfering with the sanctity of life or with the rest of God’s creation. God is real to them.
We can’t know if specific people like Bill Gates were vaccinated. During this whole COVID scare, Gates never even wore a mask; that is until he was photographed taking the vaccine. – Does this look like Bill Gates to you? Not to me, it doesn’t. I think he was punking us! https://www.livemint.com/companies/people/bill-gates-receives-covid-19-vaccine-11611532254986.html
I don’t think Trump was ever vaccinated. He took hydroxychloroquine prophylactically, Remdesivir, and Regeneron’s monoclonal antibodies when he was sick.
We can’t know if Vladimir Putin was vaccinated. We know he wants his people vaccinated and that he doesn’t trust the West when it comes to what they take. Sputnik V may be saline for all we know. He just didn’t want the Russians taking our vaccines, perhaps with good reason.
Sorry, but Sputnik is not saline. And Putin, for all his unsavory parts, really cares for Russians and for the Russian Orthodox Church.
Metropolitan Tikhon took it, his antibodies went up, then down again, then he took another one, then they went up again. This is what he is saying in his appeal. I do not believe he is lying.
Never said Sputnik was saline. What I said was that we can’t know what, if anything, he received.
Not sure what appeal you’re referring to. No one accused anyone of lying.
It is this appeal:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Forthodoxie.com%2Fa-propos-de-la-vaccination-appel-durgence-du-metropolite-tikhon-chevkounov%2F
in particular:
“I can tell myself that at the end of August I was vaccinated against covid with Sputnik-V. The vaccination went perfectly, I noticed nothing. […] But in April, my antibody level dropped so much that I was advised to get the vaccine again, and just recently, ten days ago, the doctors advised me to get the vaccine for the third time. They explained to me that the current Indian strain of the virus is very aggressive, and able to overcome even a medium level of good immunity. Only high immunity is able to protect a person from this disease. And the second and third time I had no side effects. And I know a lot of people who have not only been vaccinated but revaccinated with different vaccines. […]
So it is a choice: either we trust people like Metropolitan Tikhon, or the entire Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, who advise people to get the vaccine. Or we believe they are liars, and trust people like Robert Kennedy, who say that the vaccine is saline, or poison, and that vaccination will hurt us
There is no one “antibody” that can go “up and down” to protect one from COVID.
Antibodies are but a single component of a healthy immune system.
Some people don’t produce antibodies. Others produce things like T-cells that can also protect people from COVID. If this were NOT true, how could so many people survive the virus without a “vaccine”?
The strains he is talking about (Delta Variant = Indian Strain) make the virus more contagious and transmissable not more virulent as he is suggesting: “Only high immunity is able to protect a person from this disease.”
The immune system is more complex than that so it does not come down to a single antibody that you can only get from a particular “vaccine”. I have no cytokines, for example. It is unlikely that I would succumb to a virus that kills by creating a cytokine storm, as COVID does, so a specific “antibody” is probably irrelevant in my case.
The Sputnik V is entirely different from the mRNA “vaccines.” The Sputnik V is an adenovirus-based vaccine. The “vaccines” from Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA “vaccines”. They work differently.
Unlike mRNA “vaccines”, adenoviruses only cause mild “common cold”-like symptoms which is probably what Met. Tikhon had with the first dose.
But this is not about Met. Tikhon. He’s not “lying.” He is sharing his experience. He is misinformed, however, as are so many of the clergy. I think one of the greatest gifts they can give us is to be humble and not insist they know what’s going on outside their ministry. In some cases, I suspect their secular governments are influencing what they’re telling us for their own reasons. Clearly, all those people flooding the streets of Greece think so.
There is a third choice, however: Do the research yourself or trust somebody who has.
I don’t know if this is deliberate misinformation by Met. Tikhon’s medical people, but I’ve heard this repeated so often I can’t believe it’s not intentional. “People with the vaccine have more antibodies.”
The immune system doesn’t function by having legions of antibodies standing always at attention. Rather, the body creates memory cells that are able to rapidly manufacture antibodies when they are needed. A healthy person shouldn’t have tons of antibodies around, only enough to monitor for new infections and to sound the alarm if more are needed.
For my part, having recovered from COVID, I am satisfied with my immune system’s ability to take care of me. No bishop can tell me otherwise.
Sorry, but the immune system functions exactly by having antibodies ready to jump and neutralize the virus.
There are for example IgG spike-protein antibodies, which people who had the coronavirus or the vaccine or both can measure in any lab (I measured mine 2 weeks ago and I have 13 896.8 au/ml.)
These antibodies are the easiest to measure, so I guess Metropolitan Tikhon is talking about them when he says he had low numbers and he had to take the vaccine again to increase the numbers.
Same happened to one of the priests I know, he had very few antibodies even after 2 bouts with the virus, so the doctor recommended him to take a vaccine as well to boost them up for the upcoming Indian variant.
Never said it didn’t. I said: “Some people don’t produce antibodies. Others produce things like T-cells that can also protect people from COVID. If this were NOT true, how could so many people survive the virus without a ‘vaccine’?”
Since we can’t know about Met. Tikhon’s specific experience, I am going to stop this thread.
Vladimir Putin has gone on public television saying that he received the Sputnik V vaccine:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-he-received-russias-sputnik-v-vaccine-against-covid-19-2021-06-30/
Does anybody have any proof that Sputnik V is not actually a vaccine, but rather some kind of placebo?
No one said anything about a placebo! I was alluding to the fact that the contents of a syringe can be released into the air or into a bucket before it is “injected” into a person. At the end of the day, unless you were there, you can’t know who got what. It could be a B12 shot for all we know.
Such a hypothesis presents a pair of concerning possibilities.
One, that Putin lied to the Russian people about taking the vaccine.
Two, that the sophisticated security apparatus intended to keep Putin safe is irredeemably compromised, leaving him open to harm. If things like the trusted chain of custody of his medications are broken, he is extremely vulnerable.
Giving Putin a B12 shot instead of Sputnik without his knowledge seems like a good way to end up falling out a fourth floor window.
RE: “Giving Putin a B12 shot instead of Sputnik without his knowledge seems like a good way to end up falling out a fourth floor window.”
My point wasn’t that it was prudent; only that we can’t know what he was given. Because he is so health-conscious, I could see him telling his physician to skip Spudnick V and replace it was B12, which he may take regularly. 😉
Gail: “…seems like a good way to end
up falling out a fourth floor window.”
Or, perhaps, avoid it…
An up-the-down-staircase sort of thing.
Speaking of Putin, he’s a maniac when it comes to fitness. He swims 10 laps in an Olympic-sized swimming pool every day.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is telling people in Arkansas to join her in getting the “Trump vaccine”:
“I was also reassured after President Trump and his family were vaccinated. If getting vaccinated was safe enough for them, I felt it was safe enough for me.”
https://nypost.com/2021/07/25/sarah-huckabee-sanders-urges-people-to-get-the-trump-vaccine/
Are the deep-state evil geniuses behind this?
Your proclivity to talk about “deep-state evil geniuses who are behind this” (whatever “this is), is getting old. It doesn’t make you look smarter or tell people you know better. You don’t. So let’s drop it.
Unfortunately some Bishops in MP went over the red line in fear and lack of belief In Lord not only by dipping spoons in alcohol at the beginning of euphoria but also in threatening people later on to get vaccinated. So Mr. Putin had to interfere and explain to them that this is not right (orthodox). Its a pity he was a communist when he was young it appears he would be an excellent Bishop 🙂
It is not a question here if vaccine makes antibodies and is dangerous or safe but if the Bishops should force to get vaccine and God forbid expel their flock if they do not want.
And answer is simple; by no means they should not.
Sigh….how do we actually KNOW that these folks mentioned received the V? Because we saw it on TV?? LOL….
Seriously, this is just too easy…..
If people say they’ve been vaccinated, I’m willing to take their word on it. I talk to different people all the time, and I routinely ask them if they’ve been vaccinated. People are typically forthright. They will right away tell you how many shots they’ve received, when they received it, and what vaccine they received. Those who have not been vaccinated will let you know if you ask them and usually provide their reasons too.
When public figures are interviewed on media and personally say they’ve been vaccinated, I’m willing to take their word. The only difference about public figures, is that they are less likely to say which vaccine they received, because otherwise it comes across as a paid corporate endorsement.
That’s well and good as long as it is not REQUIRED for a job or travel, etc., or REQUIRED by your party or your state, which it is, unfortunately. Putin wants his population vaccinated. He has no choice but to show his support for it.
Unless YOU WERE THERE and WERE SHOWN what was in the syringe, you cannot know.
Whom you “believe” is up to you but from my perspective, a lot of people will lie about it because of the social pressure and because of the penalties like being passed over for a job or unable to travel.
However, it is MY belief that when these adverse events can no longer be swept under the carpet and the-powers-that-be publish a schedule for the 3rd and 4th boosters, people are going to rebel and they will pull the plug on this campaign.
Steve,
Re: “…. I talk to different people all the time, and I routinely ask them if they’ve been vaccinated…”
What on earth makes you think that is an appropriate thing to ask anyone? If someone asks me if I take blood pressure medicine or blood thinners or ED meds or anything else – I’d look at them like they are crazy. When someone asks me if I have been vaccinated it is all I can do to avoid the same reaction. I try to say as little as possible, otherwise I’d just say: if you believe the vaccine is effective, and you’ve taken it, and you are standing well away from me, and you are wearing your mask (or preferably two) – just leave me alone to make my own decisions, just as you did.
My favorite comment today.
Just a dad,
Vaccinations are intended to prevent socially transmitted diseases. This is a different category than blood thinner and ED meds. There are many countries and schools that have required various vaccinations for entry. This is not a new thing. If there was a measles outbreak at school, you bet every mother would want to know what kids were vaccinated against measles.
Granted, the Covid vaccines are not fully tested. I think people are mostly aware of this, and perhaps that’s why vaccinated people are usually quick to offer details without being asked. Likewise, I encounter many people who willingly offer this reason for not being vaccinated.
I also know unvaccinated people who believe their health may be threatened being around those who are vaccinated. I don’t fully understand that position, but I respect it. Those who believe this have a right to know the vaccination status of those they might come in contact with.
Since there’s still people getting sick and dying from Covid, I think we’re all just trying to navigate this as best we can, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. There’s an element of “we’re all in this together.”
COVID vaccines do not prevent “socially transmitted diseases” (interesting choice of words) or viruses. They also don’t keep getting people from getting sick or dying from COVID.
There are still people getting sick and dying, even with the vaccines. Nothing has changed.
BUT what we didn’t expect was people getting sick and dying from the vaccine.
I would argue that it is nobody’s business if someone got the vaccine or didn’t, especially in a climate where people penalize other people because they made the better decision.
If you are vaccinated why would you care if the rest of us aren’t? Why do I need to be vaccinated for you to feel safe? The vaccine is supposed to protect you. But it doesn’t. Therein lies the problem. Instead of acknowledging vaccines don’t work, the vaccinated want everyone else to be vaccinated, too.
If someone has a vested interest in staying away from unvaccinated people, it begs the question why? If a vaccinated person can get COVID from the vaccinated or unvaccinated, what difference does it make from whom?
It is the inverse that is dangerous. It matters very much to know who is vaccinated and who isn’t when it comes to the people who have your life in their hands. I would not want a plane I was in to be piloted by a vaccinated person. Too many have suddenly died of blood clots. I would not want to be operated on by a vaccinated surgeon. I would not want my children riding in a bus driven by a vaccinated bus driver. I would not want vaccinated people driving on the freeway with me.
“I talk to different people all the time, and I routinely ask them if they’ve been vaccinated.”
This isn’t about science, medicine, health and public safety. This is all about obedience, being willingly to offer up your body, mind, and soul to the Beast system.
https://www.rt.com/uk/530020-zahawi-fully-vaccinated-placebo-nhs-app/
The UK government views people who were given placebos during Covid-19 vaccine trials as fully inoculated, Britain’s vaccines minister has said, adding that they would enjoy all the privileges granted by the NHS Covid Pass.
In remarks given before Parliament on Thursday, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi touted the country’s controversial NHS Covid Pass as having an “important role to play in slowing the spread of the virus,” and urged certain businesses and large venues to adopt the domestic health certificate in order to “keep their clients or their customers safe”.
Steve,
I appreciate your reasoned messages and responses.
My concern/frustration/strong suspicion (leaning towards a belief) is that there is way more than “an element of “we’re all in this together.”
I think it is MOSTLY about “we’re all in this together”. This phrase was annoying for a while until I realized it goes far beyond an annoyance.
To say that we’re all in this together is another way of saying “either you are part of us or you are not”. If you don’t do what we do, you are not part of this “thing” we are all in together. Whatever “the thing” is. If you don’t behave like we do, say the words we say, avoid the words we avoid, etc. – then you are not part of us, you are outside the circle of trust, you are not part of “our society”. It sets the stage for anyone who is NOT “one of us” to be marginalized, shunned, punished, cancelled, and worse.
We saw that with BLM last summer – I had partners at my firm posing for large group photos with BLM signs to show that “we are all in this together”. We see it with masks – why would Kamala Harris (fully vaccinated) kiss her husband (fully vaccinated) while both wearing masks? To show everyone that “we’re all in this together”. Why force people with natural immunity to COVID19 to take the vaccine? To show that we are all in this together. The list goes on and on and on.
Why did young people (and many others) by the millions in China in the 60’s carry around their Little Red Book? It was not because they constantly opened it and read it, it was to show that “we’re all in this together”.
My personal opinion is that there is a HUGE aspect of “we’re all in this together” going on, and it ties to the narrative of multiple social issues that this country is dealing with.
Just a dad,
My comments aren’t meant to pressure anyone into groupthink, whether to be vaccinated or to be unvaccinated. Nun Cornelia says it best in her recent and excellent opinion piece, “More on Spins and Fakes”:
“I believe that all of us—those who were vaccinated, those who weren’t, those who got sick and recovered, and those who died alone in the hospitals from suffocation are all pieces of a large puzzle, which only history will be able to put together for a clearer picture.”
https://orthochristian.com/140827.html
Can’t wait for that “clearer picture” when those who warned us not to do our own research discover for themselves that you can’t defeat something you don’t understand.
That “clearer picture” will begin to form when they stop putting their trust in the princes of men “in whom there is no help.”
“I believe that all of us—those who were vaccinated, those who weren’t, those who got sick and recovered, and those who died alone in the hospitals from suffocation are all pieces of a large puzzle, which only history will be able to put together for a clearer picture.”
The whole picture is known only to God;
but there are parts of it that are discernible
to those who use their eyes to see…
apS: “I have read all the anti-vaccine arguments,
and…[t]he numbers are clearly in favor of the vaccines”.
Official Data shows more people have died
because of the Covid Vaccines in 6 months
than people who have died of Covid-19 in 15 months
https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/06/15/its-official-official-data-shows-more-people-have-died-because-of-the-covid-vaccines-in-6-months-than-people-who-have-died-of-covid-19-in-15-months/
‘ We can officially confirm that the number of people to have died due to the Covid vaccines has surpassed the number of people who have died of Covid-19.
However the numbers are most likely much worse than they appear due to the fact that the data on deaths due to the Covid vaccines has been taken from official data released by Public Health Scotland, and the number of deaths actually surpasses the number of people who have allegedly died of Covid-19 in England.
The huge difference here? The number of people who have died due to the vaccines in Scotland has accumulated over 6 months, whereas the number of people who have allegedly died of Covid-19 in England has accumulated over 15 months. … ‘
The fundamental fact precluding each of the current COVID-19 vaccines as a moral choice is the direct connection in one way or another to an aborted preborn baby in 1973 or 1985. (See my article again on this website titled, “The Moral Peril of Most COVID-19 Vaccines.”) You do not address that issue, “anonimous’? Why?
. . .
Father bless
There is a distinction between medical products tested on cell lines from aborted babies, and products produced using cell lines.
One has 3 logical choices
A. both are problematic, and should be avoided by Christians
B. products tested on cell lines are OK but those produced using and/or destroying cell lines are not.
C. Both are OK, as long as one does not produce new cell lines using these abhominable means.
The book by dr. Engelhardt, Foundation of Christian Bioethics, is in my opinion the gold standard in the field of Orthodox Bioethics, and argues for C. I know you disagree with this, and in your article you argue rather for A. I also know many people whom I highly respect who argue for B.
Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna are only tested on cell lines, Johnson, Sputnik and Astra-Zeneca are fabricated using cell lines. So a person who believes in B could get the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna, but not the other. A person who believes in A would get none of the vaccines on the list. And somebody believing in C could get any of them.
The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, which recommended the faithful to get any of the available coronavirus vaccines (including Johnson and Astra-Zeneca) does not make a distinction between B and C. Patriarch Kirill, Metropolitan Hilarion and Metropolitan Tikhon, who took the Sputnik vaccine, automatically support C. Their consistence with Engelhardt and with the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece weighs very in my opinion very mightily in favor of this choice.
Also, choice A would rule out 90% of the medicines that pharmacists, including our gracious host, are selling to people. There is a list at
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughcatholiclenses/2021/01/if-any-drug-tested-on-hek-293-is-immoral-goodbye-modern-medicine/
So I think it is logically inconsistent to oppose the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines because they are tested on cell lines, without opposing Tylenol, Advil, Aspirine, etc as well.
We are not just talking about the ten or so aborted fetuses used in fetal cell lines known as HEK, WI, MRC, PER, and WALVAX (all from babies aborted decades ago) that are used in ongoing vaccine development. We are referencing the ONGOING use of aborted babies in vaccine R&D.
The Godfather of Vaccines Dr. Stanley Plotkin testified in his 9-hour deposition (2/21) that thousands of unborn babies are used in vaccine development. They are aborted via Caesarean Section after their first trimester, and while they are still alive their skin and body parts are harvested so they can be used in testing vaccines. Pamela Acker, biologist and vaccine lab developer, explained in more detail. For just one of these lines, the HEK-293 (Human Embryonic Kidney) fetal line, the 293 refers to the number of experiments the vaccine researcher would have done to develop that cell line for use in vaccine research. For that one cell line alone, she testified that hundreds of aborted fetuses would have been used. As she said,
This goes to the heart of the abortion controversy that has existed from the beginning. Is it OK to sacrifice (literally sacrifice) an unborn child for the sake of its mom’s life? If the mom feels like her life would end if she gave birth to that unborn child, is it OK to sacrifice that unborn life to save the mother? Likewise, if people feel their lives would end if we don’t inject vaccines researched on aborted babies’ tissue, organs, and skin, is it OK to sacrifice those unborn lives to save humanity from covid? This is the ethical and moral dilemma of our time. Today’s Orthodox hierarchy has made their choice. They believe it is acceptable to sacrifice thousands of unborn babies and harvest their tissue, organs, and skin while still alive during a Cesarean abortion, and to use those cells in research and development of vaccines, in order to inoculate people against a virus that is 99.8% survivable.
Horrifying.
They don’t know and it is up to us to inform them
Sorry but the cells in a cell line have the same ADN. So they cannot come from multiple aborted fetuses.
If I understand correctly from your argument, you would be in favor of option A.
Can you clarify whether you believe it is ethically moral to medicate oneself with, or to sell to others Aspirin, Advil, Motrin, Claritin, Robitussin, Maalox, etc, which were also tested on such cell lines ?
What’s an “adn”?
I believe Christine was talking about the tissues taken from other aborted fetuses to be used for the same purpose.
Cell lines are essentially cultures of cells that can be “used and grown indefinitely.” From a researcher’s perspective, however, fetal tissue has an advantage over cell lines because cell lines do not faithfully mimic native tissue.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-fetal-tissue-research/
I have the same question as Gail. What’s ADN?
Sorry, Romanian habitudes die hard 🙂
ADN is the Latin name which for DNA: Acidum desoxyribonucleicum.
Scorilo, earlier you said basically that we should trust the Metropolitan and the Synod of Greece. That’s your logic? LOL…..the same Synod in Greece that decreed that Pascha services had to end by 9 PM (because we all know Covid comes alive at 9 PM each night) ?
Seriously, these days, most Bishops of most jurisdictions are telling Priests to commune the non-O, they’re closing parishes, and a whole host of other garbage. Yah, I’m not listening to guys who talk about O, but in reality deny The Faith.
I do not think ANY of the 80 Metropolitans of the Greek Holy Synod is communing non-Orthodox. Remember, they are people who have given their life to Christ, and who imperil their salvation if they and endanger the life and well-being of their flock. So they have skin in the game, unlike the anti-vaccine activists who fill up the web with misleading information – nobody will hold them accountable if someone who believes them and does not get the vaccine dies.
This is the English translation of the letter they sent to all the faithful, and which was read last Sunday in every Orthodox church in Greece:
Dear children in the Lord,
God’s most perfect creation is man, who was created to live forever. Selfishness led man to the fall, and the fall led to disease and death.
Our Creator, in order to alleviate man’s suffering caused by diseases, gave us medical science and medicines. In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah, with the help of the medicine of that time, healed Hezekiah.
In the New Testament, on the other hand, our Lord Himself emphasizes the need for medical science, saying: “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick” (Mt 9:12), which means that when the body is sick, physicians are needed.
St. Nectarios of Aegina also, shortly before his death, could not bear the pain of his illness and sought treatment in the hospital of Aretaio, where he died.
But also St. Luke, apostle and physician, forerunner in scientific medical advances, also gave and continues to give, with the power of the Holy Spirit, health of body and soul to people after his death.
In our time, St. Porphyrios has become the saint par excellence of medical care institutions and, knowing better than anyone else the suffering of patients, he asked the faithful to pray for enlightened doctors and, when struck by illness, to turn to them for help.
Today, therefore, the Church trusts the scientific community of doctors, who are working day and night to rid people of this deadly pandemic. Thanks to the light of God and the painstaking efforts of scientific researchers, humanity now has the vaccine to build a wall against the spread of the pandemic. Hope has arisen for a return to normalcy, but above all for unhindered participation in the divine sacraments of our Church, culminating in the communion of all in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, knowing that vaccination is the greatest act of responsibility towards our fellow human beings, recommends that everyone, in consultation with his or her physician, make use of this gift that God has given us, in order to protect ourselves and every human being “for whom Christ died” (Rom 14:15). And, he wants to officially assure that this vaccine does not contradict in any way the hagiographic, patristic and canonical teaching of our Holy Church.
Fear of anything new often provokes reactions or suspicions, and as a result, voices are often raised, leading to confusion and separation. But this is contrary to our Lord’s request in his priestly prayer, “that all may be one” (Jn 17:21).
In this difficult situation, we need faith, prudence, humility, a high sense of responsibility, solidarity, love of God and love of neighbor, because if these things are lacking, fear takes hold of people’s hearts and, according to the prophet David, “there is no fear, there is no dread. (Ps 13:5).
Beloved children in the Lord!
We invite you to listen to the voice of science and experts who, always with a high sense of responsibility, inform citizens by proposing appropriate and suitable solutions to the difficulties that arise each time.
Often, on social networks, opinions are presented in an unfounded way, which lack both science and ecclesiastical spirit. We therefore draw attention to the words of the evangelist of love, St. John the Theologian: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God” (John 1, 4, 1).
In the link you provide, I was disappointed to see that Ivermectin is listed as a drug tested on the HEK-293 cell line also.
May the Lord bless you, “anonimus per Scorilo.”
Orthodox moral decision-making does not entail lining up advocates for one position or another and choosing sides based on who they are. That is merely a fallacious argument from authority. The substance of the moral argument is what matters.
Moreover, your “logical options” B and C are merely an academic exercise. Yes, they are possible courses of action, but neither B nor C provides the basis for a coherent moral argument that takes seriously the abortion question from a consistent Orthodox pro-life moral perspective. Your option B is sheer sophistry: whether aborted preborn baby cell lines are utilized in development or merely for the testing of vaccines is a distinction without a moral difference. What you offer is two modes of expedience that undermine the fundamental principle of the inviolability of innocent human life from a conscious, willful exploitation of aborted preborn baby organs (liver and retina) for your desired end—namely, a vaccine that might save the lives of others. Attempts to minimize the original enormities by citing the decades that have elapsed since 1973 and 1985 or by promising not to harvest the preferred organs from abortions in the present (your option C) are moral non-sequiturs or rhetorical diversions from the reality that one is profiting directly from the abomination of abortion, however long ago.
To address your other concerns, here, serendipitously, is a portion of the revised, expanded, and updated version of my conclusions in my original article here on monomakhos.com (which will appear, God willing, as a chapter in a forthcoming edited volume later this year):
“We must reject, on moral grounds, all COVID-19 vaccines that have any connection to aborted preborn baby cells or cell lines (especially from those babies in the second trimester of gestation who were ‘kept alive’ long enough during the abortion procedure for scientists to extract the kidneys or retinas from which they derived the desired ‘material.’) Time and distance are irrelevant to profiteering from such abominations for any reason, including the possible saving of human lives in the present or future. According to traditional Orthodox moral theology (as opposed to revisionist deviations so widespread today) beginning with several biblical proscriptions—namely, 3 John 11 and Romans 12:17, 12:21, and 3:8—certain actions (“means” to “ends”) are objectively or intrinsically evil under any ‘circumstances’—most notably, abortion, rape, child abuse, incest, adultery, fornication, homosexual activity, physical torture of prisoners, and deliberate targeting of non-combatants in war.
“Otherwise, we fall into a utilitarian or, worse, consequentialist temptation that justifies anything, however repellant and abominable and otherwise deemed an evil, for the ‘greater good’ that one may have as his or her intention. The New Testament, the consensus patrum, and our own properly Orthodox-informed consciences all testify to the uncontestable moral maxim that we may not do evil to achieve good. There is no ‘lesser evil’ that is tolerable to achieve, ostensibly, a ‘greater good.’ If the means or action toward even a good end is intrinsically evil, the entire decision must be deemed immoral, against conscience, and forbidden. A ‘lesser evil’ decision process cloaked in a ‘greater good’ teleology is either dangerous sophistry or prelest.
“Is our own bodily health, including likely immunity via vaccination from a pandemic that, despite the toll of deaths—each one tragic and unnecessary—is only one of many other, more deadly pandemics in human history, worth compromising an informed moral conscience by benefiting in any way from the abomination of abortion?
“Alas, we confront in the third decade of the 21st century a seemingly omnipresent use of aborted preborn baby cells or cell lines in a wide variety of medical vaccines as well as rather trivial consumer items such as cosmetics and certain foods! For example, on October 30, 2009, Neocutis, a cosmetics company based in San Francisco, issued a statement defending its use of skin tissue from an aborted 14-week-old male baby to produce anti-aging creams: ‘Our view—which is shared by most medical professionals and patients—is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe.’ While dismissing the occasional charge that some vaccines and other products contain actual cells from recent abortions, the McGill University Office for Science and Society in Canada—no friend of the pro-life movement—had to concede the following: ‘Senomyx, an American biotechnology company develops flavour enhancers for use in food products. To test these enhancers, they used taste receptors expressed in the HEK 293 cell line, which was generated from the kidney cells of a fetus aborted in 1973.’
“Faced with that dispiriting phenomenon, a conscientious Orthodox Christian might surrender the moral argument out of a sense of futility, concede the impossibility of making a truly Orthodox moral choice, and decide to take one of the current COVID-19 vaccines along with any of the other medical / health vaccines connected to aborted preborn baby cell lines as the ‘lesser evil’ and for the ‘greater good’ of maintaining body health of himself and others. But that would be, ultimately, a premature, foolish, and unworthy moral surrender.
“First, there are genuinely moral alternatives to the abortion-related vaccines for a dozen notorious diseases. The Children of God for Life organization produced an excellent chart (updated as recently as January 2021) that indicates licit alternatives already available or in development for cystic fibrosis, Ebola, hemophilia, hepatitis A & B, hepatitis A & Typhoid, measles, mumps, Rubella, rabies, rheumatoid arthritis, shingles, and smallpox. There is simply no excuse for anyone to resort to the old morally illicit vaccines for those afflictions.
“Second, if an Orthodox Christian concludes that he or she cannot avoid taking certain vaccines or medicines that are connected to aborted preborn baby cell lines, he or she can still choose to draw the line with the COVID-19 vaccine, especially in view of the dubious medical, political, and social pressures to ‘go along’ with most of our fellow Americans or the boss at work or the military commander or any of a host of persons in authority (including, alas, some Orthodox bishops!). Without downplaying the 606,526 deaths in America out of 33,877,470 cases (a “case fatality rate” of 1.79% compared to approximately 30% for smallpox until it was eradicated in 1980) and the 4,082,593 deaths around the globe attributed so far to COVID-19, I must observe that the COVID-19 crisis is not the health apocalypse portrayed by many public officials and scientists (and Orthodox bishops) in the United States and elsewhere.
“At the very least, let us make the COVID-19 crisis the line in the sand for a staunch unyielding opposition to the abomination of vaccines that casually, cynically, and immorally exploit the abomination of the abortion of preborn babies. . . . “
Excellent, Father!
Neocutis: ‘Our view—which is shared by most medical professionals and patients—is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe.’
Did the unborn babies (sorry: foetuses) consent to being flayed?
If so, where are the signatures indicating their informed consent?
If not, then the skins were not donated. They were taken.
I agree with Gail, this is excellent, Fr. A couple of other things come to mind as well. First, while there’s no doubt many people have died from covid, and like you said, it’s tragic, there is also reason to question how many of them were genuine covid deaths. Not to mention there could well be thousands, if not millions, who have had it and had no, or very mild, symptoms and were never diagnosed.
But the main thing that came to my mind is since when did staying alive become the priority for Christians, especially, Orthodox Christians? I’m in no way downplaying the agony suffered by families who’ve lost loved ones. But this life is only our preparation for the life to come. This life is the opening act, not the main attraction. We need to reflect and ask ourselves what are we willing to do and who are we willing to step over for more time, or more comfortable time, on this earth? What are we willing to do to our souls to benefit our bodies? This always makes me think of Voldemort in Harry Potter. If you don’t get this reference then there’s nothing I can do for you. ?
Excellent points, Seraphim! I have just incorporated two of them into the revised, updated, and expanded version of my article for publication as a book chapter later this year.
Father Alexander, we also shouldn’t dismiss the wise counsel of Bishop Luke of Syracuse who says, “Orthodox faithful need neither to seek a special blessing to receive the vaccines nor are they forbidden to receive them”.
https://eadiocese.org/news_210128_1
Bishop Luke also stated that “there are other possible therapies to treat this disease that have not received as much attention and are not under consideration here.” In any case, Bishop Luke and I have reached different conclusions on the morality of the current COVID-19 vaccines.
Father Alexander, yes, some on this blog have pointed out that Covid is treatable and perhaps even curable with Ivermectin. Unfortunately, it appears that Ivermectin was developed through testing it on the HEK-293 cell line also. Based on your conclusions, I guess we’ll have to throw out our Ivermectin as well.
This may not be the most appropriate place to ask this question, but I haven’t found a better one. That is, what exactly would it take to develop cell lines for drug testing not derived from aborted fetuses? Could individuals donate cells in sufficient kind and quantity to create such a line? Are there other ways to derive them? I don’t begin to have the expertise to answer this question. Assuming it is possible I think it’s what we should be advocating, at a minimum. As Steve notes, the aborted cell lines have been used in the development of a wide variety of medicines, as well as other products. Surely this is an ethical problem we should seek to eliminate from our society if we can.
It can be done but fetal cells divide something like 20 times in their lifetime where adult cells have a much shorter lifetime. These particular fetal cell lines are more stable and predictable. They can grow more cells from them which they can’t do with just any cell. They have to be “fed and watered”, so to speak, so they have to be cared for to keep them alive. They get top dollar for them which is probably the biggest incentive.
More: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1435888/
I don’t want to suffer or die any more than anyone else, but modern medicine in many ways has made life worse, and has placed terrible decisions into human hands that we were never before capable of making.
Amen A/S!
As a practicing pharmacist, I can honestly say that much of the drug therapies given out today are questionable if not outright deleterious.
APS,
There is one argument about the vaccines that you have never read. And that is hard evidence of no long-term effects. You haven’t read it because it does not exist; nor can it exist.
Both those who insist it is safe in terms of long-term effects and those who say it is will cause untold harm are speculating based upon what they believe their science tells them, not what they know with certainty.
When I speak of the latter group, I am not referring to internet kooks; I am referring to legitimate biological scientists and/or highly respected physicians in major institutions and medical research facilities. Moreover, for the sake of so many who have believed the former group I sincerely hope this latter group is wrong.
At this juncture hard evidence (i.e., that “science” we are supposed to believe in) on either side is lacking, and the truth is that only time will tell. All we have now is educated speculation on both sides of the question.
Death rate for vaccinated exposed to covid post-vaccine is higher than death rate of non-vaccinated exposed to covid, according to data coming out from UK and Israel. In India, only 3% of the population is vaccinated, but around 70% of the population has antibody protection against covid. As one of the world’s largest nations, it has only accounted for just around 10% of covid deaths. Look to the research from OUTSIDE the U.S. to understand what is actually happening, since the CDC decided in May to stop tracking covid cases among the vaccinated unless they died. The UK is one of the most vaccinated countries, but they have reported that over 40% of all their covid hospitalizations are fully vaccinated people. And as Gail has written in detail on this blog for over a year now so eloquently, any death of a person who has covid can be listed as death from covid. There is a huge difference between a person who dies FROM covid versus a person who dies WITH covid but due to non related disease. There have been a reported 4 million who have died from covid around the world (average yearly flu death is five to six million). There have been 500,000 reported injuries and deaths due to the vaccine. Mostly all animals used in mRNA vaccine research die when exposed to the virus post-vaccine. Those kind of dismal stats (The Science) just hasn’t convinced me to get a vaccine. But when I factor in the horrific, immoral research done on live, aborted fetuses (check out LifeSite News for reporting on that topic), it definitely stops me in my tracks. And my mom was in the hospital last year for nine days due to covid so I do take it seriously. But I just don’t believe an mRNA vaccine is the way to go.
You don’t do so badly yourself! Excellent response!
Well said, Christine.
I confess that I do not know a lot of things when comes to the vaccine, but then neither do the ‘scientists.’
One thing I do know is that I have been lied to repeatedly by so-called experts and government officials who claim to know what they do not know and in some cases cannot know. With the possible exception of the very beginning when COVID was first entering public awareness they have refused to tell the whole truth or to admit what they do not know. They have treated us like children who need to be controlled and reassured that someone in authority knows exactly what’s going on and exactly what to do about it, so they pretend to know what they do not know, demonstrating neither the humility nor the transparency worthy of scientists and public officials. And when they are found out, they cover it up or change their story.
They, as you so truthfully state, carefully obfuscate their use of aborted babies, making sure that searches on the subject tell you what they want you to believe. Tragically, even most of our hierarchs in the Church have fallen for their lies.
Like you, I take COVID seriously and have done what is prudent to protect myself and those around me, but I have heard too many lies, too much obvious manipulation of data, and so much gross oversimplification (“the vaccine is safe and effective”), etc., that I no longer believe anything they say. How can I?
“But what about grandpa? Don’t I care about him?” Yes, in fact I do. I am Grandpa, eight times over.
Brian, you had me at hello. Thank you for your outstanding comments. Virtually all of us will never know the true science. But those of us who’ve been around very long at all know that what passes for science these days is mostly paid PR, and we also know the track record of governments and their media mouthpieces lying to us nonstop for decades.
New stat for your consideration, breaking news today: Vaccine is just 39% effective against the delta variant of covid. Again, SO not convinced.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/23/pfizer-shot-just-39-effective-against-delta-infection-but-largely-prevents-severe-illness-israel-study-suggests/
Gail has talked about this quite a bit and has been giving the warning, when the mRNA vaccine has been given and the recipient comes into contact with one of the coronaviruses, they die, or I believe that is what happened to the animals.
To me, this is too terrifying to even imagine, especially when you consider the family of coronavirus does not just include Covid-19…and guess what season is coming up in a few months (flu & cold season)
A friend of mine who is closely attached to St. Anthony’s has told me that they have been told by the monks that they believe something bad is coming by October. I’m not sure what it is, but, presumably it would be vaccinated people dying en masse from being re-exposed to the virus.
If this is true then that is beyond horrifying and we should all be praying it doesn’t happen.
The following was posted right before COVID hit. Worth rereading: https://www.monomakhos.com/message-from-father-paisios-of-st-anthonys-greek-orthodox-monastery/
Yep, it’s quite scary. But, God is on our side and I’m sure a lot of people (myself included) have done our best to heed the words of Elder Ephraim.
I am getting ready to move and am fortunate that I will be within 2 hours drive of two really good monasteries that should be a safe-haven for when things get even more whack. I’m sure you all feel the same with the monastery in Piedmont
Yes. – If your travels bring you down this way, please spend a couple of days with us.
A lot of people are using the UK data to muddy the waters and create misleading statistics.
Remember that, unlike in the US, there is a strong correlation in the UK between age and vaccination. There exists also in every country a strong correlation between age and the death rate from the coronavirus. Vaccines reduce this death rate by a factor of 100 or so, but the correlation still remains.
Hence, one can use these two correlations to find a correlation between vaccination and coronavirus death. However, as any statistician worth his mettle will tell you: correlation is not causation. Hence, it is misleading to use the correlation to conclude that vaccination increases the coronavirus sickness.
Another easy way to see that there is no correlation is to look at countries with small vaccination rates or where these rates are independent of age.
If you make a declarative statement, back it up. If you believe the UK data muddies the waters and creates misleading statistics, then I want to see at least one link that led you to this conclusion.
The LAST thing I want is for our well-meaning readers, who do not make declarative statements without the proof to have to do the work to prove you wrong. In this case, your entire “if, then” is wrong.
Vaccines reduce the severity of COVID, but because deaths almost exclusively come from the over 80-year-old club at this point (99.97% and under having survived), they do not reduce death. Death just comes from other avenues, like heart disease, cancer, etc. They are already over the average of death.
When you think about it 48% of our population has been vaccinated. The remaining 52% have survived walking around in a pandemic for several months, including with the Delta variant, which means their immune systems have been sufficient to either keep the virus at bay or defeat it.
Now, COVID is practically 100% survivable with or without the vaccine. Why would anyone sign up for a “vaccine” at this point, given all the concern over its safety?
It’s not needed anymore.
P.S. Like antibodies and T-cells, cytokines are a part of the immune system. But the truth is, COVID deaths are almost always related to what they call a “cytokine storm.”
Your immune system protects you from a COVID death BUT in reality, it is killing you with an immune response. There are things they can do to reduce your cytokine response but they’re not in any of the “vaccines”.
If I were worried about COVID, along with Vitamin D, zinc, and Vitamin C, I would reduce my cytokines by taking plant sources like curcumin, luteolin, piperine, resveratrol, as they are known to inhibit the production and release of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines.
That’s me, though. Not recommending it for anyone else as we’re all different.
Gail, wasn’t able to reply to your response to me above but if I ever pass through I will most definitely reach out! It would be great to “officially” meet ya’ll
Scorilo, these comments from you are head scratching. Can you please explain in further detail, what the incentives are to be anti-V ? This is a genuine question.
I’m very perplexed. I mean, we all know that what passes for media in this country totally marches in lockstep and dissenting opinions are squashed. Last year, if you went on FB and suggested the virus originated in China, you got banned from FB. Today, most everyone on the left acknowledges this. So what gives? Why the squashing of dissenting opinions. If you’re 40 years of age or older, you remember when news media viewed their job as presenting all opinions on a subject, then letting people decide. Obviously that’s not remotely a thing. Why the squashing of the number of people who have died from the V ? You’ll likely argue that the number is small. Well, maybe it is and maybe it’s not. But why not report it, and let people decide? Why all the PSA’s, the shaming, the firing of people? I try to get a logical person. But even if you conclude that the anti-V people like me are just listening to “conspiracy theories”, I respond by saying that the onus is on you to explain why I need a V, for a sickness that less than half of the population got, and of that minority who got it, a small fraction of 1% died. So in sum, even if it turns out that there is no sinister plot to kill people with a V, the questions still stands: why do I need the V? My wife had the virus and when she did, I slept next to her every night and once I even accidentally drank out of her glass. I never got it. So why on Earth would I get a V to prevent the sickness?
Why can’t wine and bread be converted into Xs and Os and transmitted to a chip installed in us at baptism? Thus, Communion could be electronically delivered and consumed internally by 300,000 people in an instant. Plus, they could solve the money issues by requiring a Zelle donation in advance of transmission, think “pay per view”. This is GREEN and efficient and I don’t need to talk to any of you or bother with community nonsense or your diseases. Church is a server in a room and we only need one priest and one bishop to make the occasional Apostolic decision. Less overhead and more money for the archbishop to travel to Greece. As technology advances, upgrade the chip to include my religious education and my records. The chip goes with me into the next life. Let’s get with the times. This isn’t the Greek Village anymore. We’ll all soon be riding Bezos’s phallic shaped rockets and having sex with robots and we need to up our game in Byzantium or fall behind.
Although the Fathers talk a lot about what the Church will become during the Great Apostasy, I never expected to see it. It’s like a fog has settled down around it.
I still can’t figure out if this is the actual great apostasy before the end or just a precursor/prototype?
I was under the impression that multiple Church Fathers have said that before the actual great apostasy and Antichrist that there will be a resurgence of Orthodoxy…but i guess that is subject to change because things seem pretty bad. Although, we still do have many people within the Church, both clergy and laity, speaking the Truth, so, I guess this is either a precursor or God is granting us Mercy by giving us a few solid people. Time will tell I guess.
The resurgence in Orthodoxy is in Russia after the Soviet Union.
Agreed. If America and the West keep degenerating, authentic Christianity may –in a last burst of creativity–revivify the West, just as it has happened in Eastern Europe.
The idea of a last, great Christian geopolitical revival is evident in the writings of both the Catholic West as well as the Orthodox East. In the Catholic sense, it is the ascension of a Great Catholic Frankish emperor, in the East, it is a Romanov tsar. But then, after their deaths, the antichrist assumes power.
I remember reading sayings of St. Paisios years ago, and him saying that Russian Orthodoxy would have a great but brief flowering before World War III, but then afterwards a Greek Christian emperor would come and Constantinople would be restored to Greece.
Petros, as hard as it can be at times to not see these events as the coming of antichrist, it has occurred to me recently that if the antichrist is to be as popular and deceptive as we’ve been taught, then he’ doing a poor job at it with this covid business. In a rough sense only, nearly half of the entire world’s population can see right through this malarkey and are begging to be delivered FROM IT and not BY IT. This doesn’t seem to represent the running to and falling down at the feet of the ‘saviour’ (by practically everyone) that is meant to happen. So, perhaps there’s hope here.
From here, there are two options, as far as I can see: 1. The antichrist will be the one who ‘saves’ us from the emerging techocracy; and perhaps does so but throwing a lot people behind it under the bus. There are problems with this idea, though, not least because technocracy seems most likely to deliver the mark of the beast. Moreover, there is also the fact that it probably doesn’t gel very well with what we’ve been taught by saints and elders. Nevertheless, I include it because it would be highly deceptive.
2. The Church will indeed have a kind of renewal.
Either way, as things currently are, they don’t seem to have the mark of the antichrist, given how many people aren’t deceived or feeling giddy (out of a schoolgirl like excitement) about submitting to the measures being put in place. I’d sooner expect that when the antichrist does appear, there’ll be a celebratory kind of atmosphere; but that’s not the atmosphere at the moment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZomO3pYG-Q
Some words of encouragement from Archbishop Makarios of Nairobi from an interview he did today. Luckily we still have clergy who are fighting this.
“In the last days, evil and heresy will have spread so widely that the faithful will not be able to find a priest or shepherd to protect them from delusion and guide them to salvation. At that time, the faithful will not receive safe guidance from men; but their guide will be the writings of the Holy Fathers. Especially at this time, every believer will be responsible for the whole fulness of the Church. Brethren, it is time for us all to undertake our responsibility to God and to history. Do not tolerate any more foolishness or misguidance from priests or archpriests. Do not turn a blind eye for you will be co- responsible. The Saints are forewarning you.” – St. John Maximovich, Bishop of Shanghai and San Francisco.
Pray for anyone who goes on such a rant. But flee their omophorion as a synagogue of Satan. He has given you fair warning. You have only yourself to blame if you associate with him further.
Meanwhile, a glimpse of things to come?
Lebanon’s people line up in ‘queues of humiliation’ as their country unravels….
Fill ’er up? Be ready to wait in line at least an hour — assuming the gas station is open, that is.
Need medication? Something as basic as aspirin could set you on a daylong hunt from pharmacy to pharmacy.
Even a grocery run is an ever-accelerating race against ballooning prices and a failing currency. And whatever you do, you’ll need to time it around power cuts that can last up to 23 hours a day.
This is life in Lebanon these days, where a 21-month-long, government-engineered economic implosion — the World Bank calls it “a deliberate depression” — has transformed everyday tasks into a gantlet of fuel, power, water, medicine and basic goods shortages that residents dub tawabeer al-thul, or “queues of humiliation.”
Those lines stretched long this week as the country geared up to celebrate Eid al-Adha, a festival during which Muslims sacrifice a sheep to commemorate Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac at God’s command. With the Lebanese lira’s street value down to less than 10% of its official value against the dollar, it’s a ritual few can afford.
“Every month it’s getting worse, so long as the dollar [rate] gets worse,” said Abbass Ismail, a 37-year-old computer repairman trudging home from Beirut’s Sabra market on the eve of Eid.
“This cost 100,000 lira,” he said, looking down at his four stuffed grocery bags. At the official exchange rate, that would have been $66. In reality, it’s about $4.50. Even then, “not everyone has this kind of money to spend. I don’t think there’s Eid. It’s only Eid for the haves.”
It was little better across town in Hamra, an upscale neighborhood with a usually bustling shopping thoroughfare.
“The days when people used to buy in large amounts, that’s gone,” said Sarah, an employee at a traditional sweets shop, who gave only her first name. The store had extended its hours to allow for Eid shoppers, she said, “but even if we stay open till 3 a.m., it won’t matter.”
Behind Lebanon’s financial crisis is a power-sharing political system that in 1990 corralled the country’s dizzying mix of sects and loyalties into ending the 15-year civil war. But it turned governance into a patronage game: Instead of rebuilding the country’s ravaged infrastructure, warlords-turned-statesmen used ministries as personal piggy banks to hand out favors to their allies.
The international community spoke vaguely of corruption but continued to pour aid into Lebanon with little regard for how it was spent. Girding everything was a once-inviolable currency peg that kept the lira at 1,507.50 to the greenback.
By 2019, after years of so-called financial engineering by Lebanon’s central bank — which tried to lure dollars from abroad with astronomical interest rates, in what critics likened to a Ponzi scheme — and a series of crises that constricted the flow of dollars into the country, the system crashed.
Banks stopped giving out money, instantly pauperizing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, who couldn’t access their accounts even as they watched the value of their savings wither away. Angry protests drew a full quarter of the population onto the streets. Coronavirus lockdowns compounded the problem of what had become a cash economy with no way to get cash.
The coup de grâce came last August, when a cache of improperly stored explosive materials in Beirut’s port blew up, killing some 200 people and ravaging entire neighborhoods. The government immediately resigned; politicians have yet to form another ruling coalition, or to assign blame for the blast.
Since then, the country has unraveled to the point that traffic lights no longer function because the government hasn’t paid to repair them. Air conditioning and even some of the lights at Beirut’s airport have been turned off to conserve fuel. The price of flatbread, an essential staple, has been raised eight times this year.
Meanwhile, the army has gone vegetarian because it can no longer afford meat in its soldiers’ rations. It recently started offering civilians $150 joyrides on a Robinson R44 training helicopter to be able to pay for maintenance for its fleet.
International offers of aid have made formation of a new government a condition of any bailout. But officials have done little more than enact temporary fixes while deflecting blame for decades of mismanagement.
Last week, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri gave up on the premiership after failing to agree on a Cabinet with other government leaders, plunging the lira to 22,000 against the dollar on the black market. That brought Lebanon’s minimum wage to the equivalent of $29 per month — the world’s lowest, according to CARE, an anti-poverty humanitarian agency.
“Lebanon’s political class has squandered the last nine months. The Lebanese economy is in free-fall, and the current government is not providing basic services in a reliable fashion,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week after Hariri’s resignation. “Leaders in Beirut must urgently put aside partisan differences and form a government that serves the Lebanese people. That is what the people of Lebanon desperately need.”
That desperation isn’t always obvious. Lebanon’s seaside resorts are booked till summer’s end. Upscale restaurants and cafes are overcrowded, as if in affirmation of the Lebanese cliche of partying while the world burns. Sellers of luxury items — including artwork and bespoke motorcycles — say they’ve never seen such business.
But much of it is an illusion buoyed by the Lebanese expatriates who have come home for the summer with dollars from abroad as well as by local residents racing to spend what money they have before it completely loses value. Besides, banks have restricted account holders from spending any of their deposits abroad; domestic expenditure is also restricted, though to a lesser extent.
“The sector is operating at a 70% loss,” said Tony Ramy, head of an association representing members of the hospitality industry, adding that, although prices have rocketed, real value has fallen.
“A drink that used to cost $15 now costs $3. A $60 cover charge is now $20. It’s like we’re holding a fire sale,” he said.
About 90% of Lebanon’s needs are supplied from abroad — grain, medicine, baby clothes, sanitary pads, spare parts for machinery — which the country, and its people, increasingly can’t afford. The price of food and beverages has shot up 670% between April 2019 and April 2021, and more than half of Lebanese have fallen into poverty, with 1 in 6 receiving assistance, said Abeer Etefa, the World Food Program’s Middle East spokeswoman.
Gasoline and diesel are perhaps emblematic of the perfect storm of adversity facing this Mediterranean country’s almost 7 million people.
The government pays dollars to import fuel, but prices it in lira at the pump using something close to the official — which is to say largely mythical — exchange rate. The effect is a massive fuel subsidy, a necessity in a country with no real public transport system and where people rely on diesel generators for electricity.
But it also means Lebanon is burning through its meager foreign currency reserves. In a bind, the central bank delayed paying fuel importers, causing an acute shortage, despite the tankers parked offshore. Queues of dozens of cars materialized outside gas stations. Even the rich — who had long been able to insulate themselves from Lebanon’s privations — have had to ration generator use.
Hoarding is now rampant. Importers estimate there to be 10 million gallons of excess fuel held in storage either by gas station owners or middlemen hoping to sell it at a higher price in the future.
Others say fuel has been smuggled from Lebanon to Syria, which is suffering its own extreme gas crisis as a result of a decadelong war, a failing currency and crushing sanctions. One top fuel supplier, who asked not to be identified so as to speak freely, estimated that 5% of Lebanon’s gas imports were sold across the border in Syria before a recent crackdown brought it down to about 1%.
Mohammad Assi, whose family owns a food store on the main drag of the Sabra market, almost shouted in frustration as he surveyed the sparse crowd of shoppers.
“Look around you,” he said. “Is this the atmosphere of Eid?”
His store, which set out bins overflowing with candies and pretzel-like breadsticks, was in a prime location, but there were few takers.
“People can’t buy anything. There’s no Eid. These last two years, it’s never been this bad,” he said.
“People are wishing for a war so something changes.”
See: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/lebanons-people-line-queues-humiliation-090043959.html
Oh that Jesus guy. What a pagan!
Yes, it is the Gift that makes the Spoon holy. BUT THE SPOON IS HOLY!
This one had worse rant than his boss from US recently.
With all humbleness is so hard to call them Bishops but we still have to try until is official.
I think one of the reasons for this rant is that they hate Russians so much in Istanbul, New York and Canada that they will call for what ever is the opposite.
And Mr. Putin couple of days ago said that you can not force people to take vaccine and that is why this Bishops got a fit.
Thanks God again for Mr. Putin!
.
This priest in Greece is speaking the truth, the episcopate might have abandoned us, as they have in times past of heresy, but there are still many, many good and holy priests to guide us thanks be to God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_yCfqfVDsM
One of the largest growth years in the history of our parish.
Here is the reaction of the people in an Athenian church
to the reading of government pro-vaccine propaganda during the Divine Liturgy:
[podcast – 10:14]
https://rumble.com/vkb24f-34108287.html
You need no Greek to grasp what is going on…
The CDC is going to tell us to put masks back on. What will our hierarchs do?
Do you really have to ask that question? 😉
Which is sad. I for one will not be wearing a mask this time, they will have to kick me out.
Are these FDA-EUA COVID-19 vaccines still being tested – ostensibly for another 4 years – prior to the time apparently 5 years following Warp Speed Rollout thereof, when all the vaccine companies currently in particular question may then be so privileged to appear before an FDA advisory board and argue their respective cases thereat prior to eventual final general FDA approval of these test-completed vaccines – presumably sometime around Christmas of 2025;
Or are these FDA-EUA COVID-19 vaccines currently finished with being tested [8 whopping fully safe months following Warp Speed Rollout thereof], and we as the faceless conglomerate American citizenry are now able, running up against the arguable end of the 1st month of the 2nd half of 2021, to breathe easily with the full knowledge that no matter whether a vaccine for a death-consumed Global Pandemic-Warranting Virus may be brought to market following 6 months’ worth of testing or 10 years’ worth of testing thereof according to rigorously strict protocols of adherence to stringent FDA vaccine-research-and-testing guidelines [every one of which appears to be legally non-binding, in the final analysis], it nevertheless still is totally and completely safe to partake of as such, and there is absolutely no cause for alarm, solely by dint of the fact that it is legally impossible for the vaccine companies in question to be criminally culpable of the crime of lying, in that absolutely none of them is lying under oath, and therefore every man Jack of them is completely legally indemnified against the legal criminal charge of perjury in this Constitutional Representative Republic of the United States of America
[cf. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-voices/fdas-scientific-and-regulatory-oversight-vaccines-vital-public-health ;
https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/development-and-licensure-vaccines-prevent-covid-19 ; and
https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download ]?
In the end;
Would I rather watch my entire family brutally beheaded before my own eyes by a newly-received-into-the-Orthodox-Church-from-the-schismatic-Kyivan-Patriarchate Ronald McDonald, as he robustly and mellifluously chants the Burger King theme song from the glorious 1980s in flawless Qur’ānic Arabic;
Or would I rather submit to suffering myself to being one-party-consensually forced to watch endless reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” overdub-chanted and 1/3 step out of tune in fluent Albanian monophonic chant, in Phrygian Mode, by Jack Nicholson and Oprah Winfrey’s sociopathically-compromised gender-fluid love child, with Rob Zombie backing zem up on the Ison like a spiritually cannibalistic beast, as they both each take turns forcing me to void my large intestine during the blissfully horrific interim therewithin into a bottomless paper dribble Dixie Cup, as the voice of R. Lee Ermey is blasted into my left ear, audio-edited up a minor 13th, as he incessantly nags me in an eerily comforting yet psychopathically-threatening Mid-to-Low-2nd-Alto death warble to take out the garbage, maggot, before I end up warranting the spontaneous combustion of my roach-infested Section 8-subsidized hoarder’s hellhole of a modern-art-masterpiece frat-house-upkept bachelor-tenement-worthless excuse for a habitation-worthy 1-somnolence-compartment domicile?
I dunno:
Quite frankly;
On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.
[With apologies to the Estate of William Claude Dukenfield, bien entendu]
Anecdotal experience is not helpful in this context nor are predictions based on it. We’re talking huge populations which may or may not have your personal experience dealing with people you know.
Plus, you cannot know how much stronger the “Chinese One” is than the “Indian One” (which is the Delta Virus). 80% of the infections in the United States have been the Delta Variant and it has been here for several months now. It’s not new. And it’s not of particular concern.
The WHO calls it a virus “of interest” not a “virus of concern.”
You’re right, In terms of the governments, it’s more likely that they don’t know what they’re talking about. But this foray into COVID didn’t come from governors or Washington. It came from Gates and Fauci, in cooperation with the CCP. They created the virus. Any time you see someone’s name associated with the problem and the solution, you can expect foul play.
How can a vaccine protect your family when it is associated with so many adverse events? COVID is 99.97% curable. You don’t need a vaccine.
This is the reply to Gail’s post above about correlation versus causation in the UK data,
July 27, 2021 at 5:49 pm, which for some reason the system rejects when trying to post as a reply.
–
It was rejected because I don’t want to spend the time addressing it. If it gets to the point where I have to unravel what you say more than once a day, I’m just going to get rid of it. I don’t want others to mistake it as something they should be paying attention to and that’s the truth.
I can’t think of a more intellectually dishonest and deplorable thing than asking someone to give reasons for a position and then not letting them reply under the guise YOU are the arbiter of truth and “protecting” your readers. Shame on you and God help you sober up from your drunken power and ego trips and repent.
Let’s not stone our fellow-man in a so-called “Christian manner.” The person who – in the presence of others – checks someone for having sinned (or speaks in an impassioned manner about a certain person), is not moved by the Spirit of God; he is moved by another spirit.
– St Paisios of Mt. Athos
What are you drinking?
And where can I get some? ?
Do you think we could be doing this for 12 years and not be adequately stocked?!
Once again, based on outdated information, the socials are clamoring for recovered people to get vaccinated anyway. Meanwhile, studies showing the long-term protection of natural immunity continue to be confirmed. THE SCIENCE says:
Most recovered COVID-19 patients mount broad, durable immunity after infection
Neutralizing antibodies show a bi-phasic decay with half-lives >200 days
Spike IgG memory B cells increase and persist post-infection
Durable polyfunctional CD4 and CD8 T cells recognize distinct viral epitope regions
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(21)00203-2
Right now the monks at Holy Cross Hermitage in West Virginia are very sick with Covid. They had just reopened for visitors a few weeks ago, and now they are closed again. Please keep them in your prayers.
Well now, how can this be when they just know for certain that the vaccine is “safe and effective“?
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/breakthrough-covid-cases-least-125-000-fully-vaccinated-americans-have-n1275500
Must be fake news published by one of those crazy right-wing COVID deniers. Oh wait…no, it’s NBC News.
I think what we are seeing is what was predicted.
Vaccinated people are being exposed to a new cornoavirus (Delta) and they are getting sick because of the antibodies resulting from the vaccine. Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) is kicking in.
The vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission. If it did, vaccinated people would not have to wear masks. They’re telling the vaccinated to wear masks because they are highly at risk if they run into another coronavirus. Masks don’t help but I guess it’s something.
The unvaccinated have to wear masks because they could pass the coronavirus to the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated and the vaccinated could die with the new exposure.
But if masks don’t help, why do it or demand others do it other than to virtue signal political allegiances? There’s some pretty solid evidence showing masks don’t work, the Denmark mask study was just one but there are others. So many of the policy responses weren’t based on science, they were little more than a naked power grab.
That’s the thing. They know the masks don’t work but they’re going to exploit the narrative for as long as they can as a means of control.
People are not following the science because it’s too hard to understand.
So they follow the scientists; the soft-spoken, sweet 80-year-old man who reminds them of Marcus Welby and the youthful geek with the funny glasses.
(Have you ever noticed that Gates usually wears a sweater like Mr. Rodgers? Also, he never wears a mask. If you google his name and click on images, you’ll see what I mean.)
The masks are for obedience training.
“The unvaccinated…could pass the coronavirus
to the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated”.
Not if they have no symptoms, for they would not be infectious.
If they have symptoms, they should just stay home.
In either case, masks would be useless.
RE: “Not if they have no symptoms, for they would not be infectious.”
Since we don’t know exactly what it is that they’re injecting into people (as I recall, Pfizer reserved the right to change it, at will, with no oversight), I’m not sure there would be any symptoms to alert someone to stay home.
Purportedly many people had problems with bleeding after they had been around people who were newly (within a 2 week period) vaccinated.
Masks aren’t completely useless, but the surgical masks most people wear are. I suppose one could get an N95 mask but the FDA has already prepared for that: “It is important to recognize that the optimal way to prevent airborne transmission is to use a combination of interventions from across the hierarchy of controls, not just PPE alone.” https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-surgical-masks-and-face-masks
It’s the illusion of safety they’re trying to sell just like they did during the Cuban Missile crisis. My hometown of Tucson was on the Soviet Union’s hit list because of all the Titan missiles we had. Our teachers would drill us every morning on how to duck under our desks!
“Masks aren’t completely useless,
but the surgical masks most people wear are.”
That’s what I had in mind.
I could have been more specific.
Gail,
I’ve heard the argument that the vaccine is actually causing Covid to mutate into delta, et al.; i.e., when you have a virus already extant, widely infecting a populace, if you vaccinate at all, it should be those most at risk (as you have said from the beginning), not the general public. Without a significant level of mortality, the optimal thing is maximum exposure in order to achieve herd immunity, not vaccinating which can cause the virus to mutate in reaction to the immunization.
It’s quite crazy. Vaccinated people are no less vulnerable than the unvaccinated so they are resurrecting the mask thing and possible lockdowns (consider the effect on business). It’s all so transparently dishonest. I’ve said it from the beginning.
It’s. the. flu.
The only reason we have this hysteria is, again, political. It was adopted as a tool to use against Trump and now has become useful to extend a communist police state in many areas. It has nothing at all whatsoever to do with health. Power is the objective and they see Covid as their ally and enabler. It is intimidating to too many and that works for the commies.
Now, the backlash on this is going to be truly breathtaking. More than half the country is absolutely furious and it will get much worse when school starts and they have to navigate children, masks, vaccinations and ostracism. All hell could break loose.
This is teeing up to be the perfect storm and I can’t help but see the Hand of God behind it all.
I’m not sure where the weasel will pop first, here or France. I’m dubious about their ability to get through the rest of the year until April elections might provide some relief. It’s the same with us. November 2022 is a long way away. I saw a major gun manufacturer interviewed who said his company was fifteen months backlogged with orders . . .
I feel as if we’re in a sci-fi movie.
Given the fact that it really is only a flu-like illness with comparable morbidity, it is safe to say that this generation of clerics is cowardly and incompetent in general.
You could see it from the ecumenism over the past century, the loss of faith in God and Tradition due to Darwin and modern materialism. They’ve been faking it. Most deep down are atheists with a spiritual inclination; very few, very, very few with a faith in the living God.
It is the Age of Apostasy and this Covid thing is perhaps its culmination where the veil is lifted and we see apparatchiks dominating practically all of the local churches. The biggest take away for me is that I will likely never trust the clergy again – ever. One can look at the consensus of the Fathers and Holy Tradition, what has been done by the pious over the ages, etc. . . . but the living witness of the hierarchy is dead, much as it was in the age of St. Athanasios.
It will take a true and terrible tribulation to provide the shared trauma to reinvigorate and reconvert the Orthodox clergy to the faith. Until then, we are on our own. This does not mean their mysteries are without grace, just that their counsel is without merit. The Body and the Blood are still present, but the servers are wholesale anaxios and completely untrustworthy.
They will protest to the contrary, but their actions and words prove them to be liars and wolves.
“You could see it from the ecumenism over the past century, the loss of faith in God and Tradition due to Darwin and modern materialism.”
Speaking of Darwin, the last of the “dinosaurs” (aka dragons) were being killed of by humans around the time of Macro Polo, not 65 to 145 million years ago, as they claim, in the case of this specimen.
1st preserved dinosaur butthole is ‘perfect’ and ‘unique,’ paleontologist says (January 19, 2021)
https://www.livescience.com/first-dinosaur-butthole-found.html
“A Psittacosaurus fossil (top), housed at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Germany, has preserved skin, pigmentation and the first known cloacal vent on record (bottom). “
Mutations usually make the virus weaker, not stronger. It’s been over a year and a half and we live in dense cities as opposed to 1918 when most communities were rural. We should have all been exposed by now.
The problem is those PCR tests. They will say whatever they want them to say. We often carry around pieces of dead RNA that never made us sick in the first place and it can be amplified to make someone look sick when they aren’t.
Gail,
What I was referring to is antibody dependent enhancement. I’ve seen some experts suggest that that is what is behind the “delta variant”, especially after Fauci went on TV and stated that the nasal swabs coming from the vaccinated were as bad or worse than those from the unvaccinated re delta.
see about 3/4 way through show: https://rumble.com/vkloew-patriot-news-outlet-live-war-room-pandemic-weekly-rewind-812021.html
George,
You’re far too kind for your own good. I wouldn’t hesitate to banish this whack job to the outer darkness.
https://spzh.news/en/zashhita-very/81129-strasti-po-vakcine-i-vakcinacii
This is sober article which winds up orthodox position on vaccine. It does not go on any extreme side, as Orthodox way is always middle path but is also a narrow path for only those who at the end believe that true is in our Lord and not in US constitution, democracy, science or medicine.
This position would include two main points: voluntary vaccination and equal rights regardless of vaccination.
Here is is also position of MP on the vaccine which is not same as of the Greek Synod.
On May 20, 2021, Moscow hosted the Round Table “Vaccination: Ethical Issues in the Light of the Orthodox Doctrine”, which was attended by the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, clergy, laity, scientists, doctors. The key takeaways of the final document adopted at the Round Table were as follows:
the Orthodox faith does not require giving up vaccination;
amid the coronavirus pandemic, it is necessary to fight, including with the help of vaccination;
the person has to personally make the decision about vaccination;
there should be no distinction between the rights of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated;
there are side effects of vaccination, including severe ones, therefore it is necessary to ensure the quality of vaccines and the vaccination process itself;
the opinion about chipping or implanting the seal of the Antichrist with the help of vaccines is false, and its dissemination is sinful;
whenever possible, vaccines that do not use abortive cell lines should be given preference.
“the opinion about chipping or implanting the seal of the Antichrist with the help of vaccines is false, and its dissemination is sinful;”
The vaccine/health passports are very real. How can it be false that that vaccines could seal (“Mark”) people, when the non Russian “vaccines” are needed both to enter and to remain current in a passport without which you can’t buy, sell, work, travel, etc, etc, etc? This is the lived experience for tens of millions right now, and they’re working on expanding it to the whole world outside Russia. This isn’t some theoretical spiritual/invisible “sealing” that can be denied by the Local Church least qualified to speak on it (because they aren’t experiencing it).