How much room for discussion is there within a church during a global health crisis when thousands of deaths are unnerving the population? When science asks the world to be patient because it has not yet come up with the right medication to combat the virus? When most countries, especially weak ones without modern infrastructure, are unable to cope? When politicians initially make jokes about the virus and then — after weeks of wasted time — change course in a panic and hastily impose bans? 

And when people turn to the church amid this existential crisis: How does it react?

In Serbia, most priests in villages and towns and monks and nuns in monasteries and convents are still carrying out their duties. They comfort and console believers. But they, too, have questions. What are they meant to say to people when they want to go to church services and the church doors remain closed at the order of the state? Both believers and nonbelievers have questions: Is it appropriate during the coronavirus pandemic for a congregation to take Communion from a single chalice? A single spoon?

Read more: Coronavirus in the Balkans

New old ideas

The church leadership in Belgrade has been making decrees, then taking them back. No wonder people are turning to well-known theologians.

One of the most knowledgeable of these is Vukasin Milicevic, a priest and lecturer at the theological faculty in Belgrade. He is popular with his students and envied by church dignitaries, whom heaven has endowed with high principles but fewer rhetorical gifts.

In the first difficult weeks, Milicevic was swamped with invitations. He gave interviews on television and took uncomfortable questions from the public. But when he suggested that alternative forms of Holy Communion should be considered, the Serbian patriarch, Irinej Gavrilovic, forbade him to make any more public appearances.

Now Milicevic could be hauled before an ecclesiastical court. If it finds him guilty, he won't be allowed to hold church services any longer — the highest punishment the church can impose on a priest. But Milicevic has only pointed to historical facts: Before the 11th century, the church practiced different forms of communion and sometimes still does so today during the Liturgy of Saint James.

Lost moral compass?

It is hard to understand the patriarchate's decisions. Last year, Serbia's self-declared atheist president, Aleksandar Vucic, was invited to the church synod and awarded an order. And now? Milicevic, who has devoted his entire life to Christ, is being punished.

Unfortunately, not only the patriarch, but several Serbian bishops are trying to snuggle up to power, and therefore to a politician who was among those who supported the war criminal Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s. Someone whose corrupt regime is partly to blame for the fact that Serbia's infrastructure and health care system are in ruins and young, talented people, including hundreds of doctors and nurses, are working abroad.

Could it be that the leaders of the Serbian church have lost their moral compass? They are like "the blind leading the blind," as St. Matthew's Gospel puts it. And they join the tradition of all those who have persecuted talented theologians in Serbia over the decades.

Reflecting on strengths

Whatever one thinks about Milicevic's suggestions, punishing him is not appropriate, as it is a strength of the Orthodox Church that it tolerates argument and discussion about the right path. It does not have an infallible pope who can decide everything centrally.

A phrase that frequently occurs in the New Testament is "Be not afraid" — especially not of debates with those who think differently, with our neighbors. God gave humans an intellect that is meant to be used. Thousands of students and other intellectuals in Belgrade who have signed a petition in support of the professor are now doing precisely that. Though I am far away: You can add my name.

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