Multiple communion spoons - is it apostasy?

[tapi]

... a diversion from having to actually offer a substantive response to his arguments.

Hah. Simply put, the assertion of a totally illness-free zone inside the temples as a dogma is an innovation, and it is a grievous insult and probably a great sin to charge the vast majority of the Church with the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, even exhorting the faithful to disobedience and division.

Just a few statements from some churchmen, refuting the understanding promulgated by Heers that no sanitary means should be used at all, as they constitute blasphemy:

Patriarch Kirill: "I know that there are people who do not believe in anything - neither in this disease nor in its danger - and disregard medical recommendations. But we, the faithful, know that there are not only these stupid people, and we can call them that, but there are also large numbers of those who do not believe in God either..."It is very dangerous when people do not believe in God. It is lethally dangerous, as is dangerous today if people do not believe in the spread of the infection and are doing nothing to protect themselves from it," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said. He urged people to wear protective masks, practice social distancing, and "refrain from doing a great deal of things we are accustomed to because our carelessness may result in [spreading] this horrible disease."

Interfax-Religion

Metropolitan Hrizostom of Dabar-Bosnia, locum tenens of the patriarchal throne of the Orthodox Church of Serbia: I must admit that we underestimated the coronavirus and did not realize what it brings, that it is a murderous virus that killed our Patriarch Irinej, Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro, Bishop Milutin, dozens of priests, monks and nuns. What happened may be the cost of our non-compliance with the measures set by the epidemiological services.

Serbian Church: We underestimated the danger of COVID-19 - Orthodox Times

Metropolitan Tikhon When, as Metropolitan of Pskov, I begged the Muscovites and residents of other cities to temporarily abstain from pilgrimage to the Pskov Cave Monastery, I was moved not by personal fear, but by fear for the inhabitants of the town of Pechory, where the monastery is located and where the average age is over 60. It's a vulnerable group. There was a wave of indignation: ‘Why? How? Is it possible to get infected in a monastery?’ Young people who are asymptomatic carriers of the virus come to our monastery from Moscow and St. Petersburg, stand next to old women, sneeze, cough, and simply breathe. And at close range, a person becomes infected. And what passes unnoticed and without a trace for a young person becomes not just a threat to their life, but a real trial—perhaps fatal. Those who say that it is impossible to get infected in temples and monasteries - they lie! Knowing or not knowing, in knowledge or ignorance. They are wicked! Because lying is wickedness… We have to be in our own home, even though this seems hard. If many people become ill at the same time, most begin to die in serious condition. Why are they asking us to stay home? To prevent the outbreak of the disease in many people at the same time. To enable our doctors to cope with the flow of patients. If we override these strategic guidelines, we will get sick ourselves and help spread the disease.

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Fr. Lawrence Farley:

Prideful presumption is what is involved in all such acts, whether the act involves trusting that God will nullify the power of germs in church, or that He will grant immunity to snake venom, or that He will overcome the force of gravity. Experience has shown that God will do none of these things, but rather that He expects His children to live wisely in the world He has made and not presume on His grace. The present Covid crisis will, God willing, pass away soon enough. The temptation to presumption, however, remains, and should be resisted whenever it raises its hoary head. We Orthodox rightly have contempt for the snake handlers, with their substitution of presumption for faith. We must not follow their lead now.

Fr. Lawrence Farley. Snake Handling

 

[Platina]

Okay, so you're able to offer something somewhat more substantive without resorting to personal attacks. You've learned something. Remember this going forward.

But let's also note that none of those people are offering a theological counterpoint to the theology of the temple that Fr. Peter is talking about. They're simply dismissing it. I'm not totally in line with Fr. Peter's position, but a simple dismissal of his position isn't going to cut it.

 

[tapi]

But let's also note that none of those people are offering a theological counterpoint to the theology of the temple that Fr. Peter is talking about. They're simply dismissing it. I'm not totally in line with Fr. Peter's position, but a simple dismissal of his position isn't going to cut it.

The issue is that Heers never demonstrates his theological assertions properly. He mainly appeals to the presence of the Holy Spirit within the temples (obviously contested by no Orthodox), and to the idea that "God would not allow" for anyone to be infected with any disease inside the temples.

A key problem is that he does not provide a single piece of actual patristic evidence for his theory, anywhere in his materials. While on the contrary, we know that St. John of Shanghai fell gravely ill after partaking of the Eucharist from a poisoned chalice, and that St. Nikodemus in the Rudder described a special manner of distribution of the Eucharist during plagues, considered blasphemous according to the criteria of Heers, Savvas et al.

In the absence of any patristic arguments (and some evidence to the contrary), I am not surprised the bishops of the Church everywhere in the world have understood that we cannot simply claim a total immunity within the temple areas. Consequently, the theory of Heers is an innovation and one which only generates division within the Church, agitating the faithful to rebellion against their canonical authorities.

 

[rusmeister]

He mainly appeals... to the idea that "God would not allow" for anyone to be infected with any disease inside the temples.

Hi there!
I'm asking honestly - did Fr Peter specifically say this as such? I see a huge difference between the idea that the grace of God MAY (not necessarily guaranteed) protect someone partaking of the Chalice, and saying that it's impossible to get sick inside of church. The former is in line with our Tradition. The latter is silly hubris and tempting the Lord your God. Maybe I missed it. What exactly did Fr Peter say on that count?

By now a lot of things have been said. We should be careful to distinguish exactly what a person says from what we may read into it.

 

[tapi]

Hi there!
I'm asking honestly - did Fr Peter specifically say this as such? I see a huge difference between the idea that the grace of God MAY (not necessarily guaranteed) protect someone partaking of the Chalice, and saying that it's impossible to get sick inside of church. The former is in line with our Tradition. The latter is silly hubris and tempting the Lord your God. Maybe I missed it. What exactly did Fr Peter say on that count?

By now a lot of things have been said. We should be careful to distinguish exactly what a person says from what we may read into it.

Here we see, on the page of Heers, a statement by Met. Joel of Edessa Orthodox Church Teaching on Whether There is a Danger of Spreading Disease Through Holy Communion, Kissing the Hand of the Priest, or Our Presence in the Holy Temple of God | Metropolitan of Edessa, Joel, on the subject.

"It is impossible to get infected or acquire any disease from Holy Communion, the holy icons, kissing of the hands of the priests, or by our presence in the sacred temples. If we so believe with all our hearts, we shall receive abundantly the grace of our God in our lives. If we deny or doubt this, we suffer the heresy of Barlaam and the iconoclasts; we deny God, and we commit a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit."

As for the man himself, let this suffice:

In the Orthodox Church, which is the Body of Christ, the Temple of God, the consecrated, “baptized,” Temple where the Holy Spirit descends as on Pentecost and fills all with Light and transforms men into God-men by Grace, where not only the bread and wine but the faithful themselves are changed into the Body of Christ, where NOT ONLY the Holy Communion is sanctified, so as to make it and all that touches it (i.e. the holy lavida (spoon)) impossible to be a communicant and carrier of sin, death and disease (which are the result of the Fall AWAY from Life), since He is Life, a Fire which burns away all impurity, but INDEED ALL THAT WHICH IS HOLY and SET APART by God because God dwells therein - such as the Holy Icons, the Holy Relics, the Holy Antidoron (blessed bread), and even the hand of the priest, who is the type and in the place of Christ and whose hands touch the Immaculate Body, or even the Holy Embrace shared by the priest and faithful (when we say “Christ is in our midst; He is and ever shall be!”) - all these are SANCTIFIED and thus FREE of corruption, which is a fruit of the fallen world. Therefore, in the Orthodox Church - whether or not all understand this or act upon it, of even if nearly all are ignorant of it and fall away from it - it is at least faithlessness, if not worse (God forbid!), blasphemy, to treat the Holy Things of the Holy Temple - consecrated and set apart by and in God! - as common, that is, as we would and do in the supermarket, bank or post office. Therefore, it is a fall away from this self-understanding, this experience of God’s Grace, this Way of Being in Christ, to bring into the Holy Temple, as into a common place, masks, gloves, multiple spoons (for fear of communicating viruses) and the like.

Comment on critique by Fr. Farley accessible at Fr. Lawrence Farley. Snake Handling

 

[Hermit76]

Tapi, I think something you fail to understand is that a very large segment of Orthodoxy, many of whom never listen to Fr. Peter, believes the exact same way regarding the virus. Fr. Peter's position isn't one of innovation but one that represents a thread of belief in the church.

 

[Platina]

The issue is that Heers never demonstrates his theological assertions properly. He mainly appeals to the presence of the Holy Spirit within the temples (obviously contested by no Orthodox), and to the idea that "God would not allow" for anyone to be infected with any disease inside the temples.

A key problem is that he does not provide a single piece of actual patristic evidence for his theory, anywhere in his materials. While on the contrary, we know that St. John of Shanghai fell gravely ill after partaking of the Eucharist from a poisoned chalice, and that St. Nikodemus in the Rudder described a special manner of distribution of the Eucharist during plagues, considered blasphemous according to the criteria of Heers, Savvas et al.

In the absence of any patristic arguments (and some evidence to the contrary), I am not surprised the bishops of the Church everywhere in the world have understood that we cannot simply claim a total immunity within the temple areas. Consequently, the theory of Heers is an innovation and one which only generates division within the Church, agitating the faithful to rebellion against their canonical authorities.

The problem is that this is not a question the Fathers have directly addressed before, so to expect Fr. Peter to bring forth Patristic texts explicitly affirming his position is not fair, just as it's not fair to expect other people to bring forth Patristic texts explicltly denying his position.

The important thing is to work within the Patristic framework.

To that end, Fr. Peter HAS brought forth Patristic texts that talk about how the church (meaning the building) is filled with immensely more grace than most of us even realize, that when we enter the building we enter Heaven, etc.

In his interview with Fr. Peter, Dr. Demetrios Tselingides went into theological reasonings for his stance. I found it compelling, though not 100% convincing, but a good priest friend of mine whom I respect, who has the same theological training as me, who I would certainly not call a liberal, did not find it compelling.

I told another priest that I'm not completely convinced that you can't get sick in church, but I can't say the church is just a normal building. He said of course the church isn't just a normal building, but at the same time supports all the sanitary measures. So then what does it mean that the church isn't just an ordinary building if we treat it like it is? We need to present how it's different, and Fr. Peter is at least working towards that.

And BTW, Fr. Peter has several times said that God can of course allow sickness to occur in the church.

 

[Platina]

Tapi, I think something you fail to understand is that a very large segment of Orthodoxy, many of whom never listen to Fr. Peter, believes the exact same way regarding the virus. Fr. Peter's position isn't one of innovation but one that represents a thread of belief in the church.

The article from Metropolitan Joel of Edessa that Tapi linked to is from March of last year. That's very early in the pandemic thing. That means there were people out there holding this position even before they could have been heavily influenced by Fr. Peter ...

 

[tapi]

It is my understanding that Heers was influenced by other, more extreme thinkers on this subject, as he initially (very early spring) stated that some precautions could be taken (without detailing which ones), but rather soon started to endorse the view that all of them constitute the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (Tselengidis is actually the most "liberal" guy here, as he plainly allows for layman-to-layman transmission inside temples)

Nevertheless, after having been convinced of the position, Heers has to this day continued, with great zeal, to disseminate these teachings through his channels, the detrimental effect of which has been felt in practice in many places of the world, not to even talk about the Internet. One only needs to visit some Orthodox social media groups and will quickly encounter posts like "Fr. Peter is the only true, faithful priest out there, the bishops are all faithless heretics". For example, if you check the link to his Facebook post discussing masks, a lady there says she ceased going to Church and only prays home because of the faithless sanitary measures employed in her parish. He does not even rebuke this tragic course of action, on the contrary, he liked the comment.

This is my main problem with him. I would expect him to understand the harmful consequences of his actions and cease, but he keeps going, and going, striking at the Church to the gain of no-one, except for the evil one.

With this, I think this discussion, from my part, has run its course. A blessed great Lent to you all.

 

[abacabb3]

Isn't going to church worth dying for?

 

[Hermit76]

Isn't going to church worth dying for?

This is THE point no one wants to talk about.

 

[Antoni]

“This is my main problem with him. I would expect him to understand the harmful consequences of his actions and cease, but he keeps going, and going, striking at the Church to the gain of no-one, except for the evil one.”

This is exactly the type of language we should be fearful to never easily come out from our mouths, namely that we can proclaim that the words of a priest are striking at the Church to the gain of no-one, except for the evil one, as if we have some higher insight or knowledge or wisdom.

Really? Satan is gained by the words of Father Peter and no one else? And we know this how? Have we asked everyone? Have we examined the lives of everyone? Is it possible that Father Peter’s words may have actually strengthened the faith for some (or perhaps, many) people in a time of great apostasy and fear? Honestly, it would be better to not speak at all than to make such critical judgements as above. We may not agree with everything Father Peter may say, but often times it is better to keep our opinions to ourself and certainly not to claim to know better, because we don’t know God’s Hand in all of this or whether in fact we may be the one who is actually dead wrong. I think this is something that would be good to think about during this Lenten season.

 

[abacabb3]

This is THE point no one wants to talk about.

I think it cuts around all the other useless disputes. We know communion makes the unworthy sick, we know that saints (like Saint John Maximovitch) both was immune to disease (he did not get rabies when consuming the Eucharist that someone who was contagious vomitted out) but also he himself vomited the sacrament when he cleaned the chalice with water that was poisoned by an enemy. If both are true about the Eucharist, then someone can get sick or not get sick doing anything else in the church, venerating an icon, whatever. The question is, considering the fact it is possible for God to keep us from getting sick by the miraculous, as He does all the time in church, or that He can withdraw His grace and permit nature to take its course, do we simply accept the consequences an trust in God? If the worst thing we ever do is faithfully commune, venerate the Theotokos and her icon, get a blessing from a priest, and get sick and die--surely we should be more afraid of the judgement than the end of this Earthly life. Perhaps the one thing in our favor is if we worshipped despite the "risk."

Granted, if one does so with pride, its all for nothing. But we must humbly worship God and accept the consequences.

 

[Platina]

“This is my main problem with him. I would expect him to understand the harmful consequences of his actions and cease, but he keeps going, and going, striking at the Church to the gain of no-one, except for the evil one.”

This is exactly the type of language we should be fearful to never easily come out from our mouths, namely that we can proclaim that the words of a priest are striking at the Church to the gain of no-one, except for the evil one, as if we have some higher insight or knowledge or wisdom.

Really? Satan is gained by the words of Father Peter and no one else? And we know this how? Have we asked everyone? Have we examined the lives of everyone? Is it possible that Father Peter’s words may have actually strengthened the faith for some (or perhaps, many) people in a time of great apostasy and fear? Honestly, it would be better to not speak at all than to make such critical judgements as above. We may not agree with everything Father Peter may say, but often times it is better to keep our opinions to ourself and certainly not to claim to know better, because we don’t know God’s Hand in all of this or whether in fact we may be the one who is actually dead wrong. I think this is something that would be good to think about during this Lenten season.

Great points. I've seen comments from many people, including on this forum, about how Fr. Peter has been the one spiritually feeding them as they are locked out of their own churches. Fr. Peter has given hope and sustenance to many.

While many were busy just trying to convince everyone that it's no big deal to stay home on Pascha, Fr. Peter picked up the slack and developed and taught multiple in-depth courses that have been viewed by thousands.

 

[EvilSinner]

I've never listened to Father Peter Heers, but I agree with the broad strokes of what's been presented here of what he's said.

 

[truefiction1]

Current personal opinion, for what it is worth: None of the guidelines and protocols implemented either to reduce risk of transmission or help those weaker in faith to overcome stumbling blocks constitute apostasy. Banning members of the body from coming together and partaking of the Holy Mystery for overly extended durations is apostasy. It constitutes a break from both Holy Tradition and from Scripture as interpreted by Holy Tradition. The only exception to this is if the member or members are being subject to penance. I don't believe it to have been the case that the majority of Orthodox Christians in the Western hemisphere were under penance (but I could be mistaken), so it looks like there was a large scale and extremely deceptive apostasy commissioned in response to this pandemic. Fortunately, the break does not seem to have been universal, because in places like Russia, I'm told that the Churches remained opened. If it was universal it would without a doubt by the great apostasy of Scriptural prophecy. For now it seems to be merely a precursor of it.

All of the crying over masking, social distancing, not venerating things in the usual manner, etcetera is merely serving as a vast smoke screen to hide what is really the only vital matter. We have become so blind (because we don't really repent) to what is truly at stake in our spiritual lives, and our hearts so hardened by our sins, that we can no longer speak to what is true or what is false, or what is good and what is evil. Elder Paisios has truly described us as we now are in our dead condition. Repentance is certainly warranted; with great urgency and total determination. Will we wait until it's too late and are snared in the midst of our love of sinful, worldly pursuits?

Disagree with me if you know better than me. At this point I hope I'm mistaken in my opinion that apostasy was commissioned.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Here in Virginia, our parish was shut down solidly from March 16 to oh, June, I think. Now we're back up to about 90 people or so per Liturgy. We were very fortunate that we actually had fewer funerals in 2020 than in 2019. We're starting various programs back up such as the youth group rented out a movie theater last week. So slowly but surely we're getting back to 75%. Hopefully we'll see numbers improve through Lent as people get the vaccine.

 

[Dorothea]

and if the brain aneurysm pushed the person to death because of the diabetes and chronic heart failure (i.e. the person was vulnerable to a brain aneurysm because of those conditions), yeah we can and we do.

we do this when pneumonia kills people suffering from Parkinson's disease, because Parkinson's makes one more vulnerable to pneumonia. this happened to my grandmother. no one was called a pneumonia denier because they said that Parkinson's made my grandmother more likely to repose because she had a pre-existing condition.

Same with my dad. He had pneumonia in the midst of having a massive stroke. His cause of death was a stroke, not the pneumonia the doctors could never totally get under control (antibiotics didn't seem to work).

 

[abacabb3]

In other news, Father Peter Heers will be doing a presentation On Covid Vaccinations and Orthodoxy. It should address some of St Paisios' teachings on the matter.

(8) Covid Vaccinations and Orthodoxy with Fr Peter Heers - YouTube

 

[tapi]

In other news, Father Peter Heers will be doing a presentation On Covid Vaccinations and Orthodoxy. It should address some of St Paisios' teachings on the matter.
(8) Covid Vaccinations and Orthodoxy with Fr Peter Heers - YouTube

Looking forward to it. Will he "anathematize" Abp. Peter of Chigaco and Mid-America (ROCOR), who, taking an unequivocal public stance (in response to the views of the likes of Heers), stated that COVID-19 vaccines may be freely received by Orthodox faithful, and recently (along many other bishops and clergy) in public received the vaccination, which Heers has strongly urged the Orthodox to not have anything to do with under any circumstances? We shall see.

Archbishop Peter Receives COVID Vaccine