‘One spoon or no spoon’: Doctor loses appeal after objecting to her church’s COVID precautions for communion

An Ontario court has dismissed the appeal of a Toronto doctor who had received a verbal warning from her college for criticizing her church’s COVID-19 policies.On Nov. 5, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice upheld the decision from the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, which had in turn upheld a remedial caution for Dr. Irene Polidoulis over comments she made objecting to the use of multiple spoons for communion in the Greek Orthodox Church. The Greek Orthodox Church traditionally uses one shared spoon for communion, but in the early months of the pandemic, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada issued a directive asking churches to use multiple communion spoons to avoid spreading COVID-19.In an open letter to the archbishop dated June 15, 2020, in which she identified herself an MD, and specifically as a front-line physician, Dr. Polidoulis argued it was theologically improper to use multiple communion spoons and claimed that other infectious diseases throughout history have never been spread through the use of shared communion spoons.“Therefore, can you please clarify if there is any evidence that HIV, SARS, Ebola, Mers, Tuberculosis, Leprosy, or the Spanish Flu . . . and the more common Influenza and Pneumococcal Pneumonia which are always in the community, if any of these or other contagions have ever been shown to be spread through the Traditional methods of distributing Holy Communion?” she wrote.“This may be an unfair question because I think your answer would be no. In addition, I only personally know of one individual who stopped taking Holy Communion because of such fears,” Dr. Polidoulis continued.During a July 2020 church service, Dr. Polidoulis also verbally expressed her objection to multiple communion spoons to the priest. The service, including Dr. Polidoulis’ verbal remarks, was also live-streamed to the public.“We don’t want this solution. No one asked us about this. We want ONE spoon or NO spoon. Either ONE or NONE. As, Christians, we do not want this solution,” she said during the service, according to a court transcript.In a subsequent online blog post, Dr. Polidoulis called the practice of using single communion spoons in the Orthodox Church “the longest ongoing longitudinal observational study every conducted, spanning a 2,000 year period with an large sample size of study participants . . . who consumed bread and wine from a common physical element and avoided transmissible disease” and said that this “proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Holy Eucharist is, indeed, incorruptible and does not transmit disease.”College takes issue with Dr. Polidoulis identifying herself as MDIn their complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the complainant argued Dr. Polidoulis “failed in her duty as a doctor licensed to practice in Ontario when she neglected to warn people about the risks of using a single spoon and failed to assist the medical community in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.” In her defence, Dr. Polidoulis told the college her objection to the multiple communion spoons was solely on the basis of religion and theology, not medicine.However, the college’s Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee took issue with the fact that Dr. Polidoulis identified herself as a physician in her critiques of the multiple communion spoons and said her comments were “open to misinterpretation and could reasonably be read as being provided with the scientific or medical authority arising from her status as a physician.”“The Committee was concerned that the Respondent’s comments about public health measures are attached to her status as a physician and may lead a listener or a reader to believe that she was taking the position that measures to protect congregants from the transmission of COVID-19 were not warranted,” the committee said in its Sept. 2021 decision.The committee issued a verbal caution and did not refer the complaint to discipline, while urging Dr. Polidoulis to be “carefully consider the tone she uses and the clarity with which she conveys any public health information.” Dr. Polidoulis appealed this decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, which declined to review the decision in March 2023. She once again appealed to the Ontario Superior Court, which dismissed the case also ordered her to pay the college $3,000 plus taxes for legal expenses.An overreach?Dr. Polidoulis’ case has also drawn the attention of commentators and politicians who argue regulatory colleges have gone too far when it comes to policing public comments made by members.Back in August, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute released a report titled “The New Censorship” and cited this case as an example of “medical professionals facing disciplined for speech even when there is no connection between that speech and their profession.”“Physicians must be entitled to practice their faith and make public statements about their religious beliefs without fearing that their regulator may discipline them for expressing their religion. The board barely mentioned Polidoulis’s right to religious freedom other than to cite that it may be limited under section 1 of the Charter,” lawyer and report author Christine Van Geyn wrote.Last month, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery announced plans to introduce legislation to reign in the ability of professional regulatory colleges to discipline members over their public comments. Smith and Amery also cited Dr. Polidoulis’ case as a “troubling example” of a regulatory college going too far.

‘One spoon or no spoon’: Doctor loses appeal after objecting to her church’s COVID precautions for communion

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