The Physician and Community of Faithful in the Integrated Care of the Mentally Ill: An Orthodox Christian Discussion of the Physician’s Moral and Professional Obligations

Abstract

This article presents the case of a Romanian Orthodox Christian patient in the United States suffering from bipolar disorder. The patient had no family in the United States, and a community of parishioners from the Romanian Orthodox Church, including one of the authors, Mariana Cuceu (MC), cared for him after he was discharged from a psychiatric ward. The case serves as a starting point for exploring the duty of physicians not only to avoid harm but to do good, the importance of coordinating care for such patients and attending to their religious and spiritual needs, as well as the role of the community of Orthodox Christian faithful in responding to the command that we love one another.

The Orthodox Church and the Mental Health Burden of a Pandemic: A Narrative Mini-Review

“…Peer-reviewed analysis of the mental health needs specifically of Orthodox Christians is largely absent in the body of literature dedicated to mental health and faith-based organizations. Although studies in traditionally Orthodox countries such as Georgia and Romania do exist, their application to the American experience is questionable but not altogether irrelevant (Cuceu & Pontikes, 2016 ; Giorgadze et al, 2017 ). A EBSCO Discovery Service, ProQuest, and JSTOR data search were performed cross-referencing mental health and faith-based organizations.…”