A Talk by Metropolitan Neophytos Morphou given at Saint Cyprian and Justina Church in Meniko, Cyprus , February 12th, 2020.
Metropolitan Neophytos: “Now I speak to you at another level not at a spiritual level. At a scientific level, at a human level. My study, the reading I have made in scientific websites, the scientists that I trust, pay attention to this word, who have God in them, the doctors who have God in them, the microbiologists who have God in them, the epidemiologists who have God in them, all say that no vaccine, not only the vaccine for the coronavirus, should not be obligatory. No vaccine! If it is obligatory it is a violation. Do you hear? It is a violation of our soul and of our body. Everyone is to reflect and see what they want , examine their faith, whom will you trust? This has meaning what I tell you. Whom will you trust? Do not be like lost people. Do you know one bad thing of having too much information is this: You hear one this way, you hear the other another way, you hear the third and something different.
You don’t know whom to trust. This is a very bad thing that happens in our times. I personally, one good thing I have is that I know whom to trust. For many matters. For the scientific matters which scientists, for the spiritual which scientists? And something else! We are people of prayer, others a little, others a lot, but we pray. Why don’t you pray and say “My Christ, either enlighten me what vaccine to take if it is needed or if I should not hurry towards this.” The people of God, the older ones, used to say, do not hurry when the antichrists start to seal the bodies, do not hurry. It is a big mistake because there can be such an intervention of God and there will be, I am certain, because there is much prayer in our times, much pain, in all the world, in all the world. I tell you that in America, in Europe , in Asia they are much more informed than us. Indeed. The Swedish who are a very “modern” (in brackets) society had such side effects from earlier vaccines that now 70 % of the Swedish do not want to hear about any vaccine.
Person sitting next to the Metropolitan: “Because of the swine flu 60% were vaccinated and even to date there are side effects, they can’t drive, they fall asleep while driving, it is a.....”
Metropolitan Neophytos: “Indeed, and something else that was told to us at Synod yesterday, it is good for me to tell you, the epidemiologist of Cyprus, which makes you wonder, such a man who is at the university and teaches the young people epidemiology, a man who is very much with God, it is to wonder why the government did not put him as its counselor. And he told us the following regarding the obligatoriness of the vaccine which for me is the key, it is this. I cannot now hinder the great centers, the pharmaceutical companies of America and Europe and of Russia from producing vaccines. You understand! It is their products, they want to sell them. When we talk about side effects and we have concerns and are scared they say to you, “are you serious my Bishop. The other medicines that you take don’t they have side effects? The aspirin that you take does it not have side-effects? Is it 100%?” And every organization, you know, acts differently, there is this also. So what did the epidemiologist Soteriades tell us yesterday? The whole key is not if there will be vaccines. There will be vaccines.
Vaccines will come. The whole matter is the vaccine being obligatory. They need to respect the freedom of the people and more so he told us the following, and I did not know this, and it was my mistake that I did not know this, because I studied law. He brought to us, the same doctor, the charter of human rights. Those which were recognized by the United Nations Organization as the basic human rights and one of the articles of this charter states that the obligatory reception into the human body of whatever medicine, injections is forbidden without the consent of the sick person. They are the rights of the sick person. Sickness is not a part of death. It is a part of health. We need to understand this. It is a part of health. Many times our organism needs to get sick so that it can warn us to run to the doctor. Isn’t it so? So there are no other complications. So when this charter of human rights comes and says this very simple thing that it is forbidden without the consent of the sick person. I heard someone say, “but with this logic if all the hierarchs begin like Morphou and say to the people their rights – I did not say to you not to take the vaccine, I said to you that I will not take it, I tell you this. You will have to decide. Either now that you hear me or see me elsewhere. You will decide whom you will trust. That is why you are called faithful. The rationalists will go to be inoculated, do you understand, but you are faithful. Being faithful means that you believe in the visible and invisible. You believe that there are mysteries. The 4% we approach through science the 96% through the mysteries. And whatever you grab. That’s how it is, ‘for we know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9) says Apostle Paul.