Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and John Catsimatidis, Vice Chairman of Archdiocesan Council

Orthodoxy in Dialogue occasionally publishes articles and letters critical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Patriarch Bartholomew, and Archbishop Elpidophoros. Are we next among the “low-life people…writing negative conversations on Web Sites about…the Archbishop, and the Archdiocese” after whom Mr. Catsimatidis will decide to “go after?” 

Read More

Bishop Thomas Paprocki

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield IL has issued a directive entitled PASTORAL GUIDE: Regarding Policy §650 Gender Identity, which became binding throughout the diocese and its institutions on January 13, 2020:

It is the policy of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois that all Catholic agencies, including parishes, schools, institutions, departments, or other entities, shall respect the biological sex with which a person is born and shall apply all policies and procedures in relation to that person according to that person’s biological sex at birth. 

We share below some of the more salient excerpts from the Pastoral Guide. Only seven pages long, it can be read in its entirety here. 

If you wish to communicate your concerns to Bishop Paprocki on this matter—whether you are Catholic, any other kind of Christian, not Christian, LGBTQ, or an ally—the contact information for phoning, faxing, emailing, and an online contact form can be found on the diocesan website. Read More

Dr. David Ford

Thank you very much for The Ten LGBTQ Commandments (TransExodus 666 [The Queen James Bible]), Jennifer Davis. So sad and tragic this is what we’ve come to in our land. May your brilliant satire jolt many into seeing the demonic—and Marxist and Freudian—undergirding of the LGBT movement.

To add to my previous comment, some might think that this satire is too extreme—that it doesn’t accurately depict the beliefs of many people who identify with the LGBT movement. That may be true, but I think it is a pretty fair representation of the beliefs of most of the LGBT political activists of our day. And often, the more deeply committed people are to any erroneous ideology, the stronger the message has to be to shake them out of their confusion and delusion. May this satire be an example of such tough love—loving people enough to risk their displeasure in trying to touch their conscience for what is right and good and true in the sight of our Creator and Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Read More

In September we suspended our Patreon account when two or three factors combined to make Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s future uncertain. 

Thanks be to God, and to the encouragement and moral support of many of you, we surmounted that roadblock stronger than ever—and more determined than ever to provide a voice for the voiceless within and beyond the Orthodox Church. Read More

In Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s Facebook group we are discussing whether to begin allowing comments on the blog.

So far the polling has overwhelmingly opposed the idea. Those proffering reasons for their opposition basically agree with our original decision in August 2017 to disallow comments: experience shows that comments descend so quickly to the level of rank incivility—especially when commenters hide behind fake names—that it cheapens the publication and focuses readers’ attention more on the comments than on the actual substance of the articles. 

Be that as it may, as an interesting experiment we have opened comments on the following four posts: Read More