September 30, 2012
Many gay, lesbian, and bisexual people have at numerous times in their lives felt like outcasts. We grow up in a world where we are quick to recognize that we do not feel or experience the same things that other kids our age are feeling and experiencing. While I might have noticed that certain girls in my class were pretty, I certainly did not experience the same stirrings that other boys in my class were feeling when noticing pretty girls. And since in my generation no one was talking about what I was and was not feeling, I was led to believe that I was the only one who was experiencing something different, and thought that there must be something wrong with me.
While growing up, gay people quickly realize that to express different feelings from the norm is to risk calling great wrath, and even harm upon ourselves at the hands of others. These experiences make LGBT people feel like outcasts. An outcast is defined as “a person who is rejected or cast out from home and society.” (dictionary.com). Due to the fact that we are not in the majority, we are by definition, outsiders. Other people, institutions and society at large not only make us feel like outcasts, but in numerous cases they have literally cast us out of their lives and homes.
Jesus Christ was the chief outcast. He was rejected by his own people, scorned by society and arrested by the civil authorities for His righteousness. Many gay and lesbians are drawn to Christ and ultimately to worship Him in His Church for this very reason. His message, His life, His example, the hope that He provides and the forgiveness that He offers is the impetus to become and/or remain a Christian. We, as outcasts, are particularly drawn to the message of the Lord: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) When family, friends, employment, and the social order have rejected you, LGBT people have been able to find refuge in Christ.
For centuries the Orthodox Church has always welcomed outcasts. Christ Himself made the appeal to outsiders to “follow Him”. The Evangelist Matthew, a tax collector, and St. Mary Magdalene, the one Jesus cured of evil spirits (Luke 8:1-3) are only two examples of Christ calling people from the fringes of society to be His disciples. The Apostles carried the good news of the Lord to outsiders to become newly illuminated by water and the Spirit. Outsiders were the catechumens, the converts, the newest members of the Church. The appeal of a new life in Christ was very appealing to those belittled, scorned and forgotten by society. Frequently, once they became Christians, they were even greater outcasts as many chose martyrdom rather than give up their newly found faith.
The sad truth about those who rule the earthly Orthodox Church today is that they have become imperial gatekeepers and have created numerous outsiders by having irrational reasons for making sure that outsiders stay outside the Church. They reject numerous people who seek the truth and mercy of Christ within the solace of His Church. For example, in countries of the Orthodox diaspora there are abundant stories of people being unwelcomed in the Church due to their lack of “Greekness” or “Russianness” as if one’s ethnic origins were a choice as well as an obstacle to the saving mysteries.
Furthermore, the Orthodox Church has turned its gay faithful into outcasts. Biology dictates if someone is born gay. Being gay is not a choice. I did not choose to be gay any more than I chose to be born of a Ukrainian father and an English mother. God Himself created gay people and He created them with the potential to love and be loved and experience that love in the form of life-long unions with another person of the same gender. Rejecting people for something they have no choice over is to reject God Himself.
Thankfully the Lord takes great care of those who are rejected, the outsiders. In the book of Jeremiah we find these comforting words and actions of the Lord: “I will restore Thee to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord, because you are called an outcast, Zion, for whom no one cares.” (Jeremiah 30:17) The prophet Jeremiah points out that Zion, synonymous for Jerusalem, has been made an outcast by others. Jerusalem is deemed worthy of healing and help because others have rejected her. Gay people do sin and do need to repent and receive Christ’s forgiveness as do all people. But we do not need to repent for being homosexuals or our need to love and experience love anymore than heterosexual people need to repent for their biology or their natural inclinations to love, be loved and express love in life-long relationships. The Orthodox Church and her gatekeepers, the bishops and priests, need to stop turning its gay faithful members into outcasts. They need to stop throwing the stones of archaic scriptural interpretations and antiquated ecclesiastical laws at gay people in order to keep us outside of the Church. Those who throw the stones are the hypocrites, because Christ invites the outcasts in and throws the Pharisees out.
Jesus was indeed a friend of sinners, but in all cases, He challenged them to repent and to show the fruits of their repentance through their actions. To the woman caught in adultery, He said "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." He ate with tax collectors, but he did not bid them continue in their dishonest ways, but commanded to give back five-fold what had been taken dishonestly. To the rich man, He did not say "don't worry about your love of riches", but rather, "give all that you have to the poor and follow me". There is no debate over whether LGBT individuals have personal worth or whether they should be loved and respected. The debate is whether certain politically correct behaviors which are contrary to the teachings of scripture and tradition should be accepted without challenge, or whether those behaviors should be clearly renounced and repented of in order to be a communicant. Let's be clear that no one is asking for self-loathing of what a person "is", but rather repentance of what they "do." All sexual activity outside of the marriage between one man and one woman is sin, that it is a choice whether to participtate in sexual activity or remain celibate. It is a choice if someone advocates a heterodox definition of marriage. it is a choice if someone chooses to live in a same-sex union. One can be born with an attraction toward members of the same sex, and such persons can be full communicants as long as they are willing acknowledge the sinfulness of the behaviors to which they are attracted and commit to avoid those behaviors. By the way, all of us are attracted to some sins, so LGBT are not unique in being attracted to sinful behavior. The church needs to be consistent that all sinners must have a repentant attitude toward all sins, especially those to which they are most attracted, in order to partake worthily of the holy mysteries.
Ken,
Gay people are not necessarily adulterers or cheaters or uncharitable any more than heterosexuals. Of course gay people are sinners, but they are not sinners simply by being gay or loving and being in monogamous relationships with persons of the same gender. On this issue you are wrong. There is nothing “political” about gay people wanting the exact same thing that straight people want when it comes to love and being loved in stable relationships. The Orthodox Church has changed its views on other Scripturally mandated requirements. To give only one example that bishops shall be the husband of one wife. The Church has also changed its mind about ordaining women to the diaconate – female deacons are found in Scripture, defended in the writings of the Holy Fathers and ordained for centuries. The Church decided to stop ordaining women to the deaconate. In other words, the Church changed its mind.
Since sexual relations outside of marriage are sinful, then the Orthodox Church should begin to marry people of the same gender. Just as in her mercy and compassion the Church has allowed people to re-marry two and three times, with specific liturgical rites to honor their choice, the Church can develop liturgical services to sacramentally crown gay people. Gay Orthodox Christians are telling the Church, with their God given conscientious, that they were created gay and created to love as well as created to express love in a monogamous relationship that include sexual expressions of love. One of my concerns is that the bishops of the Church are refusing to address the topic of homosexuality in light of modern day biological science. His Grace Archbishop Lazarus (OCA) is one of the few to address this issue. Bishop Benjamin (OCA) also seems inclined to at least discuss the issue. Yet, most bishops continue to make official proclamations concerning gay people without listening to and discussing the issue with gay people – unless they are talking to themselves? The issue of homosexuality remains in the closet in the Church and that is never a healthy place to be.
Andre,
I didn't mean to insinuate that gay people are more likely to be guilty of other sins. My point in bringing up other sins was to say that no matter what a person's sins, the message of Christ is transformation and freedom from our sins, not acceptance of our sins. If the church operates properly, it should consistently challenge all of us to renounce our sins, whatever they are. The LGBT community should not feel they are being singled out, because the church should consistently call all of us to repentance, and should deny the chalice to anyone, gay or straight, who does not renounce and repent of their sins, whatever they happent to be in each individual.
I appreciate your candor in asserting your view that homosexual relations are not sinful, and that marriage should be inclusive of same sex couples. I think we are in agreement that the Church for two thousand years has viewed homosexual activity as sinful, and has accepted the scriptures that condemn it at face value. Your argument seems to be that modern science has given us adequate reason to question the church's stance of 2000 years, and there is precedent for changing it's stance on morality. Let me start by commenting on the latter. You give the example, "A bishop shall be the husband of one wife." Today, we require a bishop to be celibate. This is a tightening of a command, not a loosening, so it doesn't apply. The original mandate did not mean the bishop had to be married, but if they were, it should be to only one wife. The same thing applies to your other example – Women deacons. The church has tightened the requirements for deacon, not loosened them, and again the precept has to do with the requirements for office, not a universal moral mandate, such as the Scriptural precepts on sexual behavior.
Now regarding the science, I would argue that science can address what is, but not what ought to be. We live in a fallen world, and to characterize what is does not imply what ought to be. For that, we rely on God's revelation through the scriptures viewed through the lense of the Church's Tradition. Much is made about the genetic foundations of same sex attraction - that it is not a choice. I'm not going to get into debating nature vs nurture here, but even if I grant that one's orientation is 100% determined by their genetics, we would only have established that attraction, not action, is not a choice. The belief in the freedom of the will is fundamental to Orthodoxy. When we cooperate with God's grace, there is no action that is inevitable – we always have the ability to choose one course or another. I don't think anyone has ever been denied the holy mysteries for their attraction, but only for their actions. Such actions can include taking a militant stand that what the church has called sinful for 2000 years is not sinful, refusing to renounce and repent of forbidden sexual activity or relationships, etc.
You did hit the nail on the head – the dividing line between your stance and the traditional Orthodox stance comes down to whether homosexual activity is sinful or not. If it is sinful, Orthodoxy allows no other possibility than to require renunciation and repentance. if it is not sinful, then there need be no barrier to the chalice. The problem is Orthodoxy cannot change its position on such an important moral issue that is so clear in Scripture and Tradition. By definition, Orthodoxy is the church which maintains its fidelity to Apostolic doctrine and morality. One cannot ask it to become what it is not. There are churches whose identity is to change its morality according to the mores of the day, such as the Episcopal Church. If you are looking for a church that embraces societal norms, you will find them more than accommodating.
Xenia, I am very sorry to hear that anyone has presumed to judge you, esp. after you have worked so diligently with a spiritual father to find the best pastoral approach to your unique situation. Those who has presumed to judge a celibate relationship as sin are simply out of line – but bear in mind we have people coming from all kinds of backgrounds into the Church: those who enter as converts from various fundamentalist backgrounds carry a lot of baggage that needs to be shed over time, as do we all. They need love and grace and foregiveness as well. God bless you.
We read all through the Bible that God is concerned about our soul, that part of us that relates to God and lives on after we shed our earthly body. Our soul is the center of our being.
Bless the Lord' O my soul; And all that is within me bless His holy name. Psalm 102/103.
Today, at least in the States, our sexuality has become the center of our being, replacing our soul. At all costs, we must satisfy our sexuality.
It seems to me that we cannot have two centers. We either please God by doing His will and caring for our soul, or we please our sexuality.
Choose this day whom you will serve? is an age old question that still holds.
Carrie, Thank you for your comment on the webiste. While I agree with you that we have become very concerned with sexuality, especially in the West, it is also true that it is an important part of our humanity, it is God created and blessed. For LGBTQ people – who have been discriminated against for such a long time, you can imagine that sexual orientation can, for some LGBT persons, become more important than it is for heterosexuals. Heterosexuals are not denied expressions of their sexual orientation and so they have no need to defend themselves.
Ken,
I have to be blunt and say that I am offended when you suggest that I might be more comfortable joining the Episcopal Church. I was baptized and chrismated as an infant in the Orthodox Church by my great uncle. He was an Orthodox priest who was ordained in a prisoner of war camp in order to serve the spiritual needs of Ukrainians who were forced out of Ukraine by Stalin’s and Hitler’s armies. I was raised in the Orthodox Church, served as an altar boy, and accepted as a Seminary student. I was ordained as a canonical Orthodox priest and served, to the best of my God given abilities, for close to twenty-three years. I am an Orthodox Christian and will die an Orthodox Christian and therefore the suggestion that I should investigate joining another denomination is offensive.
To address your general idea that the Church has tightened and not loosened certain Scripturally based practices, especially in the area of required celibacy for bishops and the lack of female deacons, I can offer opposite arguments where the church has loosened and not tightened requirements, for example, the mandate of the First Ecumenical Council concerning the dating of Pascha. The autonomous Orthodox Church of Finland does not follow the directives of the Ecumenical Council from the third century. The Church of Finland celebrates the Western Paschalia. And yet the Metropolitan and Bishops of the Church con-celebrate with the Ecumenical Patriarchate and indeed are fully accepted as Orthodox Christians. The Orthodox Church of Finland is not a Bolshevik controlled Church, it is free to change its celebration of Pascha to conform to the rest of the Orthodox Church. Yes, its clergy might lose their state salaries and pensions if they were to make the change, but that is a different question.
My second example of the Church loosening Canon law is the decision to allow divorced priests to re-marry. While this is not a common occurrence, it is not that rare either. Perhaps the most famous example in the US is the decision of the current Metropolitan of the Antiochian Orthodox Church to allow one of the priests of his diocese, who was civilly divorced to re-marry, while his ex-wife was still living. Instead of allowing this to place under the umbrella of oikonomia, in a quiet manner, the priest wrote an entire book defending the decision. What is oikonomia if not the loosening of Church laws and ordinances? Gay marriage certainly should be discussed in light of this idea.
A third example of the Church loosening Tradition, would be the acceptance of the New or Gregorian calendar by a portion of the Orthodox Church. Why was this necessary? It divided and continues to divide the Church. It even continues to divide the Orthodox jurisdictions that recognize each other’s canonicity, not to mention those groups who have chosen to remain outside of “canonical” Orthodoxy. Even within single Orthodox jurisdictions there are parishes that follow the Julian calendar and parishes that follow the “revised Julian” or Gregorian calendar. How is this healthy? If anything it is another example of the Church loosening, not tightening sacred traditions.
Finally, what about the discussion concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood that has been suggested by contemporary Orthodox luminaries such as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Dr, Elisabeth Behr-Sigel? If the ordination of women can be discussed by leaders of the Church, then why can’t gay marriage be discussed? It can!
You state that science can address what is, but not what ought to be. Would you say to a woman that she ought to be a man? Would I tell a heterosexual man that he ought to be a homosexual man? Of course not! We live in fallen world, yet women do not choose their gender and homosexuals do not choose their sexual orientation. You state that sexual orientation does not need to be acted upon. True, but heterosexuals have the option, sanctioned by the Holy Church, encouraged by the government and encouraged by society to act upon their attraction within the bounds of holy matrimony.
History has shown that the Orthodox Church has, can, and will hopefully continue to change its stance on Scriptural mandates and Apostolic doctrine enshrined in the decisions of the Councils and the writings of the Holy Fathers. The Church will do this because it cares for its loving faithful.
Thank you for this site. I came to Orthodoxy 13 years ago ( I was baptized Roman Catholic and journeyed through different Protestant denominations).
I love the Liturgy, and sing in the choir. I've made several wonderful friends there, and have met other Orthodox Christians whose kindness has moved me.
That said, I cringe when I hear antigay remarks in church. And I wonder, if I turned to the people making such remarks, and said, "Hey, I'm one," would they rethink their views of LGBTQIA people, or suggest that I attempt to pray myself straight?
I never joined an ex-gay group, but I did, many moons ago, try to will myself 100% straight. Prayer, Bible study, discipling, "rededication," having people lay hands on me in attempts at "deliverance"…it got to be too much.
I don't want to walk away from my parish. Or from the Orthodox Church, period.
And I don't believe that God bollixed it up where my sexual orientation is concerned.
Dunno what else to say. Sorry for rambling.
Antoinette,
I understand your struggle – know that you are not alone. The Orthodox Church is the beautiful Bride of Christ and so I understand your desire to be part of her. The anti-gay remarks and sermons are very unfortunate – they know not who they hurt. As LGBTQ people we know that God created us who we are and to change that is to deny His creation. To be gay in an Orthodox parish is indeed difficult and I can only wish you strength on your path. One can only hope that as time goes on, Christ will reveal to His Church that to rebuke and deny the full mysteries to LGBT people is not holy. Please stay close to Christ in prayer. He knows what you are going through and He will give you strength. I bid you peace.
I moved to a new area and wanted to attend the local Orthodox Church. I asked to meet with the priest in private in his office after services and it proved to be tragic. He told me that if I chose to continue to live such a life that I would not be allowed to approach the chalice and that people will begin to talk. I have been with my spouse for almost 13 years and this all came as such a blow to me. I did not want to run around the parish and shout, “I AM GAY!” No, I just wanted to go about my little own way, keep to myself and be a good Orthodox Christian. Instead, this priest told me that I had little time to decide. My other half and I have cars together, built a house together, etc. Was I to walk away from everything I constructed with the love of my life? Or was I to chuck it all away just to be able to enter this priest’s Orthodox Church. What a disheartening and saddening day this was for me. I found a smaller Orthodox church that is a longer distance but worth it. It is disgraceful how that priest treated me. He made me feel so belittled, so invaluable, so ashamed. There was no love, no open arms, nothing encouraging at all. This is my story.
Jose,
I am so sorry to hear about this incident. Unfortunately, I have received other emails with tragically similar messages. The priest who reacted this way was uncharitable to say the least and lacked all sense of compassion and kindness. You can not change your homosexual nature any more than he can change his presumably heterosexual nature. Your nature is as God given as his is. If married, it is easily assumed that he loves his wife just as much as you love your spouse. I am glad that you did find a different parish that might be a good home for you. I have found that many priests have a very visceral reaction to LGBTQ people. This is because they have been taught in Seminary, or by their parents or even quasi-ecclesiastical political groups that gay people are evil or sick and are able to change their sexual orientation. Of course LGBT people know otherwise. Yet, there are priests who have gay people in their families or have had conversations with gay people or have read a book on biology that was printed within the last thirty years and are very aware that gay people can not change who they are. Some have even celebrated same-sex weddings, and celebrated other mysteries for and in the presence of LGBT people and their families. The problem is that they are indeed the minority and they are instructed by the hierarchy to remain silent on this issue.
You and your spouse are in my prayers and hopefully by your faithful presence priests and faithful members of the Orthodox Church will begin to have a change of mind and heart. I bid you peace,
Andriy
Leave A Reply
You may reply anonymously or leave your name and or email address.