Without Scandal or Anxiety
I have a bit of a hidden jewel to share. Right at the very beginning of widespread quarantining, Metropolitan Tikhon of the OCA shared a comforting word about the difficulty of being separated from church. I remember this particular statement, but when I tried to share it with someone, it took me a while to find it, because it was buried in a document that necessarily had to carry quite a lot of other text pertaining to the practical details of the OCA's response to the CoronaVirus. So, because it is such a good word, and because it is now completely buried in the millions of words written about the CoronaVirus, I would like to share it again:
"My beloved children in the Lord, none of the measures adopted by any part of the Church should cause scandal or anxiety. They should also not be used as the subject for mockery, vile jokes, sarcasm, or—God forbid!—division or disunity. They have been taken as our Christian response to protect our brothers and sisters. Our Lord tells us, 'Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.' The life we are 'laying down' now is our normal life, because these are extraordinary times. We are making a sacrificial effort, which is in keeping with the present season of repentance and ascetical striving. Like the ascetics of old who would depart from their monasteries for the forty days of Lent in preparation for Holy Week, we should take this opportunity to prayerfully reflect on our life in Christ and increase our desire to be with Him.
"No one should feel any concern about the canonical implications of being absent from the divine services. We find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances that require extraordinary, but temporary responses."
May our Lord continue to grant His Beatitude, the Synod of Bishops, our reverend clergy, and all our brotherhood in Christ, wisdom and grace as we tread this peculiar path of difficulty for our Church.
"My beloved children in the Lord, none of the measures adopted by any part of the Church should cause scandal or anxiety. They should also not be used as the subject for mockery, vile jokes, sarcasm, or—God forbid!—division or disunity. They have been taken as our Christian response to protect our brothers and sisters. Our Lord tells us, 'Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.' The life we are 'laying down' now is our normal life, because these are extraordinary times. We are making a sacrificial effort, which is in keeping with the present season of repentance and ascetical striving. Like the ascetics of old who would depart from their monasteries for the forty days of Lent in preparation for Holy Week, we should take this opportunity to prayerfully reflect on our life in Christ and increase our desire to be with Him.
"No one should feel any concern about the canonical implications of being absent from the divine services. We find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances that require extraordinary, but temporary responses."
May our Lord continue to grant His Beatitude, the Synod of Bishops, our reverend clergy, and all our brotherhood in Christ, wisdom and grace as we tread this peculiar path of difficulty for our Church.
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