The Orthodox Church and the Mental Health Burden of a Pandemic: A Narrative Mini-Review.

The mental health burden of the recent COVID19 pandemic will be extensive and pervasive likely for many years to come. The stress and anxiety of this event will undoubtedly impact Orthodox communities regardless of location after the world has met the crisis and resumed some sense of normalcy. The assessment of mental health needs among Orthodox Christians remains a largely unstudied phenomenon. A small narrative review was conducted to ascertain ways in which other faith-based organizations have studied mental health in their own communities. While studies that address many minority and immigrant-based faith-based organizations exist, these are limited in scope. Given similarities that exist between minority and immigrant-based faith-based populations and Orthodox communities, a planning framework is suggested to improve an Orthodox response post-pandemic.

A More Excellent Way: Recovering Mystery in COVID Care.

This article explores the fundamental role of mystery in the care of patients suffering from COVID-19. Specific attention is paid to the disparity between modern and post-modern approaches to mystery and how medical instruction and care has often been conducted in the vein of the former. However, with post-moderns now being trained as medical clinicians and serving on the frontlines of this pandemic, there is an opportunity to return to a more ancient manner of understanding humanity, one which places mystery on equal footing with chemistry.