This article can be read in conjunction with No Other Foundation but Farley?. 

Archpriest Lawrence Farley

The utter incoherence of Father Lawrence Farley’s rhetoric, driven by a combination of his homosexual fantasies and rabid homophobia, crosses an unconscionable line in his “Two Men in Bed Together”: A Failure of Exegesis of July 12, in which he responds to my From the Fathers: The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like…Two Men in Bed Together? of July 10. In it he draws a connection between same-sex love and child rape—not once, but twice:

I will not deal with Sanfilippo’s first point at length [i.e., my “Despite endless iterations by churchmen who possess no intellectual curiosity—indeed, no sense of pastoral responsibility—to become familiar with scientific advances and the helpful insights of queer theory in our understanding of sexual diversity in human nature…], other than to note that the same dubious argumentation is now being advanced in some places to justify pedophilia (now being sanitized under the term “minor attraction”).

Sanfilippo’s conclusion—which if taken at face value justifies not only homosexuality but also pedophilia (“also each man and boy”)—simply doesn’t follow.

In  case Father Farley tidies up his text after he reads this article (as he did with his response to my Conjugal Friendship of May 2017 after he had called traditional icons of the Mystical Supper disturbing visual trash), I have appended his full article below as copied and pasted around 11:30 p.m. ET on July 13.  Read More

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See our related On Sodomy. Providing for the needs of the foreigner and the stranger, the widow and the orphan, is not a matter of liberalism or conservatism, but the very heart of the Christian Gospel as preached by all of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church.

ICE has become an American nightmare, nothing less than the main thrust of an attempt to institutionalize racism against a scapegoated minority — undocumented, nonvoting, mostly voiceless brown people.

Darlena Cunha for the New York Times

ICE Raids are set to begin this weekend in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco.  We have set up a hotline for those in Texas affected by the raids. Read More

In A New Political Theology for 21st-Century Ukrainian Orthodoxy we noted, “What works in the West, with its tiny minority of Orthodox Christians, might not fit unmodified in Ukraine, with its solid majority of Orthodox Christians. Yet we can meet together, learn from each other, borrow from each other, support and encourage each other.” We offer Patriarch Daniel’s remarks, delivered on June 7 of this year to the International Conference on the Relations between the State and Religious Denominations in the European Union, in order to advance the conversation on what an Orthodox political theology might look like in our time and how it might be modified to fit local circumstances.  (Published originally at the news agency of the Romanian Orthodox Church.)

Importance of Church-State cooperation in the European context

Patriarch Daniel of Romania

According to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon of 2007, ‘The Union respects and does not prejudice the status under national law of churches and religious associations or communities in the Member States’ (article 7, paragraph 1 TFEU). Thus, ‘recognising their identity and their specific contribution, the Union shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with these churches and organisations’ (article 17, paragraph 3 TFEU).

Therefore, in the European Union there is no ‘European model’ for the relationship between religious communities and the political authority, but the legislative systems in force in the EU Member States oscillate from a radical separation to an almost complete identification between a particular religious community and a State. At the same time, the European Union aims to engage in dialogue with religious denominations so that they may express their specific contribution to the European construction.

Today there are four Member States with a majority Orthodox population in the European Union (Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria), where Autocephalous Churches are organized and operate, while in other Member States there are important Orthodox communities organized ethnically as autocephalous (Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) or autonomous (Finland and Estonia). Also, in some Member States there are consistent Orthodox communities organized ethnically as diaspora (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Austria). Romania, with a population of 16,307,000 Orthodox believers, is the largest country of the European Union with a majority Orthodox population. Read More

Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America

On July 4 one of Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers reached out to me for pastoral support. Let’s call him “John.” I share the following publicly with his permission in the hope that it may help others.

John is a cradle Orthodox, middle-aged, married, and the father of children. Prior to marriage, he had only been intimate with men. His priest convinced him to give up men and marry a woman. Five years into marriage, he began to see men intermittently behind his wife’s back. He continues to do this to the present time.

Over the course of several emails in one day, in which I asked questions to get a better sense of the situation but said nothing judgmental, it became clear to me—and was no surprise to me—that John sought emotional fulfilment more than sexual gratification in the arms of men. Read More