ADDENDUM 4/5/26: As of June 2025, I have returned to full communion in parishes of two canonical jurisdictions where my work on sexuality, gender, and Orthodox tradition is known to the priests.

The following is an unedited post from my Facebook timeline and the Orthodoxy in Dialogue Facebook group. Defenders of True Orthodoxy™ will consider this a triumph.

I will continue to advocate for LGBTQ Orthodox Christians in my academic work (my PhD thesis on Father Pavel Florensky’s theology of same-sex love is delayed, but still in process), on the pages of Orthodoxy in Dialogue, in person, in video productions, and in books waiting on the back burner for the completion of my thesis. The most important of these will be entitled Our Life in Christ: Orthodox Spirituality for Gay Men.

Giacomo Sanfilippo

Giacomo Sanfilippo

by Deborah Ahee (Toronto, Ontario)

In 1995, I was suspended from the priesthood when my wife, for unknown reasons, separated from me three months before the birth of our last child, even though there’s no canonical requirement to suspend a priest guilty of no wrongdoing when his wife leaves him.

In April 2002, also for reasons never disclosed to me, at the recommendation of my bishop now convicted of and deposed for child sex abuse, I was deposed (defrocked) by the Holy Synod of the OCA. This was, and remains to this day, the second most catastrophic spiritual event of my life. (I’ll get to the most catastrophic one below.) Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers will recall that Father John Whiteford of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and we have disputed on numerous occasions on both our pages and those of his blog. Enter his name in our internal search engine in the lower right column of this page to peruse our posts in response to him. Whiteford is known throughout internet Orthodoxy for his predictably extremist, inflexible views on virtually every topic of concern to the contemporary Church.

We have also reported on Father Peter Heers on a number of occasions, such as in our Father Peter Heers: Priest of Nowhere? of November 19, 2022. We were compelled to write this piece by ROCOR’s letter of the previous day to the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America (ACOBUSA), in which ROCOR disavows any formal, canonical relationship with Heers. This letter can be seen at the end of the report linked in this paragraph. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue occasionally publishes anonymous guest articles when the author presents a compelling reason to do so. Today’s author writes: “The choice to contribute this reflection anonymously is simply to share my personal experience, not to engage in dialogue about specific jurisdictions, places, or people. I hope that my narrative might inspire clergy and faithful alike to allow the Holy Spirit to guide an honest, open, and Christ-centered conversation in the Church on this issue.”

The lenten period for the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos was always somewhat unwelcome to me. As a child, it meant the winding down of summer and the return to school which I so hated. As an adult and a teacher, those emotions did not change all that much. This was a time to treasure those precious remaining days of summer. Somehow, eating just the salad at a barbecue or going to church every night for Paraclesis felt like a letdown, or maybe something to blame for all the unfulfilled expectations I had hoped for during summer break. It wasn’t until much later in life that I was able to appreciate the blessings that this holy time offered.

Metropolitan Alexander of Nigeria

May 15, 1960 ~ June 30, 2023

Memory Eternal ~ Αἰωνία ἡ Μνήμη

The Church of Alexandria has truly lost one of her stalwarts—a man of stature, not only because he was a tall man, but because of his vision, his intellect, and his theological thought that pushed boundaries and challenged what some accept unquestioningly as “sacred cows.” He was also an outspoken critic of the Russian Church’s uncanonical encroachment into the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa. Metropolitan Alexander of Nigeria was a true Bishop, “rightly defining the word of truth,” a spokesman for an Orthodoxy that was not afraid to enter into dialogue with the world.