Greetings! 

Below is an example of a letter that one of our supporters submitted to his Bishop through his Priest. We ask that you do the same! He also sent it with the signatures, which you can get by emailing me. michael.sisco@saintsedwardmedia.com

This letter was submitted to a Bishop along with signatures from my first petition in regards to re-opening our Churches. Thank you to those who took this step! We'll be doing the same soon with the new petition:

Your Eminence Metropolitan ____:

Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

As we have boldness before our Heavenly Father, trusting in His mercy, so we come to you our earthly father with boldness. We beg you to look upon the plight of the parishes under your care.

The church is a hospital for the sick and the suffering, spiritually, mentally, and physically. If we turn away the sick from the church, then who is the church for? How will we ever tell people to come to church again? People can be trusted to make their own decisions about whether to come to church; we cannot make those decisions for them. Jesus did not turn away the lepers, but touched them and healed them (Mt. 8:1-4). If a church must abide by attendance restrictions, how can we fulfill the Great Commission? Where is the unity of the body of Christ when we must rotate our attendance at the Divine Liturgy?

The teaching of the church is through symbols in icons, hymnography, and the gestures that the faithful make at worship. A mask has tremendous symbolic and spiritual consequences. It asserts the new “dogma” that we are threats to each other and must be forced to mask ourselves in order to be “loving,” when the very nature of love is to see the image of Christ in another person.

We refuse to acknowledge the unity of body and soul in each person when we force another human being to wear a mask, seeing him as merely a body, and therefore merely a carrier of disease. The utilitarian values of the world assert that we need not indulge in the “luxury” of the image of God in the human face and in the very breath which gives us life, that we cannot indulge in this luxury while we are at war with death. However, for us death has already been destroyed, and each human person is an icon of Christ spiritually and physically.

Finally, we think of our children, “For of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 19:14) Many are depriving their children of church attendance and participation in the Eucharist out of fear and because of restrictions. “Let the children come to me and hinder them not” (Mt. 19:14). We hinder them through attendance restrictions and mask requirements, instead of teaching them to kiss the holy icons and see other people as icons of Christ. Our children need to know that church is a holy place, not a dangerous place. 

The local mandates are against the teachings of the church. In addition to this, they are not laws, and have been found to be unconstitutional. We have no need to fear them.

We humbly ask Your Eminence to allow priests the freedom to fully serve their flocks and teach the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as witnessed by the Holy Orthodox Church throughout history. 

With love in Christ,