{"id":16059,"date":"2025-05-01T16:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T23:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=16059"},"modified":"2025-05-09T19:39:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T02:39:23","slug":"public-orthodoxy-supports-and-promotes-the-lgbtq-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2025\/05\/public-orthodoxy-supports-and-promotes-the-lgbtq-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Orthodoxy Supports and Promotes the LGBTQ+ Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Publicby Fr. Ioannes Apiarius –
\nGeorge Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou are getting paid to pressure the Orthodox Church to accept LGBTQ+ ideas. <\/p>\n

\"Line
\nThe progressive academics who run \u201cPublic Orthodoxy<\/a>\u201d website, supported by the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, frequently distort and challenge the true Orthodox Church teaching, theology, and practices. They also now promote the LGBTQ+ agenda and defend the legalization of same-sex \u201cmarriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

These academics are actively working to pressure the Orthodox Church to accept LGBTQ+ principles. They want to change the Orthodox teaching to accommodate LGBTQ+ self-identity and embrace LGBTQ+ individuals and couples; without any change in their homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and queer identities, lifestyles, and beliefs.<\/p>\n

Founded and managed by George Demacopoulos<\/a> and Aristotle Papanikolaou<\/a>, this organization has often promoted progressive ideas that are alien to the genuine theology of the Orthodox Christian faith. With their embrace of LGBTQ+ ideas and defense of same-sex unions, it\u2019s evident that these academics have become more brazen in their attempts to undermine the Orthodox Church right teaching. (Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou also get paid to promote the LGBTQ agenda<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sample of the things Public Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Christian Studies Center have done to promote and advance the LGBTQ+ agenda and pressure the Orthodox Church to accept homosexuality, transgenderism, and other sexual deviances as \u201cnormative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Line<\/p>\n

LGBTQ+ and Orthodox Tradition: What Does It Actually Say?<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/video\/lgbtq-and-orthodox-tradition\/<\/a>
\nFirst panel session from the event \u201cSeeking Harmony and Compassion: Pastoral Care and LGBTQ+ Orthodox Faithful,\u201d held at Fordham University\u2019s Lincoln Center Campus October 13, 2023.<\/p>\n

As Orthodox Christians, we are called, first and foremost, to love all\u2014for \u201cGod is love.\u201d 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. We must, as a faith, choose love and compassion\u2014to \u201clove thy neighbor\u201d\u2014 instead. This requires no change of faith, but a fuller, more compassionate understanding of what our faith in loving God truly requires of us.<\/p>\n

Ministry among LGBTQ+ Orthodox Faithful – Opportunities, Challenges, and Resources<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/video\/ministry-lgbtq-orthodox-faithful\/<\/a>
\nSecond panel session from the event \u201cSeeking Harmony and Compassion: Pastoral Care and LGBTQ+ Orthodox Faithful,\u201d held at Fordham University\u2019s Lincoln Center campus on October 13, 2023.<\/p>\n

As Orthodox Christians, we are called, first and foremost, to love all\u2014for \u201cGod is love.\u201d 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. We must, as a faith, choose love and compassion\u2014to \u201clove thy neighbor\u201d\u2014 instead. This requires no change of faith, but a fuller, more compassionate understanding of what our faith in loving God truly requires of us.<\/p>\n

Listening to LGBT+ Christians<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/2019\/06\/25\/listening-to-lgbt-christians-a-review-of-the-revoice-conference\/<\/a>
\n…
\nThe modern language of LGBTQ+ identity, while often unhelpfully obfuscating the boundaries between ontology, phenomenology, and epistemology, has been tremendously helpful in uniting and giving voice to people whose experience of sexual attraction and gender is at odds with what the majority of society (often uncritically) prescribes as normative.
\n…
\nOrthodox Christians who find themselves skeptical of LGBTQ+ language and hesitant to engage our communities would benefit from witnessing the consequences that enforced scrupulosity has had on LGBTQ+ people in the Church, and the joy with which we nevertheless worship the Christ who loves us.
\n…
\nUntil then, Revoice has proven to be a valuable space for LGBTQ+ Christians to find healing, solidarity, joy, and hope as we seek to follow Christ more truly, and freely, without fear of antagonism or misunderstanding from churches that have historically been prone to treat us with both.<\/p>\n

Seeking Harmony and Compassion – Helping Parishes with LGBTQ+ Ministry<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/video\/lgbtq-parish-ministry\/<\/a>
\nOrthodox Christians are called, first and foremost, to love all\u2014for \u201cGod is love.\u201d 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\u2014to \u201clove thy neighbor\u201d\u2014 instead. This requires no change of faith, but a fuller, more compassionate understanding of what our faith in loving God truly requires of us.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Things That Are God\u2019s and the Things That Are Caesar\u2019s<\/strong>
\nOn the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage in Greece
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/2024\/02\/22\/what-is-gods-what-is-caesars\/<\/a>
\nOne of the temptations invariably plaguing priests and preachers as they proffer declarations and proclamations is the tendency to offer solutions to\u00a0 non-existent dilemmas, providing answers to questions nobody is asking or addressing the wrong audience. Which is why it is hardly surprising that various Orthodox hierarchs and circles feel the need to express disproportionate fervor and excessive alarm on the current debate around the same-sex marriage bill that just passed in the Greek parliament.<\/p>\n

With the legalization of same-sex marriage, Greece becomes the first Orthodox-majority country with equality in civil marriage. In Russia, merely promoting or parading with LGBTQ is still punishable with imprisonment by the State with the endorsement, if not blessing of the Church. And in Georgia, simply praising or protesting in support of gay pride incites social animosity with the tolerance, if not formal backing of the Church.<\/p>\n

The extreme and excessive noise of conversations and statements at this time, as well as the toxicity and hypocrisy of condemnations and anathemas, would undoubtedly find more fertile ground if addressed to parish programs and parishioners preparing for the sacraments of marriage or baptism. What is clearly missing from the otherwise pedantic clamor and superfluous commotion in Greece is a sober reflection based on the ethical prescriptions of the Gospel.<\/p>\n

Morality is one thing (perhaps open to the moralism of the Church), but legality is another (with far less room for criticism, even by the Church). There are things that are God\u2019s, and others that are Caesar\u2019s (Mt. 22.21).
\n…
\nIt is regrettable that the Church appears \u201cprimitive\u201d on matters pertaining to science and law (including such issues as civil marriages and digital identities)\u2014namely, with regard to everything that has emerged in recent decades, even centuries\u2014yet \u201cpioneering\u201d in the dissemination of conspiracy theories. And although we are in the 21st<\/sup> century, some hierarchs still insist on identifying homosexuality with pathological symptoms that require psychotherapy or conversion!<\/p>\n

Same-Sex Marriage in Greece: A Critical Analysis<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/2024\/02\/14\/same-sex-marriage-in-greece\/<\/a>
\n…
\nThe Synod claims its objection to the proposed legislation is based upon scriptural, canonical, and patristic tradition. But its reading of those documents is so narrow that it undercuts the Orthodox teaching of personhood.<\/p>\n

The Synod writes that the legislation is \u201cin conflict with Christian anthropology\u201d and warns that same-sex marriage disturbs proper gender roles as well as \u201cfatherhood and motherhood.\u201d This belief that female-male parents translates into a particular pair of personalities presumes gender essentialism. It is precisely this use of gender essentialism that is incompatible with Orthodoxy\u2019s theology of personhood.
\n…
\nThe Synod wrongly claims that the Holy Sacrament of marriage has a singular unchanging history. The Church did not even develop a sacrament of marriage until the tenth century and, even then, it did not perform marriages for the poor (the vast majority of Christians), and women were told to endure domestic violence as an act of martyrdom.<\/p>\n

If we all constitute the Church, and if Orthodox marriage and parenthood are ultimately about learning to love as God\u2019s love, why would we exclude people from encountering God\u2019s love in that way?<\/p>\n

The Synod asks, \u201cWhy is [same-sex marriage and parenthood] being promoted with such insistence?\u201d One answer is that our faith demands it.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve Learned in Eating Disorder Recovery<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/publicorthodoxy.org\/good-reads\/eating-disorder-recovery\/<\/a>
\n[xii] This essay, framed by my own experience as a white cisgender straight woman, addresses only one of many perspectives of what it is like to have an eating disorder. People of all ages, races, ethnicities, gender identities, and sexual orientations have eating disorders. In addition, the institutional church\u2019s gender essentialist teachings harm LGBTQ people, and that harm deserves to be addressed deeply beyond the narrow scope of this essay.
\n…
\nThe denial that God could ever call a woman to serve in the altar as an ordained or lay member led me to believe that my female body was, in part, unhallowed and a threat to the cooperative effort, or \u201csynergy,\u201d between the human person and God towards salvation.[xv] The institution marks a female body as \u201cOther\u201d from birth to justify excluding her. At just 40 days old, boy but not girl infants may be taken into the altar by priests.
\n…
\nPatriarchy is embedded and normalized within Orthodox Sacraments and Liturgy. During weddings, women are told, incorrectly, that they were created second from man\u2019s \u201crib,\u201d and then, without nuance or context, to \u201cbe subject in everything to their husband.\u201d[xvi] Every few weeks, we pray about St. Mary Magdalene, whose \u201cthinking was mundane as a weak woman.\u201d[xvii] Perhaps it is more comfortable to dismiss such traditions as harmless isolated incidents. But sexism and misogyny are collective phenomena, in which a collection of ordinary actions or inherited traditions engaged in by individuals who may not intend harm, hurt women (and men\u2019s ideas about women) as a whole.[xviii]<\/p>\n

Scholar Calls for Wider Acceptance of LGBTQ Community in Eastern Orthodox Church<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/now.fordham.edu\/living-the-mission\/scholar-calls-for-wider-acceptance-of-lgbtq-community-in-eastern-orthodox-church\/<\/a>
\n…
\nEspecially regarding the LGBTQ community, the Orthodox Church has consistently become \u201chung up on the division between Orthodox and un-Orthodox, the division between holy and unholy, taboo and sacred,\u201d said Ashley Purpura, Ph.D., GSAS \u201914, associate professor at Purdue University and visiting associate professor at Harvard Divinity School. \u201cBut there is a way that love is transcending [this divide].\u201d<\/p>\n

She spoke at \u201cSeeking Harmony and Compassion: Helping Parishes with LGBTQ+ Ministry,\u201d a discussion organized by Fordham\u2019s Orthodox Christian Studies Center<\/strong> at the Lincoln Center campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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