June 5, 2024
Hope! – Worthy of your attention
Quite frequently this website receives emails from LGBTQ Orthodox as well as their family members and friends in and outside of the Church, asking if I see any hope or signs that the bishops were either open to or making any changes when it came to their usual harsh rhetoric towards gay people. As Christians, we are called to be a people of hope. We hope for the resurrection of the dead and life eternal in Christ. We hope in our daily lives to live a life that Christ has called us to live, one that loves others and does not judge before removing the log from our own eyes. (Matthew 7:5)
In this vein, I am always touched when I hear from those who are members of the Orthodox Church, and who are heterosexual, and voice their empathy and support for those of us who are LGBTQ and attempt to remain faithful members of Christ’s Church. There have been as of late supportive voices coming from the pastoral and scholarly worlds. Aside from academic works, the first few interviews are by a bishop and priests of the Church, expressing ideas rarely heard in the Orthodox Church. Also, Orthodox scholars in various fields of theology (biblical studies, patristics, church history, and ministry) have written articles and books, spoken at conferences, and in general, have been engaged in various corners of the Orthodox world on the topics of gender and sexuality. I would strongly encourage you to review the descriptions of the following interviews and books and consider reading the works in full to get a better understanding of some of the contemporary views of the Orthodox Church on the LGBTQ community, in particular those of us who are Orthodox Christians.
1) Archbishop Elpidophoros, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America gave an interview in which he made some heartening statements about modern issues in the Church, including discrimination against gay people in the Church. I encourage everyone to read this eye-opening interview.
https://www.goarch.org/-/lifo-interview-2024-pantazopoulos
2) A discussion entitled “Seeking Harmony and Compassion: Helping Parishes with LGBTQ+ Ministry” was held recently at The Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University in New York, NY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQCROFnFcy8
The discussion is summarized as follows in the description provided by the Center:
“Orthodox Christians are called, first and foremost, to love all—for “God is love.” But the reality for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Orthodox Christians today is that their relationship to the Church is defined not by love but by apathy, exclusion, and condemnation. As a faith, we must choose love and compassion—to “love thy neighbor”— instead. This requires no change of faith, but a fuller, more compassionate understanding of what our faith in loving God truly requires of us. We are pleased to present this conversation about ministering to LGBTQ+ Christians. Drs. Christina Traina of Fordham University and Ashely Purpura of Purdue University discuss the opportunities, challenges, and resources for ministry among LGBTQ+ faithful.
3) Father John Chryssavgis, PhD has penned an article regarding the decision of the government of Greece to recognize same-sex marriages entitled “The things that are God’s and things that are Caesar’s – On the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage in Greece.”
https://publicorthodoxy.org/2024/02/22/what-is-gods-what-is-caesars/
While some might take issue with areas of Father John’s comments, I was struck by his concluding lines: “ How paradoxical and pitiful it is that, when compared to their religious or spiritual counterparts, some lay and nonreligious people ultimately reveal greater understanding for and solidarity with those disproportionately spurned and marginalized Surely the church is supposed to stand with our fellow citizens who are neglected and ostracized. The Church is by its very nature obliged and called to support those who are discriminated against and ostracized.” Certainly, his article is worthy of your attention.
The following are several books on topics of interest to our readers. Each can be found through major online retail websites or the publisher.
4) The book “Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality”, edited by Thomas Arentzen, Ashley M Purpura, and Aristotle Papanikolaou with a foreword by Metropolitan Ambrosius. Published by Fordham University Press, 2022.
The following description of the book is from Fordham University website:
“Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the past decade has witnessed a newfound openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Both the theological trajectory and the historical circumstances of the Orthodox Church differ radically from those of other Christian denominations that have already developed robust and creative reflections on sexuality and sexual diversity. Within its unique history, theology, and tradition, Orthodox Christianity holds rich resources for engaging challenging questions of sexuality in new and responsive ways. What is at stake in questions of sexuality in the Orthodox tradition? What sources and theological convictions can uniquely shape Orthodox understandings of sexuality? This volume aims to create an agora for discussing sex, and not least the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional in Orthodox contexts.
Through fifteen distinct chapters, written by leading scholars and theologians, this book offers a developed treatment of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world by approaching the subject from scriptural, patristic, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives. Chapters devoted to practical and pastoral insights, as well as reflections on specific cultural contexts, engage the human realities of sexual diversity and Christian life. From re-thinking scripture to developing theologies of sex, from eschatological views of eros to re-evaluations of the Orthodox responses to science, this book offers new thinking on pressing, present-day issues and initiates conversations about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity.
5) Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy. Beyond Male and Female by Bryce E. Rich. Published by Fordham University Press, 2023.
The following description of the book is from Fordham University website:
Within contemporary orthodoxy, debates over sex and gender have become increasingly polemical over the past generation. Beginning with questions around women’s ordination, arguments have expanded to include feminism, sexual orientation, the sacrament of marriage, definitions of family, adoption of children, and care of transgender individuals. Preliminary responses to each of these topics are shaped by gender essentialism, the idea that male and female are ontologically fixed and incommensurate categories with different sets of characteristics and gifts for each sex. These categories, in turn, delineate gender roles in the family, the church, and society.
Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy offers an immanent critique of gender essentialism in the stream of the contemporary Orthodox Church influenced by the “Paris School” of Russian émigré theologians and their heirs. It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring into conversation patristic reflections on sex and gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Though these are seemingly unrelated discourses, Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy reveals unexpected points of convergence, as each line of thought eschews a strict gender binary in favor of more open-ended possibilities.
The study concludes by drawing out some theological implications of the preceding findings as they relate to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners.
6) For I am Wonderfully Made. Texts on Eastern Orthodoxy and LGBT Inclusion. Edited by Misha Cherniak, Olga Gerassimenko and Michael Brinkschroeder. Published by Esuberanza Press, 2017
The following description of the book is from the publisher’s website, Esuberanza.
Within contemporary orthodoxy, debates over sex and gender have become increasingly polemical over the past generation. Beginning with questions around women’s ordination, arguments have expanded to include feminism, sexual orientation, the sacrament of marriage, definitions of family, adoption of children, and care of transgender individuals. Preliminary responses to each of these topics are shaped by gender essentialism, the idea that male and female are ontologically fixed and incommensurate categories with different sets of characteristics and gifts for each sex. These categories, in turn, delineate gender roles in the family, the church, and society.
Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy offers an immanent critique of gender essentialism in the stream of the contemporary Orthodox Church influenced by the “Paris School” of Russian émigré theologians and their heirs. It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring into conversation patristic reflections on sex and gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Though these are seemingly unrelated discourses, Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy reveals unexpected points of convergence, as each line of thought eschews a strict gender binary in favor of more open-ended possibilities.
The study concludes by drawing out some theological implications of the preceding findings as they relate to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners.
7) Byzantine Intersectionality. Sexuality, Gender & Race in the Middle Ages by Roland Betancourt. Published by Princeton University Press, 2020.
The following description of the book is from the publisher’s website, Princeton University Press.
While the term “intersectionality” was coined in 1989, the existence of marginalized identities extends back over millennia. Byzantine Intersectionality reveals the fascinating, little-examined conversations in medieval thought and visual culture around sexual and reproductive consent, bullying and slut-shaming, homosocial and homoerotic relationships, trans and nonbinary gender identities, and the depiction of racialized minorities. Roland Betancourt explores these issues in the context of the Byzantine Empire, using sources from late antiquity and early Christianity up to the early modern period. Highlighting nuanced and strikingly modern approaches by medieval writers, philosophers, theologians, and doctors, Betancourt offers a new history of gender, sexuality, and race.
Betancourt weaves together art, literature, and an impressive array of texts to investigate depictions of sexual consent in images of the Virgin Mary, tactics of sexual shaming in the story of Empress Theodora, narratives of transgender monks, portrayals of same-gender desire in images of the Doubting Thomas, and stereotypes of gender and ethnicity in representations of the Ethiopian Eunuch. He also gathers evidence from medical manuals detailing everything from surgical practices for late terminations of pregnancy to save a mother’s life to a host of procedures used to affirm a person’s gender.
Showing how understandings of gender, sexuality, and race have long been enmeshed, Byzantine Intersectionality offers a groundbreaking look at the culture of the medieval world.
8) When Brothers Dwell in Unity. Byzantine Christianity and Homosexuality by Stephen Morris. Published by McFarland, 2016.
The following description of the book is from the publisher’s website, McFarland Press.
In the world of early Byzantine Christianity, monastic rules acknowledged but discouraged the homosexual impulses of adult males. What most disturbed monastic leaders was adolescent males being accepted as novices; adult men were considered unable to control their sexual desires for these “beautiful boys.” John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople (397–407), virulently denounced homosexuality, but was virtually the only Byzantine cleric to do so.
Penances traditionally attached to heterosexual sins—including remarriage after divorce or widowhood—have always been much more severe than those for a variety of homosexual acts or relationships. Just as Byzantine churches have found ways to accommodate sequential marriages and other behavior once stridently condemned, this book argues, it is possible for Byzantine Christianity to make pastoral accommodations for gay relationships and same-sex marriage.