Homosexuality from a Contemporary Orthodox Perspective

The Wheel, 2018

A summary of the key biblical concepts regarding marriage and human sexuality and how they speak to contemporary issues and objections of same-sex proponents. The article supports the views of the canonical bishops of the Orthodox Church in North America.

Družboslovne razprave, 2013

The article deals with the representation of the gay population in the discourse of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The declarations of Church bodies and officials, as well as unofficial public statements of prominent believers regarding gay persons are analysed. There is an ambivalent attitude towards gay people that is usually expressed in the ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ formula. There is also a different kind of ambivalence: the Serbian Orthodox Church as well as its faithful either stick to the ‘policy of silence’ regarding LGBT(Q) issues, or they resort to a very strong moralistic judgment and condemnation. This was particularly noticeable around the time of the gay parade taking place in Belgrade in 2010, as well as during the public discussion before the passing of the anti-discrimination law in the national assembly in 2009. The inclusion of philosophical and medical concepts in theological discourse can also be ascertained. As a result, besides the expected ‘sin’, the categories of ‘unnatural/contrary to nature’ and ‘(mental) illness’ are often mentioned in the Church discourse, which is usually saturated with accentuated anti-Westernism.

Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality, 2022

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.

Tradition, 2007

A review of Judaism and Homosexuality (a book by Chaim Rapoport). Includes the suggestion that the debate in the Orthodox Jewish community how to relate to Orthodox homosexuals depends on the debate between therapeutic approaches: affirmative vs. reparative.

Public Orthodoxy, 2019

This essay is part of a series stemming from the ongoing research project “Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Identity and the Challenges of Pluralism and Sexual Diversity in a Secular Age.”

The term "sexuality" was coined in the nineteenth century. The term denoted a completely new concept of psycho-biological sexual identities based on people's sexual desires which radically changed our sexual culture. The discovery of sexuality in the nineteenth century meant a sexual turn in philosophical and theological anthropology comparable to the Copernican turn in philosophical and theological cosmology.

What is sex and what is its meaning for humankind as an aggregate of all individuals of the human race, and for each individual human being and interpersonal relations? What determines sexual demographic structure of the whole population, and sex of a concrete individual human being? What are gender identity, sexual orientation, sexuality, how much they are biologically pre-determined, socially constructed or are just simply a matter of individual choice? Does sexuality lays in a dimension of an ontological necessity or in dimension of a personal free choice, or both? How Orthodox theology addresses these issues, and how does it react on new social and scientific developments, and realities which go beyond sexual and gender binary, cic-gender identity and heterosexual orientation?

2016

Modern Eastern Orthodoxy has neglected to develop a clear and consistent theological anthropology to answer the many contemporary questions of gender and sexuality. Personhood remains remarkably undeveloped; a spirit lacking body. Three modern thinkers, Sergius Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, and John Zizioulas, have developed theologies that have many implications for the beginnings of an engagement with modern concerns around gender identity and human sexuality. For Bulgakov, personhood is in the image and likeness of a complex sophianic God, who is unity in diversity. For Lossky and Zizioulas the Christian life is envisioned as one which moves from individuality into personhood, from the limits of nature into loving freedom of persons in communion. Theological anthropology should take seriously the challenge posed by modern theories and philosophies of sex and gender. It should use these thinkers to articulate more clearly a consistent and thoughtful theology which fully understands i...