From the narration of a pilgrim, a few days ago, on Mount Athos

"Elder can we come in?"

"Are you wearing a mask?"

"No."

"Well, then come in."

"Elder you are here in your cell and in your church and you are not afraid of the pandemic? Why do you not wear a mask?"

"Now you reminded me of St. Arsenios, when Saracens once arrived to plunder the Monastery and slaughter the Kalogirs."

"While everyone had packed their bags and fled, Saint Arsenios did not leave."

"Arsenie, aren't you leaving? If you stay here they will kill you."

"I am not afraid, God will protect me."

"And if He does not keep you?"

"Then it would be good if they slaughtered me. If God does not protect me then what should I do with my life? What is the reason for me to live if I believe in a God indifferent to my life?"

"You see then!  So if the Christ to whom I surrendered my whole life from a young age cannot protect me from a flu in His Holy Tabernacle, then what reason should I have to live? Let Him take me!"

"Is it possible that for so many years we crowded for hours in queues and around crowds of people with countless diseases to worship a single Holy Relic, or a single Icon and now that the Holy Temples are full of Holy Relics and Holy Miraculous Icons we afraid that we will die?"

"At least with all this pandemic a good thing came out. The illusions we had about our "Holy" self fell. We have finally realized how spiritually bankrupt we are and what a mess we are in."