Aspiring theologist Chris Banescu has responded swiftly to our Priest to Priest: An Open Letter to Fathers Damick, Farley, Jacobse, Parker, and Trenham. He sent this anguished appeal to a list of undisclosed recipients.

Mr. Banescu manages OrthodoxNet. We introduced him to our readers in OrthodoxNet Has Heart Attack over Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), where we note the following: “[He] imagines that his degrees in business administration, marketing, and law make him eminently qualified to weigh in on theological topics.”

OrthodoxNet publishes such gems of Orthodox spirituality as the must-read, When Knights Surrender Their Sword: The Problem of Effeminate Men. 

Chris Banescu

Fathers and Brothers,

There are many things wrong with how this archpriest and grandfather responded to this child and how this travesty is being used to spread more confusion. He claims that Orthodoxy is in his DNA. Unfortunately, none of it is in his preaching and pastoral approach.  

Please, use your true pastoral gifts and sacramental blessing to draft a genuinely loving and wise response to a teenage girl being attacked by the depravity in our culture. Show the Church how a true Orthodox shepherd and father (and grandfather) should have responded to this confused 13-year-old child. (Here are many testimonies of many who bear witness to Christ and the terrible lie of this sin.)
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My younger brother concelebrants, Fathers  Andrew Stephen, Lawrence, Johannes, John, and Josiah:

Christ is in our midst! 

Let me begin with a few words about myself: an American archpriest in a jurisdiction represented in the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, born into a Russian Orthodox family which traces its lineage in the Faith to the baptism of Kiev 1,031 years ago,  and approaching retirement. My grandfather was a priest, and his father before him; and before that, who knows?

I’m older than any of you, have been a priest longer than any of you, and possess more pastoral experience and formal theological education than any of you. 

Some of you I have met in person.

My children were raised, and my grandchildren are being raised, in Orthodox homes where an unusually high level of theological fluency was, and is, imparted to them. Theology and spirituality are the stuff of conversation around our dinner tables. Perhaps they’re the stuff of any multi-generational Orthodox family that has been immersed in the Faith since time immemorial: we’re Orthodox in the marrow of our bones—in our very DNA, as it were.

One of Matushka’s and my grandchildren is a spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually advanced 13-year old girl. For the sake of this open letter we’ll call her “Tatiana.” She and I are exceptionally close. We see each other often because we have lived in the same city all her life. We often do things just the two of us. Her infectious exuberance for everything she touches—for life itself!—bursts like a sudden flash of sunshine into her aging Dyedushka’s soul every time we come into one another’s presence.

Recently over dinner à deux Tatiana came out to me as gay.

I almost typed “mustered the courage to come out to me” because it’s become conventional to talk that way about coming out. But she’s so completely confident in my love for her that she made the announcement rather happily, without any discernible hesitation, as if she were sharing with me any other new fact about herself. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue does not normally post job openings. We make this exception as part of our commitment to care for the socially marginalized, whether for reasons of sexuality, gender identity, socioeconomic status, race, etc.

The deadline to apply is one week from today, February 15, 2019. Please share widely with your colleagues who are fluent in English and Ukrainian and have the other qualifications outlined below.

CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION “ALL-UKRAINIAN NETWORK OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS” is seeking qualified candidates for the five-year USAID-funded Project HealthLink: Accelerating Ukraine’s Efforts to End HIV in Ukraine.

The project will provide technical assistance to Ukraine’s efforts in achieving the UNAIDS and PEPFAR 90-90-90 targets, with the focus on increasing demand for and access to HIV services, increasing the numbers of PLHIV who know their status and are linked to care, address gaps in the HIV service cascade, and reduce stigma and discrimination toward PLHIV and KPs with higher risks of being infected with HIV. Read More

A beloved brother in the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe has asked that Orthodoxy in Dialogue publish this anonymous letter from a priest in Russia to Archbishop John of Charioupolis.

This version was translated from a French translation (included below) of the original Russian. Since a translation of a translation is never ideal, those who read Russian are referred to the original at the Akhilla website. We do not have the time to edit the minor linguistic errors in this translation.

For context see Act of Canonical Subordination of the Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe to the Local Dioceses of the Holy Ecumenical Patriarchate and the article linked in the introduction there.

Patriarch Kirill and the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. February 2013.

✠

Your Eminence, dear Monseigneur John, dear brothers and sisters in Christ of the Archdiocese of the Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe,

I am writing to you following decision taken by Patriarch Bartholomew to abolish the Archdiocese and hand over its legacy to the local Greek metropolia, a decision that puts the Archdiocese in a difficult position.  It is unfortunate to say so, but it seems that this decision of Patriarch Bartholomew and his Synod has significantly undermined the confidence that the Archdiocese had in him: it is unlikely that the Archdiocese will return under his omophor and regain its previous status.  Thus dislocated, the Archdiocese would cease to be a whole and would see its parishes, one by one, enter the Greek metropolia, which nevertheless appears to me as an even less satisfactory solution. Read More