Monday, May 10, 2021

Holy Cross mandates vaccination for all

(HCHC) - George M. Cantonis, President of Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology has announced plans to reopen the HCHC campus for the Fall 2021 semester. With the increasing availability of vaccinations, resulting in an anticipated decline in COVID-19 transmission and infectivity, the reopening will mark a return to a more typical on-campus experience for HCHC’s students, with flexible accommodations. Inside and outside the classroom, they will once again be able to enjoy many of the distinctive elements of an HCHC education. 

The current plan is to hold classes in-person, with faculty teaching and students learning in the classroom. Fall 2021 classes will commence on September 7, 2021. The Spring 2022 semester will begin for all students on January 18, 2022. As during the 2020-2021 academic year, the institution will adhere to all state, federal, city, town, and HCHC guidelines to minimize the risk of COVID transmission. In addition, all students, faculty, and staff will be required to be fully vaccinated by August 17, 2021. More planning information will be released in the coming months as the administration further monitors and assesses the health situation. I know some institutions have mandated students get vaccinated, but have not done so for faculty because of employment law. It's surprising to see an Orthodox institution mandating this for all.

In a letter to students, faculty, and staff, President Cantonis said, “I am proud of the fact that HCHC has kept its community and facilities safe. Our success is due to careful planning and the conscientious implementation of those plans. Importantly, I am proud of the way in which students have adhered to the guidelines and worked with the administration and faculty hand in hand. Without their cooperation, we would not be able to plan a return to campus next semester. Thanks to the efforts of so many, we are now preparing to bring students back in the fall to an engaged, flexible, and safe environment for everyone in our community.”

25 comments:

  1. Our "GOD GIVEN FREE WILL" is being taken away from us by HIS own "so called" followers. Who would have ever have thought???

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  2. The thing I find most interesting is that even the military has said they cannot mandate it is because it is not a fully approved vaccine, but only under emergency use authorization.

    If the military refuses to mandate it (and we've seen what they'll mandate in terms of vaccines), what does that say? Mandating students to get a technically unapproved vaccine is a bit much.

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  3. Axios! No shoes, no shirt, no vaccine, no HCHC education. This won't sit well with those (most American Orthodox unfortionatly) who conflate Christian freedom (which is no more, and no less, than the singular choice/opportunity to be a SLAVE of Christ) with Lockean individualism/liberty, but an HCHC education is not a "right" in any Christian sense *at all*...

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    1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+3&version=NKJV

      Here is a perfect example 9f Christian Freedom.

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    2. I don't think it's really a good thing to require a drug that has not been fully approved and where no long term testing has been done on a new technology.

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    3. REM, I suggest your being being led by an agenda when your being told that these vaccinations are "experimental", "not fully approved", "untested technology", and the like. The folks who do know what they are talking about are using these terms in a very specific context. The folks who don't know what they are talking about are misusing them to drive passions towards their (mostly political) agenda.

      Fact is, these vaccines are safer by any applicable measure than the Ibuprofen and Tylenol you and everybody else takes for their aches and pains everyday.

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    4. I'm not being led by any agenda. I don't watch news. I tend to go straight to the source. FDA, CDC, WHO, Johns Hopkins, NIH, etc. The vaccine has an "emergency use authorization" which the FDA itself says is not the same as approval and does not undergo the same review as full approval. Again, this is why military has even stated they will not force service members to do it (and looking at the anthrax shot debacle, they have no issue forcing vaccinations).

      Please let me know which of the following points are incorrect:

      1) The vaccine is under emergency use authorization which is not approval (by the FDA's own definition)
      2) It uses mRNA technology which has never been used in a human vaccine before
      3) Nobody knows the long term effects of said mRNA technology.


      I am not making the argument about it being anything. I am making the argument that this is all new and I can understand hesitancy by people. I am not anti-vax. I have all of my vaccinations. My children do also. I will not get this. I am not in a high risk category. I have no need for this vaccination and I choose not to be in the group of testers.

      At least for me, there is no agenda. There is no politics. I just straight don't trust it because when talking about things being injected into my body, I'm not a fan of being a test.

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    5. REM, yes these terms (i.e. "emergency", "experimental", etc.) are being used, but *in a certain context* In this context, current medical/FDA drug safety, the bar as it were is set very very high. So high in fact, that all sorts of drugs that you give yourself and your children (Tylenol for example) are in fact much less safe (objectively) than the three vaccines under discussion, but because of the history of medicine and commerce are just now part of it.

      As to the mRNA, it's mechanism and effects (short and long) are extremely well understood, unlike Tylenol for example which even after 100 years we still don't understand its mechanism (why it works), though we understand the real risks (up to and including death) and accept those risks every day.

      I am respectfully suggesting that you are not proportionally weighing the risks. You take drugs, get vaccinations, undergo procedures, use modern tech such as coffee makers, trains, cars, airplanes, and the like every day that in fact have substantially more risk (i.e. higher objective numbers of death/injury) than the vaccines under discussion.


      There are several reasons why the bar has been set so high and the institutional/governmental CYA terms of "emergency" and the like are being used. I respectfully suggest you look past that and weigh the well understood death/permanent injury risk to yourself and others of a Wuhan Virus infection against the extremely low risk of these vaccines. These vaccines are quite literally one of the safest things in medicine, much safer than Tylenol...

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    6. And I respectfully suggest that you are underestimating my ability to do research (again, using the sites I listed above, not Newsmax or CNN).

      I have weighed the risks. And I believe the risks of the vaccine outweigh the risk of contracting COVID for me. I am not a high risk for complications from COVID. I do not suffer from the major comorbidities. I am also not afraid of death even if I ended up in the very very small percentage of people that die without underlying conditions. That does not mean that it is the same for everyone and everyone needs to weigh the risks for themselves.

      I have a very "libertarian" approach to this: Those that want it should absolutely get it. Those that do not, should not be forced to. That is all.

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    7. REM,

      Just to add to your research, My wife and I (she is a physician - i'm just a "business manager" ;) ) own a medical practice specializing rehabilitation. I procrastinate on this website when I should be doing other things :). An increasingly number of our patients are these post covid syndromes. Many of these folks are in their 30's to 40's, had no comorbidities, etc. when they contracted the virus. Yet they are injured (neurologically, pulmonary, etc.) for life. There have been more of these folks in our singular practice, in our hospital in a single small city here in the USA than there have been serious injury from the vaccines under discussion in the entire USA, probably the world.

      I hear you on the libertarian thing!

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  4. Scary, is this going to be a prerequisite to enter God's house for Orthodox worshipers in the near future? Something to ponder.

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  5. I doubt that Jordanville or any other seminaries will follow suit. One's body is "a temple of the Holy Spirit" after all.

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  6. "So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."

    Matthew 24:33

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    1. I always find it ironic when Christians use "sheep" as a way to insult someone.

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    2. "As sheep to the slaughter..."

      If the shoe fits...

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  8. “Let’s ruin the lives of 99.99% of the population, to protect the vulnerable .01% of the population” “ Any sacrifice is worth it if it saves even one life” .... “the vaccine has a 99.99% survival rate, if .01% of healthy people who take it die, thats a necessary and insignificant sacrifice”

    When you let a society that knows nothing about virtue dictate what it is to be virtuous, you end up with this hypocritical idiocy. But HCHC is a private institute, they have a right to set insane rules if they want, though arguably this is crossing the line. They’ve always cared more about their image, and fitting in with society, than their content.

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    1. Saints Locke, Hobbes, and Jefferson, pray for us!

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    2. Yes clearly thats who the Church of Greece is following as they sue the government, love to see them embrace their inner American spirit, since apparently wanting to practice our faith freely is uniquely American and unorthodox :D But its okay, you dont have to try to defend the death toll of this experimental vaccine technology. Just troll your way to victory in your own mind

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    3. LOL. Imagine thinking an atheistic democratic empire has legitimacy.

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  9. Isaiah 53, especially 53:6. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. "

    I will not take the shot, yet if people take it I do not condemn them yet I suspect that those who take the shot out of fear and hysteria will not be so respectful of me. The Nuremberg Trials established a precedent in international law that NO ONE shall be forced to take experimental drugs. Plus there are a number of preventatives and treatments that do not require the shot. Those we are not told about in the indoctrination we are experiencing. Big Brother is watching you.

    Insanity reigns. "Everybody must be forced to mask and get jabbed or else we will all die!" Nonsense. Everything 'official' is questionable.

    If the totalitarian solutions that abound with every COVID protocol do not give one pause, something is wrong.

    Hysteria and fear are not an Orthodox Christian response.

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    1. I suppose there are people who take the vaccine out of fear and hysteria, I haven't met any though. I have met at least 3 hysterical COVID deniers though. And I'm talking actually met and know these people, not social media. I've also never heard, where I'm from, anyone ever say that all must get vaccinated or we all die. These may be true in your location but are exaggerations from anything I've ever heard.

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  10. As usual, Michael is one of the few voices of reason here.

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