*3.2. The Religious–Traditionalist Outlook: Holy Communion as the "Medicine of Immortality"*

The official ecclesiastical hierarchies largely complied with the preponderance of temporal restrictions on religious life and practice, issuing statements in favor of medical protective measures and public health restrictions, including on worship life. However, nearly all hesitated or even categorically refused to alter the method of receiving Communion from a common spoon. For instance, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church claimed that "well-known anti-church and anti-Serbian circles" question its "most important and sacred" ritual. It thus depicted secular and critical voices within the Church as being a threat not only to religion but also to the nation itself. At the same time, it stressed the historic practice of long duration of this method of Communion ("two thousand years"). This reference had a specific aim: historical time adds more weight and prestige to ritual, for it is implied that it is not something ephemeral that can or should be changed according to the spirit of the times. The Holy Synod deployed two types of argument in this regard. First, it asserted that the state has no right to "deal with the content and manner of conducting the Divine Liturgy", for it is a "sole matter of internal or autonomous church order and legislation". Second, it framed the issue decisively in terms of individual freedom by invoking the voluntary character of the Eucharist (Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church 2020).

The Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church also categorically rejected any change in the administration of Holy Communion, declaring that the latter "certainly cannot become a source of transmission of diseases", because the "Body and Blood of Christ becomes the 'medicine of immortality'" (Holy Synod 2020a). The former Metropolitan of Kalavryta depicted the Church as a "hospital for both soul and body ... [which] heals and does not make one sick!" (Amvrosios 2020). The use of such medical metaphors justified the continuation of the ritual during the pandemic and, additionally, highlighted the special role of the priests who offer the precious medicine of immortality to the faithful. This medicine is asserted to be superior to the various drugs of science developed against illnesses. Framed in this way, a restriction or temporary ban of this ritual endangers the ultimate goal of people's eternal salvation. The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of public health are not ignored, but they are ranked hierarchically: at the

very top of the hierarchy stands the holistic—and for this reason more important—value of eternal life, which encompasses that of human health (for the concept of hierarchy, see Dumont 1980). From the standpoint of modern secular thought, such a way of thinking is irrational. However, from within the community of faith, believers orient their action according to a reframed rationality that facilitates the achievement of ultimate religious ends (Weber 1978, pp. 85–86). Keeping this in mind, it comes as no surprise that bishops offered the following explanation as self-evident: "the Body and the Blood of Christ cannot become a bearer of infection and death, *because* the Lord of Life cannot bequeath decay and death" (Hierotheos 2020, p. 9, my emphasis).

In order to appeal to the skeptics, members of the hierarchy invoked the additional authoritative source of the "experience of centuries", which was used to establish the non-contagious character of Holy Communion (Hierotheos 2020, p. 1; Holy Synod 2020a). The challenge of addressing infections among believers of course persists and creates significant challenges. If a believer gets infected, will that endanger the whole system of belief? To prevent this, religious intellectuals implicitly leave open the possibility of an infection, attributing it either to a lack of appropriate preparation or to weak belief on behalf of the believer. For instance, the hieromonk Koutloumousianos emphasized that "the Lord's body becomes a 'safeguard', 'for strength, healing and health of soul and body'", adding the caveat, "to those that receive communion with faith and true repentance" (Koutloumousianos 2020). Similarly, he highlighted that "although immortality is an eschatological condition ... yet 'doses' of incorruption are given in this mortal life according to the measure of each one's faith, longing, godly fear and love" (Koutloumousianos 2020). We notice, therefore, a transfer of causal responsibility for infection to the individual believer. In any case, the latter is advised not to be preoccupied with such a "totally dead-end scholastic preciosity", behaving like a "deeply neurotic and compulsive person obsessed with germs in front of the biggest miracle of creation" (Hierotheos 2020). Since "everything is in the hands of God", the faithful are advised to "carry out God's will and trust all the rest to the absolute goodness of Lord, who works everyone's salvation with the best possible way" (Hierotheos 2020).

Such arguments cannot appeal to secular-minded actors. Church officials denounced the criticism of the latter as "blasphemy" that "brutally offend[s] the sacred and the holy, the dogmas and the holy canons of our faith" (Holy Synod 2020b). By contrast, they portrayed themselves as "vigilant guardians of the boundaries set by the Holy Spirit through the Apostles, the Fathers and the Holy Synods", reassuring the faithful that the "red lines neither have been nor will be surpassed" (Holy Synod 2020c; Gabriel 2020; Athenagoras 2020). Further, they labeled adversarial and critical voices as advancing a discourse of "division" that aims at "torpedoing the national consensus and unanimity needed by our homeland at these moments" (Ieronymos 2020). The frequent references to the nation reveal a specific perception of the Church as an "ark" that preserves national identity in the context of our globalized world.

Orthodox fundamentalists who are drawn to conspiracy theories, ethno-religious nationalism, and dualistic thinking (Kessareas 2018; Makrides 2016), expressed this point more explicitly. They cast restrictive COVID-19 policy measures as a threat to religion and nation, using not only a pre-modern religious discourse but also a modern, secular one. Specifically, they depicted the public health mandates and measures as works of the devil and as a violation of the constitutional rights of religious freedom and freedom of assembly (e.g., see Amvrosios 2020; Neophytos 2020; Stylianakis 2020). For instance, former Metropolitan Amvrosios in his letter to the current Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, stressed that the "dark, demonic organizations of globalization" manufactured COVID-19 and that the Church and the Greek nation are under attack. A member of the church hierarchy, he acquires here the role of a prophet who warns the evil collaborators that "God's curse" will fall upon them, exclaiming: "Hands off the Orthodox Church, the Mother and wet nurse of the Greek Nation" (Amvrosios 2020). Likewise, Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou in Cyprus attacked the earthly "representatives of devil", those "secretive men of the New Order of Things", who promote the "vaccines of Bill Gates", but hinder the salvific practice of Holy Communion. In his public speeches, churches are equated with hospitals; however, their own medicine is considered to be more precious: "the best medicine, both for this illness and for the other that is coming, is the Body and Blood of Christ ... when we close the churches and we restrict the Holy Communion ... it is like we close the hospitals, like we shut down the pharmacies" (Neophytos 2020).

One should not conclude that only Church leaders, and particularly ultra-conservative ones, believe that Holy Communion is the "medicine of immortality." No doubt, clerics have legitimate interest in the dissemination of this belief. The laity, too, shares this fundamental conviction. Otherwise, they would not have continued to receive Holy Communion during the pandemic. One Greek priest praised his congregation for continuing to receive Holy Communion, admitting that after the end of the liturgy, he provided Communion to infected persons. He portrayed his own negative corona test as a "proof that the Holy Communion does not transmit [illnesses], because it is Christ" (Kantanis 2021). Such beliefs even appeal to professionals, whose specialization in medicine one might have expected to inculcate in them a secular habitus, to use Bourdieu's (1977) term. The public interventions of well-known Greek epidemiologists in favor of the mystical effect of Holy Communion are illustrative cases. For instance, Eleni Giamarellou, Professor of Internal Medicine and an infectious disease specialist, specified her viewpoint on the issue as follows:

The Holy Communion is a sacrament ... you do not receive it out of habit [but] ... because it is the Body and Blood of Christ. Either you believe it and you receive Holy Communion in the normal manner, or you do not believe it. There are no compromise solutions, spoons, etc. ... If I believe that this can infect me, then I do not believe in the greatest mystery. People who want to receive communion must not be afraid that bacteria can ever be transmitted via the Holy Communion. (Giamarellou 2020)

Similarly, Athina Linou, Professor of Epidemiology, declared in the Greek stateoperated television station:

I am a faithful Orthodox Christian ... there is no epidemiological study that proves that the disease is transmitted through ingestion not only of saliva but also of the virus itself ... We cannot solve issues of spirituality and Orthodox faith with logic; the metaphysical ... is not proven [question by journalist: 'would you receive Holy Communion at this time in the usual way?']. Of course! Of course! (Linou 2020)

Such cases demonstrate the penetration and appropriation of traditional religious ideas into broader segments of advanced secular societies, including Greece, in which Orthodoxy is a strong cultural force that contributes to the formation of people's identity. This tendency appears frequently among contemporary medical experts who have strong conservative religious commitments. They accept, without hesitation, the existing method of Communion, disdaining "compromise solutions" as a lack of genuine belief.
