Published by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, October 2004 Too Sick for Church?

I understand it, but I still find it funny when folks miss church due to illness. Sometimes this illness presents itself as physical; at other times, spiritual. Regardless, the Church is where we need to be. The Church is our spiritual hospital.

“For when we look at the life of worship apart from curing, then rather it is magic!” So writes Hierotheos Vlachos in his book, Orthodox Psychotherapy. He goes on to say, “The priest is properly a spiritual physician who cures people’s sicknesses. Worship and sacraments must be placed within the therapeutic method and treatment” (p.57) .

The priest offers no cures from himself. Rather, it is the great Physician, Jesus Christ, who heals. The priest ministers at His holy table, offering the gifts, blessing, and communing the faithful. That which they receive in communion is none other than the Medicine of Immortality. In holy communion we receive the remedy for what ails us – having partaken of disobedience even back to our first parents in the Garden.

“The Church does not exist simply to do social work and to serve the social needs of the people, but to guide them to salvation, that is, to the healing of their souls (p.87). The salvation of the soul is not the stripping off of something but the putting on of Christ” (p.156).

We’re all sick, sick with sin. Like faithful children we must run to our Mother, the Church, wherein presides the Physician of our souls, Christ the Lord.

+ Father Joseph Hunneycutt