As Public Orthodoxy releases summaries of the papers presented at the recent Bridging Voices conference at Oxford, Orthodoxy in Dialogue wishes to offer a space where hierarchs, clergy, monastics, academics, non-academics, laypersons, and youth can publish their thoughts on the questions and issues raised.

You may wish to address one or more of the articles, the conference itself, the selection of invitees, or any other aspect of the proceedings and presentations.

If you take a position contrary to what Orthodoxy in Dialogue normally represents, you must do so in a fraternal manner which does no emotional or spiritual harm to LGBTQI persons.  Imagine yourself on the receiving end of your words. Read More

Eric J. Iliff

October 11, 1981 ~ March 13, 2007

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Orthodoxy in Dialogue and “A Bed Undefiled” are dedicated to Eric’s memory. We will not let our beloved brother and friend be forgotten.

His untimely death by his own hand remains an unhealed wound in the conscience of the Orthodox Church in America and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. Read More

In Orthodoxy and Ecumenism: Towards an Active Metanoia (Peter Lang, 2019), my exploration focuses on the rapport between Orthodox tradition and identity and the ecumenical practice of engagement with other Christian traditions. This relationship has for a long time been compromised by an underlying tension, as the Orthodox have chosen to participate in ecumenical encounters while—often at the same time—denouncing the ecumenical movement as deficient and illegitimate. This relationship has proven to be all the more inconsistent since the core of Orthodoxy as professed by the Orthodox is precisely that of re-establishing the unity and catholicity of the Church of Christ.

Indeed, the Orthodox Church sees its role in the Christian world as special and prophetic, since it alone has remained the faithful carrier and witness of the plenary truth of faith, and so has the task of calling back all stranded Christian groups to the one original Church. Orthodoxy has not safeguarded the truth of Christ’s Church from the other Christians who are seen as having departed from it and chosen less perfect ways, but, in a sense, for them. Read More

On July 1 of this year the above video was posted to the Facebook page of the Orthodox Church in America’s 19th All-American Council, which was held last year. In it the winsome Dima Rentel exuberantly announces the launch of his continent-wide listening tour on behalf of the OCA to talk “to priests, youth, young adults, parents, camp administrators, and everyone else in between, to hear what you guys want out of youth ministry.”

What the Orthodox Church’s LGBTQI kids and young adults—together with their moms and dads, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas—want from youth ministry can be summed up in three short words: Stop. Hurting. Us. Read More