Stonewall Inn. Greenwich Village. Summer 1969.

June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Widely regarded as the beginning of the gay rights movement, more accurately the police raid at the Stonewall Inn and the ensuing protests represent a critical watershed in the homosexual liberation movement which originated a hundred years before, in 1860s Germany, and which even went on to influence Russian Orthodox theology in the early 20th century. Each year around the world, Gay Pride is usually scheduled to coincide as closely as possible with this anniversary. 

Orthodoxy in Dialogue proposes to host a virtual listening tour between now and the end of June. If you, or your child, or your loved one identifies anywhere along the LGBTQ spectrum, now is your chance to have your say and to let the bishops and parish priests of the Orthodox Church hear whatever you would like to tell them. Read More

Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv and President Volodymyr Zelensky. St. Michael’s Gold-Domed Monastery. April 2019.

In my recent contribution to the Kyiv Post’s “Ukrainian Voices from Abroad: Advice for Zelenskiy” series, I urged the new President to support the stability of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) while also ensuring the legal status of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine headed by Metropolitan Onuphrius—provided that any and all evidence of the latter’s complicity with the Kremlin to undermine Ukraine’s national security and interests be swiftly investigated.

As Halya Coynash reported in February 2018 and scholar Dmitry Adamsky sets forth in his chillingly titled Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy—to cite but two testimonies among many—there can be no doubt that the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate work hand in glove to advance Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical agenda in Ukraine and around the globe. Jonathan Luxmoore has reported that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow went so far as to ridicule the idea of independent Ukrainian nationhood as a Uniate (Greek-Catholic) invention in his remarks to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople when they met at the Phanar last August. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue offers four ways for our readers to participate more actively in our dialogue:

1). Join our Facebook group.

2). Follow us on Twitter.

3). Write a letter to the editors.

4). Write an article. Read More

Following the rubles seems to be a reliable predictor of where a given Patriarchate will stand on the question of Ukrainian autocephaly.

A May 19, 2019 report by Russia’s Union of Orthodox “Journalists”—arguably the Moscow Patriarchate’s most loyal peddler of propaganda after the Department for External Church Relations itself—cites the following statement by Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem, delivered by his proxy to the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society and published on the Patriarchate’s website.

The Patriarch’s statement is remarkable for two reasons: first, while Jerusalem is lauded as “the Mother of the Churches” in our liturgical hymnography, we question where in Orthodox tradition the Patriarchate derives its self-designation as the guarantor of the unity of the Orthodox Church; and second, Theophilus makes no attempt to hide his reliance on Russian money as he heaps praise on Vladimir Putin and—as the UOJ is keen to point out—rejects the autocephaly of, and eucharistic communion with, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem

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