{"id":14566,"date":"2022-07-10T11:04:11","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T18:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=14566"},"modified":"2023-04-24T10:01:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T17:01:21","slug":"elpidophoros-baptizes-surrogate-children-of-married-homosexuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2022\/07\/elpidophoros-baptizes-surrogate-children-of-married-homosexuals\/","title":{"rendered":"Elpidophoros Baptizes Surrogate Children of “Married” Homosexuals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elpidophorosby Nick Stamatakis –
\nAB Elpidophoros took an unannounced trip to Greece and proceeded to legitimize gay marriage by baptizing the children of a famous gay couple (born by surrogate mother)!!<\/p>\n

I am truly incredulous writing these lines as this initiative by the Archbishop is something that should never have happened in Orthodoxy, where all such serious decisions are made democratically \u2013 synodically.<\/p>\n

Yet, for one more time, AB Elpidophoros chooses to shove down our throats whatever novelty pleases his globalist masters.<\/p>\n

From the Greek Reporter<\/a> (Orthodox Editors’ Note)<\/u>: <\/p>\n

“Evanggelos Bousis and Peter Dundas, both of Greek descent, became the first gay couple to hold a Greek Orthodox Baptism for their children in Greece on Saturday. The couple\u2019s children, Alexios and Eleni, were baptized by his Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America at the Panagia Faneromeni Church in the southern Athenian suburb of Vouliagmeni.” <\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday was truly a special moment not only for my family and me but for our entire Greek Orthodox Church\u2026Thank you to our great spiritual leader, his Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, for christening the babies and not turning away any child or member of our faith,\u201d George Bousis, brother of Evanggelos Bousis, wrote on Facebook on Sunday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But let\u2019s take things one at a time\u2026 You can read the full story in the posts added below but in a few words here it is: On Saturday (yesterday) night AB Elpidophoros baptized the children of famous fashion designer Peter Dundas (of Norwegian descent) and Evangelo Bousis, an actor, son of billionaire Jim Bousis and Eleni Bousis of Chicago. The gay couple is married and live in Los Angeles and some years ago started this intense effort to \u201ccreate a family\u201d by a form of adoption that is used by straight or gay couples in recent years, using a surrogate mother. And in that method, they had two children, Alexios (born last year) and Eleni (newborn).<\/p>\n

California laws facilitated the whole process as they have declared in their posts and interviews (at the end of this post). But what does it mean to be lukewarm? In this scripture, the lukewarm Christians of the church of Laodicea are being referenced, but it speaks directly to a tragedy that can affect all Christians, particularly in our time.
\n…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Since he was enthroned (and even before he was), Elpidophoros made a conscious choice to depart from most traditions even some very sacred traditions of our Church.\u00a0 But let\u2019s examine the theological issues one by one.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox Church recognizes gay marriage \u2013 and there are statements by the Pope and by the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops in America.<\/li>\n
  2. For the kids to be baptized in an Orthodox Church the parents must be both Orthodox and if married, they must be married in the Church (please link here for a typical sample of prerequisites for baptism from one of our Churches<\/a>).<\/li>\n
  3. On this serious issue, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy usually recognize that \u201cguilt or sin is not inherited\u201d and so they usually proceed to baptize all children regardless of the status of their parents.<\/li>\n
  4. A serious prerequisite seems (for the particular case of surrogate mother) to be that the presence of the natural (surrogate) mother is required for a valid baptism; in most other respects it is considered equivalent to adoption. And so in our photos, you will notice that next to the gay couple, the kids, Elpidophoros, the godparents the surrogate mother was there in Athens.<\/li>\n
  5. As you will read (here is the link<\/a>) about such experiences in the Catholic Church, pastors have been struggling with the decision.\u00a0 A basic requirement from the point of view of the Church is that the parents would raise the child according to the teachings of the Church.\u00a0 This is a very thorny issue for Orthodoxy and Catholicism: If gay marriage is not allowed, would the parents teach that to the baptized child? Furthermore, in our case, you will see that the two gay parents, Peter Dundas and Ev Bousis, are openly against the teachings of the Church and are considering their choices a matter of progress. Says Peter Dundas in the interview with Vogue (below): \u201cWhat I don\u2019t get about the Supreme Court ruling [that a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia could refuse to work with same-sex couples who apply to take in foster children], what is the purpose? Do they really think in 10 years from now that\u2019s gonna fly? I don\u2019t think so for a minute. It becomes this holding off on the inevitable, and progress in our society.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
  6. The requirement about raising the child (children) according to the baptismal faith became important because if the baptized child is not to be raised according to the faith then what is the meaning of baptism?\u00a0 Additionally, in the link w provided, many Catholic pastors were worried that if such a requirement was not there then the baptism would become a vehicle for the (indirect) recognition of gay marriage.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. The case of an illegitimate child is very clarifying here: The Church does not support abortion and the mother in such a case is considered able to raise the child according to faith.\u00a0 But in the case of the gay couple, this is simply not possible\u2026<\/li>\n
  8. In our case were the godparents, supermodel Bianca Brandolini and Eugenia Niarchos, Orthodox? Very doubtful in the first case\u2026 How can an orthodox baptism take place without Orthodox godparents?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    …
    \n\"Elpidophoros<\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014
    \nExcerpts from:     Helleniscope<\/a>. (Minor organizational edits and bolding of key phrases done by blog editors done to enhance readability.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Nick Stamatakis – AB Elpidophoros took an unannounced trip to Greece and proceeded to legitimize gay marriage by baptizing the children of a famous gay couple (born by surrogate mother)!! I am truly incredulous writing these lines as this initiative by the Archbishop is something that should never have happened in Orthodoxy, where all … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177,175,176,181,183,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-false-teachers","category-heresy","category-lgbt-activism","category-lgbt-tyranny","category-lgbtq-war-on-children","category-wokeodox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}