Life in the Time of COVID:

How a Challenge Became an Opportunity

V. REV. ERIC TOSI

When COVID hit, I don’t think anyone saw the effect it would have on us as individuals and as a parish community. It is certainly easy to look backwards and make judgements on whether we did things correctly but the reality was that we had to live in the moment. As the new rector at St. Gregory the Theologian, I had to think very clearly and carefully about how to proceed because it would make the ultimate difference as to not only how we survived though this period but also how we would come out of it with an intact parish. This dilemma probably went through every parish as they faced this unique situation.

So basically I established two guiding principles and discussed it with the parish and the parish council. First that we would not divide the parish over COVID. There were people on both sides of the issue and their position covered just about every facet (as was also reflective of society as a whole). Whatever position you took you could be categorized as uncaring or an extremist. This needle needed to be threaded very carefully before it would explode in the parish community. Secondly, and in my mind more importantly, was how to keep a semblance of church life despite having lockdowns and restrictions. You could only do so much yet somehow you had to keep the church together and moving forward and there was no “magic” or even simple solution. But I knew we had to do something, anything and I told the parish we were not see this as anything but as an opportunity. This was our evangelistic moment and it did, in fact, move us in ways we never expected.

My years of studying, implementing and teaching evangelism suddenly came to the forefront because the reality had the same guiding principles as we see in evangelism; keeping the church together and to function as a church. I have always gone back to the church fathers when confronted with a question and over the years I have especially been reliant on St. Innocent’s “Instruction to Missionaries” where you can find a plethora of practical and eminently applicable principles. On of his principles was “Methods of instruction may vary according to the state of mind, age, and faculties of him who is to be instructed…To these facts should be adapted the method and order of instruction in the saving truths.” Simply put, know your  people and what they can handle and teach and lead them appropriately. It is from this point that we moved forward to face the opportunity.

This led me to exploring ways to move forward and the answer to the two questions seemed to be in the use of technology. Fr. Alexander Schmemann had written in a 1966 essay entitled The Task of Orthodoxy Theology in America Today, “Everywhere, and not only in the West, it is challenged by a secularistic, technological, and spiritually antagonistic culture which virtually swallows its younger generation.” Yet St. Nikolai Velimirovich wrote, “Technology is deaf, mute, and unanswering. It is completely dependent on ethics, as ethics on faith.” Both can be true at the same time but yet how we used the technology was going to be the critical and deciding factor. Was it going to keep us together and move us forward or divide us and destroy our community?

We decided to use the technology. We live-streamed the services on various platforms even if it was just a chanter and myself. I started a series of online instruction entitled “Orthodoxy 101” and live-streamed it on various platforms. We did what we could and how we could. As for the regular parishioners, we maintained our sense of community by calling each other frequently and speaking over Zoom. Other parishes were doing the same so it was not unique but certainly we invested time and effort into this. We were even able to travel as a parish (via Zoom) to Alaska and other places of note in the Orthodox Church. We tried to keep it interesting but more importantly relevant and infused with the Church. And this made the difference. We were able to keep the church together mostly and keep the church services as alive as possible.

Meanwhile, outside of our community, many people were experiencing an acute spiritual hunger. No doubt many of them had felt it before the pandemic started, but it seems it was intensified by the isolation that the lockdowns brought on. These seekers wanted a foundational spiritual life—a deeper relationship with God and with a community. Often they turned to the only venue that was available in those months: social media. As we all know, the internet can be a dangerous place, especially for spiritual seekers, but it can also be a hub for meaningful connections. It was on the internet that the path of St. Gregory’s coincided with the path of these spiritual seekers. They managed to find us.

We have heard and read much about the new generation of “Nones,” i.e. people who profess no religious faith of any kind. A large number of books and articles have been written about them. Some of us have certainly encountered them in our own parish lives. But what COVID seemed to was allow these “Nones” to examine their lives anew and rethink questions of faith. This was a gift to the Church, because we had answers to many of their questions.

But while this might seem contradictory to the above statement, there was also another phenomenon among a group of seekers which I had seen but not to a level that I have now experienced. Many of these people, while reading extensively about the Orthodox Faith, had very little if any Christian foundations in which to interpret that Faith. They were simply not raised nor practiced any semblance of Christian Faith and so when they discovered Orthodoxy they had many questions on what exactly is the Christian Faith. They were a tabula rasa or “clean slate” on Christianity. This presented a great opportunity because I did not have to undue some presumptions but rather were able to build up their understanding of God from the very basic foundations. Better to do than undo.

We have heard and read much about the new generation of “Nones”, people with no Faith background. Volumes of books and reams of articles have been written on them. Some of us have certainly experienced them in our own parish life. But yet what COVID seemed to do was allow these “Nones” to seriously examine their own life and explore their Faith. This is a gift to the Church because we have precisely those answers to their questions. But they also were very alert. What they saw had to match what they had read or seen on the internet. They could spot hypocrisy quicker than anything else. So what we did as a church community whether in liturgics, teachings, social outreach, fellowship, whatever, had to match what we preached and taught. Otherwise they would simply turn right around and leave…and perhaps rightly so. If we claimed to be Christians then we had to act and believe as Christians.

This meant I had to start by explaining the Trinity, who and what Jesus Christ is, and why he became incarnate, was crucified, and arose from the dead. Incidentally, this is just what St. Innocent encouraged in his “Instructions”: to start catechesis with Creation, the Fall, and humanity’s need for Christ. He counseled that everything else will follow from that. I spend much time with seekers on these topics before we discuss the Orthodox Church. If we do not know Christ, we cannot know His Church. I’ve found that the new seekers are looking for a Christ who is one of the Holy Trinity—not a good buddy, nor a magician who can make all of their problems disappear. This inevitably leads to a deeper understanding of worship and why the Orthodox worship as we do. Finally, it helps them grasp another critical point: that no one can be a Christian alone.

As we have noted, the internet gives rise to its own communities. These are fascinating, because they can cover just about any shared interest you can think of (and many you could never have imagined). But in many ways, these communities are ethereal—even though they may feel real. Even when they comprise groups of Orthodox Christians, they can be sources of connection and encouragement, but they don’t form bodies of collective worship. As Metropolitan Kallistos Ware wrote, “As Christians we are here to affirm the supreme value of direct sharing, of immediate encounter — not machine to machine, but person to person, face to face.” 

This was the challenge—particularly during COVID, when even our regular parish community could not meet in person. I ended up catechizing one family via Zoom and then chrismating them after the parish reopened. But that certainly was not ideal. Once the seekers were able to come into the church, participate in the worship, and integrate into the community, all of the pieces of their informal and formal education come together. 

But the critical decision we made early on, to make sure we kept together as a community, even remotely, was the key factor that led to these newcomers joining us. If they had seen infighting and division, it’s unlikely they would have stayed. But instead, as they came to the services, met one another, and became a part of the community, this led them to desire a deeper relationship with Christ and the Church. They had to be part of the “face to face” encounter.

St. Nikolai of Zica, when advocating for the use of English in American Orthodox parishes, once wrote, “We must be super-conservative in preserving the Orthodox faith, and super-modern in propagating it.” I believe we did just that. However, I also try to keep in mind a passage from the Apostle’s first letter to the Corinthians: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). It was not me alone, or the community alone, or even our efforts combined only with those of the seekers, who found the right place at the right time. Rather, it was God who brought them to a place that was ready to receive them, nurture them, and ultimately bring them into the Church.