Fifty years ago this year, the [Roman Catholic] church restored the permanent diaconate, opening the doors to married clergy who brought and continue to bring with them all the joys, sorrows, and complexities of family life to ordained ministry. In the case of my family, that included first-hand experience with LGBT people. In the fall of 2013, at the beginning of our oldest child’s sophomore year at Georgetown University, she came out as transgender. With that news, my family found itself plunged into questions and issues that surround families of faith with LGBT children. 

If there is one truth that has become evident, it is that the reality transgender people live is miles from public perception. Ongoing legal battles for the transgender community (including over the use of public restrooms) demonstrate how pervasive the misunderstandings and prejudices about gender identity continue to be. 

In the case of the church specifically, a series of formal and informal statements has called into question the very existence of transgender individuals and has warned about “an ideology of gender,” described as an ideology that seeks to eliminate sexual differences in society, thereby undermining the basis for the family. I respect the theology and the good intentions that underlie these statements, but I think they are based on lack of knowledge and experience and false information about transgender individuals.   Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue wishes to thank our team of amazing writers around the world. You never fail to offer us meaty fare for reflection and debate on an illimitable range of topics. Without you we could not accomplish the work that we have set out to do.

We especially wish to congratulate the authors of our fifteen most popular articles of 2018. Given the importance that we attach to our ecumenical focus, it pleases us to see Orthodox, Coptic, Eastern Catholic, and Roman Catholic names in the following list.

15th Place

The Case for Constantinople

John Chryssavgis

✠

14th Place

Juliana Schmemann, My Mother

Serge Schmemann

✠

13th Place

St. Tikhon’s Seminary Appoints Internationally Known Homophobe as Dean

✠

12th Place

Father Josiah Trenham and the Southern Poverty Law Center

✠

11th Place

Review: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Adam A.J. DeVille

Read More

The Moscow Patriarchate—whether in the person of the Patriarch himself or his faithful mouthpiece, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk—has repeatedly “predicted” bloodshed in Ukraine.

For them, the Ecumenical Patriarch’s restoration of “schismatics” to communion, or the Unification Council, or the imminent Tomos of Autocephaly, or the allegedly imminent seizure of churches and monasteries by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, or the legislation of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) to require the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine to rename itself accurately, or…etc. etc, etc., can only lead to one outcome: death on a mass scale.

We say “predicted” in quotation marks because their “predictions” read more like a continuous, dog-whistled incitement to bloodshed—a Patriarchal blessing, if you will, to commit fratricide.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has called for peace and non-violence in Ukraine. Metropolitan Epifaniy has pledged that there will be no forcible seizures of church property, and called for love and respect among Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians regardless of jurisdictional loyalties.

The drumbeat for violence and bloodshed in Ukraine comes from one source only: Moscow.

Patriarch Kirill Says Renaming of Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate

May Result in Bloody Conflicts

Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill stated that the law on the renaming of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate may lead to the bloody conflicts as TASS reported.

“Obviously, there is some ultimatum: if the church does not change its name, then it will be removed from the register; if the church changes its name then the severe pressure will be put on it, first of all, on the Ukrainian people, on community. Certainly, the enforcement actions for the confiscation of the churches will begin and all events around may result in the bloody conflict,” Kirill said. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue is honoured to share this astonishing testimony to the Orthodox faith in the 21st century. We especially celebrate the Ecumenical Patriarch’s embrace of dialogue and rejection of moralism.

+ B A R T H O L O M E W
By God’s Mercy Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and 
Ecumenical Patriarch
To the Plenitude of the Church
Grace, Mercy and Peace from the Savior Christ Born in Bethlehem
* * *

Venerable brothers and beloved children in the Lord,

We glorify the Most-Holy and All-Merciful God, that we are again deemed worthy this year to reach the festive day of Christmas, the feast of the pre-eternal Son and Word of God’s Incarnation “for us and for our salvation.” Through the “eternal mystery” and “great miracle” of the divine Incarnation, the “great wound,” namely humankind sitting in darkness and shadow, is rendered into “children of light and day,” while the blessed road of deification by grace is opened for us. In the theandric mystery of the Church and through her holy sacraments, Christ is born and takes shape in our soul and existence. Maximus the Confessor theologizes that “the Word of God, though born once in the flesh, is ever willing to be born spiritually in those who desire Him. Thus, He becomes an infant and fashions Himself in us by means of the virtues; indeed, He reveals Himself to the extent that we are capable of receiving Him.” God is not an abstract “idea,” like the god of the philosophers, or an unapproachable God enclosed in absolute transcendence. He is “Emmanuel,” “God with us,” closer to us than we are to ourselves, “more akin to us than our very own selves.”  Read More