J.C. Larchet: The Value of the Holy Communion does not Depend on How it is Offered to the Faithful
Basilica News Agency – Ștefana Totorcea – 23/4/2020
In a recent interview, French theologian Jean-Claude Larchet, well-known to Romanians through his numerous books on illness and suffering, places the COVID-19 pandemic in historical context and discusses the challenges to religious practice which stemmed from it and spurred controversy among the Orthodox faithful.
The extensive interview approaches hotly debated topics such as the issue of the Holy Communion, the ban on religious service participation, the theological meaning of disease in general, and the sense of the current pandemic. He recommends prayer for the whole world and mentions that he reads many times a day the special prayer conceived by the Romanian Patriarch Daniel on this purpose.
The Holy Communion and the pandemic: “Became I as weak, that I might gain the weak”
About administering the Holy Communion at this time, Jean-Claude Larchet says that “two things must be distinguished: the practices accompanying communion and communion itself”.
Regarding the former, churches have adopted temporary exceptions in the way they offer the Holy Communion to the faithful but received criticism based on the idea that the Body and Blood of Christ have disinfectant properties for the Holy Spoon and that the priests who consume the rest of the Holy Gifts at the end of the Liturgy never contract any illness as a result.
“With regard to this last point, I do not have reliable information from historical documents. On the other hand, the commentary that St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite (who lived in the second half of the 18th century) makes in his Pedalion (a collection and commentary on the canons of the Orthodox Church) on canon 28 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, admits that ‘priests make some change in times of plague’,” affirms the theologian.
Nevertheless, he mentions: “I believe that whoever has sufficient faith to commune with confidence via the Spoon runs no risk and that churches that have made special arrangements have done so, at best, with a view to the faithful with weaker faith and doubts”.
“The Churches have in some way followed the precept of St. Paul, who says: ‘To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak’ (1 Corinthians 9:22). It must be remembered that communion does not have a magical effect: as with all the sacraments, grace is given in fullness, but the reception of grace is proportional to the faith of the receiver”.
“I believe that no Church has assumed that the very Body and Blood of Christ, which all the prayers before and after communion remind us is given ‘for the health of soul and body’, is itself a vector of contamination”, emphasizes the theologian.
On banning the laymen from participating in religious services
Larchet reminds us that, except for Greece, there was no real cessation of religious services, as the Divine Liturgy itself continues to be officiated only with the priests, cantors, deacons, and sometimes a server. The theories about obscure forces wanting to destroy Christianity, he says, are „obviously excessive, and the parallel with the period of persecutions abusive. Christians are not being asked to renounce their faith and worship another god”.
A church building “is not a magical place, totally sheltered from the surrounding world, where one cannot contract any disease”, he affirms, while the Church as an institution “has a duty to protect the health and life of its faithful, but also to protect those whom they might contaminate outside, as well as a duty not to complicate the work of the healthcare staff”.
This helps us avoid hospital crowding, which could determine the abandonment of the elderly in favor of younger patients. It also prevents the tragic situation in which funeral services could not be held anymore due to the high number of deaths in a short interval of time.
The value of the Liturgy resides in our Saviour’s Sacrifice
St. Ephrem of Katounakia, referring to St. John Chrysostom, urged laymen who cannot go to church to “make their souls an altar by saying the Prayer.” The faithful can pray at home with the Jesus Prayer or using the small Book of Prayers (Euchologion), which Romanians can also find online. In addition, Orthodox countries have the consolation of watching the Divine Liturgy live on TV and online.
“The value of the Liturgy does not depend on the number of participants present, nor does the value and scope of the Holy Sacrifice depend on the number of Liturgies celebrated”, he adds. (…) If there were only one Liturgy being celebrated, by only one of the local Churches, this one Sacrifice would be celebrated equally, with the same scope, since it extends to the whole universe”, Jean-Claude Larchet says.
What caused the pandemic
“It is not surprising, in religious discourse, to see the theme of Revelation, the end of the world, or the idea of divine punishment for the sins of men”, says the theologian, but, he adds, this view of a punishing God was common in the Old Testament and changed by the New Testament.
“People who suffer from illness do not need accusations of guilt added to their suffering,” says Larchet, “but need support, consolation, compassionate care, and also help to take spiritual responsibility for their illness and suffering so that they can spiritually turn it to their advantage”.
“God is for us a Father, we are his children. What father among us would have the idea of inoculating his children with a virus for a supposedly pedagogical purpose?” he wonders. “The Fathers are unanimous in affirming that God did not create death and that death is a consequence of sin, as well as sickness and suffering,” he points out.
Some diseases can be explained through mistakes or personal passions, while others affect the innocent (children) and even saints and monastics. This refers us to the divine rationale of suffering: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9, 3).
Jean-Claude Larchet has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and one in Theology and is among the world’s leading experts in St Maximus the Confessor’s theology. He is well-known in Romania as the author of the books “Mental Disorders and Spiritual Healing”, “The Theology of Illness”, “God Does Not Want Human Suffering”
Jivko Panev, the author of the interview, is a Lecturer in Canon Law and The History of Local Churches at the “St Serge” Institute of Orthodox Theology of Paris, Protopresbyter of the Russian Orthodox parish Notre-Dame Souveraine à Chaville near Paris and coordinator of the website Orthodoxie.com.
