Russian Orthodox leader says refusing vaccine is a sin

The second-most senior Orthodox bishop in the Moscow Patriarchate has urged all people of Russia to get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying their refusal to do so is akin to committing a sin. 

"It seems to me that everyone who can be vaccinated should do so now -- if not for their own good, then for the good of others," said Metropolitan Hilarion during an interview broadcast July 7 on Russian television Rossiya 24.   

The 54-year-old archbishop, who has been chairman of the Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations since 2009, said people have told him they feel guilty for not getting the vaccine, knowing they may have inadvertently infected loved ones.

"They come and ask, 'How am I supposed to live with this now?'" said Hilarion, who was named Metropolitan of Volokolamsk in 2002. 

"All your life you will have to make amends for the sin you have committed," he said.

The responsibility to "think of others"

"The sin consists in thinking only of oneself instead of thinking of others," Hilarion said.

"We are responsible, each one for the other, not only for ourselves and not only for our loved ones, but also for all those who come into contact with us!" he insisted.

The Russian Orthodox Church has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Nearly 5,000 priests, monks and nuns have been infected with COVID-19. 

Metropolitan Hilarion already began reminding members of his Church that it is essential they get vaccinated and respect the State-mandated health protocols.

But he has angered anti-vaxxers by his stance. Some went so far as to block his Instagram account.

Professor Jivko Panev, a priest who directs the news website Orthodoxie.com and teaches at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, has also insisted that getting vaccinated is an issue of basic solidarity.

"We are, by definition, relational beings. We live with and through others. Vaccinating is therefore not only an act for oneself but also for others," he explained.

Vaccination, a "gift from God"

"The Orthodox Church does not see pandemics as punishment from God," Professor Panev pointed out.

He said it is just the opposite. 

"God did not leave human beings defenseless: medicine is a gift from God; we must use it," he noted.

"The Orthodox Church was one of the first to become aware of the danger of this health crisis," Panev said, stressing that its leaders backed health protocols already in March 2020.

But that has not always been the case among Orthodox Christians, some of whom continue to see vaccinations as posing a spiritual danger.

"At the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of elderly believers died in the Moscow region (...), they refused to be vaccinated against smallpox because they believed it was the seal of the Antichrist," explained Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhov in a video posted on July 5.

The Orthodox bishops have expressed their concerns at a time when the Delta variant of the coronavirus is infecting a new wave of people in Russia. 

More than 140,000 Russian have died from the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.