Athens-area parish priest Georgios Schinas justified his decision to offer the Holy Communion outside his church on Palm Sunday, in a letter addressed to the Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece.
In his letter, which was published by the Orthodoxia Νews Αgency, Fr. Georgios first notes that he fully respects decisions by the Greek state and the Orthodox Church, adding that he obeys the directives of the latter.
He also said the preceding Palm Sunday Divine Liturgy at his church, in the Koukaki district near the Acropolis in central Athens, was held without worshipers.
Fr. Georgios said that several parents of children knocked on the cathedral’s main door, requesting the Holy Communion for their children, while adding, “… at that moment I followed my clerical conscience and the age-old holy tradition of our Church, and with complete conviction that based on a decision by the Holy Synod and the statements by the Archbishop, that the Holy Communion is not prohibited, because not only does it not transmit diseases, but it conveys the Body and Blood of Christ in our lives.”
