Two Views of Sickness

The first is the worldly view, the view of those outside the Church.  These will do anything to avoid sickness and death:  burn their bodies with radiation, poison it with chemicals, edit their genes, and all the rest of it.

The second is the view of the Orthodox Church, in which sickness is viewed as a means to end:  as a way for us to cleanse our bodies and souls of the befouling and deadly effects of sin that we might be truly prepared to meet our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ when we leave this plane of existence.

A great ensample of someone embracing the Christian mindset about sickness is St Pimen the Much-Ailing (+1110).  There is quite a lot our COVID-obsessed populations can learn from his life:

Saint Pimen the Much-ailing attained the Kingdom of Heaven by enduring grievous illness. This Russian ascetic was both born and grew up sickly, but his illness preserved him from illness of the soul.

For a long time he besought his parents to send him to the Kiev Caves monastery. When they brought their son to the famed monastery, they then began to pray for him to be healthy. But the sufferer himself, conscious of the high value of suffering, instead asked the Lord both for the continuation of his sickness, and also his tonsuring into monasticism.

One night, radiant angels appeared in the guise of monks, and tonsured him. They told him that he would receive his health only on the day of his death. Several of the brethren heard the sound of singing, and coming to Saint Pimen, they found him attired in monastic garb. In his hand he held a lit candle, and his tonsured hair could be seen at the crypt of Saint Theodosius. Saint Pimen spent many years in sickness, so that those attending to him could not tolerate it. They often left him without food and water for two or three days at a time, but he endured everything with joy.

Compassionate towards the brethren, Saint Pimen healed a certain crippled brother, who promised to serve him until death if he were healed. But after a while the brother grew lax in his service, and his former ailment overtook him. Saint Pimen again healed him with the advice, that both the sick and those attending the sick receive equal reward.

Saint Pimen spent twenty years in grievous sufferings. One day, as the angels had predicted, he became healthy. In church, the monk took leave of all the brethren and partook of the Holy Mysteries. Then, having bowed down before the grave of Abba Anthony, Saint Pimen indicated the place for his burial, and he himself carried his bed there.

 . . .

Then Saint Pimen lay down upon his bed and fell asleep in the Lord. The brethren buried him with great honor, glorifying God.

--https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2020/08/07/102220-venerable-pimen-the-much-ailing-of-the-kiev-near-caves

May the Blessed and All-Holy Trinity help us also to use every opportunity to grow in oneness with Him.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!