Father Aaron Warwick

One of the most pressing issues facing the Orthodox Church today is dealing pastorally with LGBTQ individuals. This issue has risen to the forefront as people who identify on this spectrum have been able, for the first time in history, to organize to form a community and to advocate for their human and civil rights. For most of history, publicly and openly identifying as LGBTQ simply was not possible, or at least not advisable. It’s not as though people did not have these attractions or identifications; it was simply something “kept in the closet.” So, for the first time in history, the Church is openly confronted not just with individuals identifying as LGBTQ, but also with a “movement.”

In many ways, like other movements that began in the modern Western world, the LGBTQ movement has accomplished many good things. Specifically, for example, employers are no longer legally allowed to discriminate against employees based on sexual orientation. That is to say, someone identifying on the LGBTQ spectrum has a legal right to make a basic and decent living without fear of retribution for their sexual orientation. This is undoubtedly a positive development for society. On the other hand, as with many other movements, the Church cannot accept all attitudes and demands of the broader LGBTQ movement. Some of these presuppositions are based in secular, selfish, and/or non-Christian attitudes. Read More

The following report appeared on December 17, 2019 at Orthodox Christianity. We share it with Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers for purposes of information and discussion, with the following caveats: Orthodox Christianity’s content is reliably pro-Moscow Patriarchate, anti-Ecumenical Patriarchate, anti-Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and anti-Orthodoxy in Dialogue/Public Orthodoxy/The Wheel; we cannot confirm this report’s accuracy or lack thereof, in whole or in part; and finally—like it or not—state involvement in ecclesiastical affairs is as old as the Edict of Milan and the First Ecumenical Council. Proceed to read the following circumspectly. Ask questions before forming an opinion. 

The Orthodox Times team with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. Photo: orthodoxtimes.com

The Orthodox Times outlet began as the English edition of the widely-read Greek Orthodox outlet Romfea in late December last year, with its official launch in January of this year, with the backing of the U.S. government.

In February, the outlet reported that U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt met with its editorial team, after which the Ambassador tweeted: “Enjoyed meeting the @RomfeaNews team. We are excited @StateDept provided support for the launch of this meaningful effort to strengthen the free press, fight disinformation, & highlight the values we share with Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Patriarch.” Read More

Metropolitan John’s new white hat.

As Orthodoxy in Dialogue reported previously, subsequent to the self-inflicted disaster of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s incomprehensible decision of November 2018 to dissolve its Exarchate of Russian Parishes in Western Europe, and to absorb these parishes into the Phanar’s existing Greek metropolises, Archbishop John (Renneteau) and the parishes willing to follow him were received into the increasingly schismatic Moscow Patriarchate.

(For background see Alexandra de Moffarts’ Quo Vadis, rue Daru?, the articles listed under Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe (AROCWE) in our Archives, Antoine Arjakovsky’s A Way Out of the Orthodox Church’s Present Crisis, and Victor Alexandrov’s The Choice Facing the Archdiocese of Russian Churches in Western Europe.)

Renneteau was rewarded with the white klobuk (hat and veil) of a Russian metropolitan—an episcopal rank higher than archbishop in the tradition of the Moscow Patriarchate—and styled Metropolitan of Dubna. Dubna is an artificial “science-town” (наукоград, naukograd) of 72,000 inhabitants, founded in 1956 on the banks of the Volga 78 miles (125 kilometres) north of Moscow. It is unclear to us whether Dubna ever was, or has been recently designated, a diocesan see, and whether Metropolitan John has a cathedral and residence there, and any sort of actual administrative and pastoral duties in Dubna and its environs. (One suspects not.) Read More

The launch of the Horizon 2020-funded project RESILIENCE in September 2019 marked an important step towards an established European Research Infrastructure on Religious Studies. Twelve academic institutions from ten countries have joined forces to undertake this two-year project with the ultimate aim of building a European response to the challenges of religious diversity.

Religious diversity presents a growing challenge for European society, resulting in an increased need for mutual understanding. An infrastructure on religious studies will support this understanding through scholarly research, in the conviction that knowledge is the best tool for a shared response to the spike in issues related to religious diversity. Read More