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

Self-proclaimed drag queen, vampire, provocateur, and Eastern Orthodox theologian, Nik Jovčić-Sas, carries a desecrated icon at Belgrade Pride 2019. His February 2018 article for Orthodoxy in Dialogue was deleted when we discovered that he was openly promoting the blasphemous “Romanian Orthodox” Priests I’d Like to F*ck pornographic calendar series on his Orthodox Provocateur Facebook page. He was invited to present a paper in August 2019 at the Bridging Voices conference on Orthodoxy, sexuality, and gender at Oxford University. 

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SEPTEMBER 2019

On Orthodox Ecological Theology

How Do Genes Affect Same-Sex Behavior? 

Disability in the Orthodox Parish: A Call to Love

Serbian Orthodox Bishops of the USA Say What?

Assad Regime Responsible for Majority of Attacks on Syria’s Christian Churches

Chaos & Beauty: Conference on the Legacy of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh

Orthodoxy and Disability: The Conversation Continues

Holy Tradition and the Love of God: Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Orthodox Theology Read More

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You cannot stop being a Christian if you love Christianity and Christ.

Olga Mark in “For I Am Wonderfully Made” (FIAWM)

This short essay contains some of my reflections on current debates over LGBT identity in Orthodoxy. I think that some criticisms of LGBT-affirming Orthodox thought miss some of these thinkers’ main arguments. I offer the following as a short analysis of these arguments.

Main Argument

One of the key theological insights of LGBT-affirming Orthodox theology is that the act of re-engaging with Holy Tradition is an act of love in imitation of the love of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Reconsidering what the Tradition might have to say about contemporary moral issues is neither an act of betrayal nor an act of malice toward Tradition. It is an act of love for Tradition that is patterned after the love that constitutes God’s very being. This, I argue, is what LGBT-affirming Orthodox theology has to teach us about Orthodoxy itself.  Read More

I was delighted to see Charlotte Riggle’s response [Disability in the Orthodox Parish: A Call to Love] to my response [One Woman’s Story: Mental Health, Autism, and Orthodox Pastoral Care] to Father Isaac Skidmore’s article [On Mental Health Referrals by Orthodox Clergy]. Again I wanted to respond. 

Riggle has done an outstanding job of pointing all of us toward the many areas in the Church where inclusion still needs some work, to put it mildly.

I’m on welfare with a disability in the Netherlands. Compared to the rest of the world, I’m not that badly off. There’s room for improvement—lots of room for improvement—but generally speaking, it could be worse. It is worse, in many places.

However, from what I see in various countries, some views hold true everywhere. My value as a citizen is judged by my production. Do I generate income, taxable income, to offset the costs of having me in this country? Read More

Conference Date

October 26, 2019

Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh (1914-2003)

The Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Foundation is holding its eighth conference on the legacy of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, to take place at St Sava’s Church Hall, 89 Lancaster Road, London W11.

Entitled Chaos and Beauty, the conference will reflect on Metropolitan Anthony’s understanding of chaos as potentialities, and the ways in which this relates to our experience of life, of God, of one another, and the world. We include below his own words on chaos – words which remain vital and relevant to the challenges we face today. Read More