“I uncovered the true gem of the Orthodox Church: Its beautiful theology on suffering. Rather than a punishment for sin, as I’d come to believe, suffering was honored as a sacred gift to be held with tender compassion.”

(ANALYSIS) On many Sundays, Corey Hatfield sent her family ahead into church while she lingered outside with her autistic son, Grayson — trying to decide if he would scream or run the second they entered the sanctuary.

Approaching the chalice during Holy Communion was another challenge.

“Some Sundays, I drew near with Grayson in a headlock, my hand clamped tightly over his mouth to silence his steady stream of cuss words,” she wrote in “The Light From a Thousand Wounds,” her spiritual memoir that discusses, among other life events, the impact of profound autism on her family.

Getting to Saint Spyridon Orthodox Church in Loveland, Colorado, often left her “late, tousled and out-of-breath, adorned in bite marks rather than jewelry. Often, I never even made it to church. … I lamely offered God my unproductive exasperation.”

Some congregations may have the resources and space to offer ministries to help families with neurodiverse members, said Hatfield, reached by telephone. But everyone needs to know that no one-size-fits-all strategy exists. One professional told her, “If you’ve seen one autistic kid, you’ve seen … one autistic kid.”

What clergy and their people cannot do is look away, said Metropolitan Nathanael of Chicago during the Gathered as One Body: Disability, Accessibility and Inclusion in the Orthodox Church conference this past spring in Boston.

“Isolation, not disability, is the greatest wound,” he said. “Today, many people living with disabilities and their caretakers and families experience the same isolation. They feel invisible in their parishes; they feel they have no one to help them draw near to the healing waters of the church’s life. … This is a tragedy, and it is also a sin.” 

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