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Why has the Church Not Spoken Out?

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Since my first article for Brownstone Institute a few months ago, many people have asked me and written to me, “Why has the Church not spoken out about the vaccines, the lockdowns, and the censorship connected to the coronavirus?”

I, of course, have no definitive answer, but I do have spiritual fathers, experience and research to present an informed and prayerful opinion.

Firstly, I must humbly ask for forgiveness for my own sins and for those of the many Patriarchs, Metropolitans and Clergy who encouraged people to follow policy, obey the rules and take injections. These were in the majority position. There is no other reason that this took place than sin and deception. There was a lack of spiritual and moral discernment en masse. There was a lack of guarding our hearts from the spirits of this age.

But in their defense, unlike when Condoleezza Rice and George Bush Jr. said that no one could have ever imagined someone would use an airplane as a weapon, this pandemic, biological war, ponzi-scheme or democide – whatever it is – was so diabolical in its origins nearly all were deceived from the start. 

This includes politicians, doctors, epidemiologists, the FDA, CDC, NIH, Germany, England, Russia, France, nearly all hospitals – essentially the entire world save about 30% of people who still reserved for themselves the right to think independently. 

In this more recent attack, truly, who would have ever dreamed that the very medical establishment we all depended on and trusted in for caring for us, for healing us would be transformed at the “speed of science” into one of the most efficient means of subjecting entire nations under a medical dictatorship and subjugating the global population through medicine? Honestly, who had ever thought this could happen?

Nevertheless, there were a tremendous amount (and here I will only speak for the Orthodox Church since it is the one I know so affectionately and intimately) of Metropolitans, Bishops and Clergy that were very outspoken. But did you ever hear about them in the mainstream media? The censorship by this New World Mordor started quite some time before the plague and was only heightened in 2019 and 2020.

To give you some concrete examples, I am very proud of our Romanian Patriarch Daniel who subtly, but precisely presented the Romanian Orthodox Church’s position in a manner that only one who had lived through the brutal regime of communism could have envisioned. He skated through political assassination (or perhaps even real assassination – look at Haiti’s Jovenel Moise, Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza or Tanzania’s John Magufuli) and religious strife while clearly articulating for those with discernment the real key issues. 

Would I have been more trenchant? Yes, I would have preferred a more dynamic response, but Patriarch Daniel had to help those who believed the lies and those that didn’t. He had to be a real father for 20 million people.

Here is what he stated through his spokesman; I’ll condense the first part then go to a direct quote:

The Orthodox Church believes in the medical technology of vaccines stipulating that vaccinations are a right not an obligation and that the medical establishment/government needs to follow these following ethical guidelines: 

“consimţământul informat al persoanei, descrierea clară a beneficiilor şi a riscurilor, asumarea responsabilității concrete în cazul în care vaccinarea produce efecte adverse asupra sănătății persoanei vaccinate.” 

“The informed consent of the person, a clear description of the benefits and risks, and [the medical/government institutions] assume concrete responsibility in case vaccination produces adverse effects in the vaccinated person [author’s translation].”

The question, “Why hasn’t the Church spoken out against what’s happening?” is in reality a loaded question. I’m not saying it was intentionally loaded, but there is an implicit presupposition in that question. The implicit presupposition is that they haven’t been speaking out. The Church has been speaking out, but for the most part it has been censored.

In Orthodoxy there is the Church Hierarchy who we love very much and respect. They are the image of Christ. Then there are the Saints of the Church who we love even more and respect even more! They are the likeness of Christ.

Listen to what one of our most famous and beloved saints said back in the early 90s. This is an amazing and clear voice of prophecy. Saint Paisios the Athonite wrote in his Spiritual Awakening, roughly 30 years ago, “And now a vaccine has been developed to combat a new disease, which will be obligatory and those taking it will be marked.” 

The saint precisely states that the mark is the famous Mark of the Beast in the Apocalypse of John, “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. (Revelations 13:16-18).”

To be clear the Orthodox Church does not teach that the Covid vaccine is the mark of the beast, but it is a self-evident type or foreshadowing of a time when only those who belong to the state apparatus will be allowed to buy and sell (digital money?). Those who allow themselves to be tricked by this vaccination will be marked… that is in the future.

Not all who unnecessarily took the vaccine were tricked by it. They knew it was coercion, they knew it was evil and wrong for an inhuman system to constrain them to take a shot for the flu, but many had no real choice, or were tricked through fear. Die of starvation or take the shot! Lose everything you’ve been working for, for decades or Take the Damn Shot!  

Hopefully, those who were forced by circumstances or fear will be able to see through the Marking of the Beast whether that will be in a few years or a few millennia.

Wasn’t the vaccine passport a clear foreshadowing when the “unvaccinated” couldn’t go to restaurants? I know a neighbor of mine who died because the medical establishment denied him a kidney transplant since he “refused” vaccination. In what kind of mind is that justifiable? What kind of demonic doctor could find that justifiable? Just following policy!

Many of the current holy and beloved Orthodox spiritual pillars spoke out against this from the beginning; Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou, Cyprus, and many Bishops spoke out in Romania; the Eminences Ciprian of Bazau, Teodosie of Constantsa, Sabastian of Slatina (who ordained me), Ireneau of Alba Iulia, Iustin of Maramures, Paisie of Lugojanul, Ambrozie of Alexandria, many Abbots of Athonite monasteries, Karakallou and Pavlos and many, many more.

The official vaccination reception rate in Romania is 40%. Only 40% of Romanians took the vaccine according to official medical records. Having lived in Romania for 15 years, I can guarantee that at least 10 percent and perhaps up to half of those vaccines ended up down the drain not in anyone’s arm. 

The actual percentage is definitely much lower than 40%. That’s how they survived under communism; you couldn’t oppose them too strongly or obviously or you’d be killed or suffer tremendous consequences. So, you did your best to keep to the path and maintain your soul.

There are some Metropolitans who have vehemently supported the lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations here in America. I won’t mention their names. I of course hope and pray that they will be saved, but this event we are living through is honestly worse than the Bolshevik Revolution. 

There was a little gray area then, but mostly black and white. Either you went along with the government policy and a soulless, hellish, anti-human existence, or you refused to collaborate and were killed or at the very least lost your career. Losing your career, does that sound familiar? 

In closing, there is perhaps a slightly refined question that might be better, “Why hasn’t the clergy spoken up more?” I will give you Metropolitan Neophytos’ answer, in my own words; because part of the Church’s Hierarchy has become spiritually ill and it needs to be renewed. 

Crisis in Greek means judgment, clarification. A crisis is a test. With tests, some pass and some fail. There will be a cleansing, a purification of the Church as there was during all the great trials of history. There will be new positions opening, and new and proven bishops and metropolitans will take over the positions of the fallen. We should always remember, though, as long as there is breath in our lungs there is always a chance for repentance, and we don’t know the time frame for God’s working, but we do know His work is real, great and active! Amen!

Whether we believe in God or not, let’s not be afraid of what’s coming. We probably deserve it; in fact we most likely deserve worse. But rather let’s peacefully resist for what is clearly right, good and beautiful because the Human spirit has been victorious ever since our Lord, God and Savior became man and took a human form, soul and spirit and overcame every evil! Let’s choose the New Heavens and New Earth not the New Normal or the New World Mordor. 

Whether we believe in Him or not, if we peacefully resist this world evil and have compassion for those suffering in their trap and a little even for these evil people who have completely lost their soul and put this diabolical plan into action, then the Holy Spirit will be with us, and we will see unimaginable things, Amen.



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Author

  • John Lincoln Downie

    Fr. John Lincoln Downie was born in 1971 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. In 1992, he graduated from the Christian Geneva College in the same state (the Biology and Philosophy Department). He spent two years at the Koutloumousiou Monastery on Mt. Athos (1999—2001), where he was received into Orthodoxy through Baptism. Then Fr. John studied at the Department of Orthodox Theology at Bucharest University (2001—2006), where he defended his thesis on the subject, “The Doctrine of Creation According to Fr. Dumitru Staniloae”, getting a Master’s Degree in Biblical Theology. He serves as an Orthodox priest in Romania.

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