Richard Vytniorgu

I remember when I told my mother I preferred men; I had to repeat it several times. In her mind I would obviously get married one day and give her some beloved grandchildren. And then she asked me what actually happened – how did two males have sex together? I mean, how could they? I could hear the cogs turning over cyberspace.

But I’d been warned. My friend Cosmin told me they wouldn’t understand, especially in a rural area like Bukovina. It wasn’t so much that Romanians are vehemently homophobic and intolerant of same-sex relationships, as in Serbia and parts of Russia, for example. But rather that many Romanians, especially outside of Bucharest, simply aren’t familiar with the open expression of alternative sexualities.

Of course, there’s a correlative reason why many Romanians are suspicious of homosexuality, and that’s the way many perceive the Church — against the ‘sin of Sodom’. Throughout history, Eastern Orthodox churches have colluded with the governments of the nation states in which they are rooted, and at times this relationship between Church and State borders on the incestuous. It’s highly convenient for the State if the Church encourages attitudes which fit with its own political agenda.

During the Ceaușescu era, the policy of nation building in Romania took on the new proportions in which the infamous Decree 770 was anchored: contraception and abortion were banned in order to increase population growth. The age-old tendency to superimpose sexual mores on procreation was thus cemented, and in rural areas of Romania, where life was in many ways better under the socialist regime than it is currently, there seems to be a tacit and sometimes overt consensus that women birth babies and men demonstrate their manhood by making them. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers are urged to read the present article in conjunction with the following:

1. “The Russian Orthodox Church, the Law, and Family Violence” – Lena Zezulin, The Wheel 
2. “Beat Her When You Are Alone Together”: Domestic Violence in the Russian Tradition, Past and Present” – Nadieszda Kizenko, Public Orthodoxy
3. “Is the Russian Orthodox Church Pushing Battered Women into Feminism?” – Lena Zezulin, Public Orthodoxy
4. “On ‘Orthodox’ Wife-Beating and О «Православном» избиении жены” – Giacomo Sanfilippo, Orthodoxy in Dialogue
5. “Notes to Protestants from an Orthodox Priest – Ditch the ‘Honey Do’ List” and “Feminazi Toenails, the Noxious Odors of Feminist Feet, and Ending the Conversation When You Don’t Like the Way Your Wife Talks to You” – Father Joseph Gleason, Orthodoxy in Dialogue
6. “St. Paul on Marriage: A Brief Response to a ‘Priest in Russia’” – Giacomo Sanfilippo, Orthodoxy in Dialogue
7. “How to Attract a Christian Spouse — Marriage Advice from a Christian Dad” and “Attractiveness: Beauty Is Not Just on the Inside”  (note especially the need of “godly men” to find a young, pretty, and submissive wife) – Al Blazek, Russian Faith: Christian Renaissance  
8. “Ukraine Recognizes Sex without Consent as Rape, Criminalizes Domestic Violence” – Oleg Sukhov, Orthodoxy in Dialogue

Campaigners say sharp decline is due to new law deterring women from contacting police

“To beat means to love. 143 countries in the world have laws against domestic violence.” (Photo by Vladimir Gerdo/TASS)

Russian women suffering domestic violence are being deterred from going to the police since its partial decriminalisation last year, campaigners have claimed after a dramatic fall in reported incidents.

The state statistics, released in July, reveal that the number of cases of domestic violence reported to the police in 2017 almost halved since physical abuse became punishable by a fine rather than time in prison. Read More

This article provides important additional background to Niko Efstathiou’s “Islamic Educational Center Planned beside Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Shuttered Theological School” and Fehim Tastekin’s “Are Turkey’s Christians as ‘Fine’ as They Say?” 

Despite the world-wide recognition of the status of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as the spiritual leader of all Orthodox Christians, the government of Turkey will give no legal standing and status to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the historical Holy Center of Orthodox Christianity at the Phanar, in Istanbul. The lack of legal standing and status in essence nullifies property and other fundamental civil rights in Turkey for the Ecumenical Patriarchate which precludes its full exercise of religious freedom.  The Ecumenical Patriarchate cannot own in its name the churches to serve the faithful or the cemeteries to provide for their repose. Since it lacks a legal standing, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is powerless to pursue legal remedies to assert property rights or even seek to repair deteriorating property without government approval.

Instead and in lieu of legal standing, Turkey has established a system of minority (community) foundations for Orthodox Christians and other non-Muslim religious minorities to hold properties supervised and controlled by the Turkish government’s General Directorate of Foundations. The Directorate regulates all the activities of religious community foundations which include approximately 75 Greek Orthodox, 42 Armenian and 19 Jewish foundations. The 1935 Law on Religious Foundations, and a subsequent 1936 Decree, required all foundations, Muslim or non-Muslim, to declare their properties by registering the same with the General Directorate of Foundations. Read More

This article is four years old, yet it remains as relevant today for Orthodox readers as when it first appeared in print. The quasi official alliance of the Orthodox Church in the USA with the social and political conservatism of right-wing Evangelicalism—see, for instance, the high profile Orthodox signatories of the questionable Manhattan Declaration of November 2009—continues to make for stranger and more unfortunate bedfellows with the passing of time. Case in point: see Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s extensive coverage of the rise of white supremacy and neo-Nazism (White Supremacy and Racism section in Archives by Author) in certain parishes, seminaries, and monasteries of the American Orthodox Church. The aggressive politicization of what should remain pastoral issues for us (abortion, same-sex marriage, et al.) creates an ecclesial climate in which too many overt racists and white supremacists find a natural home for themselves.

6-year old Ruby Bridges being escorted to and from school (1960).

They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.

One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.

This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.

Some of these anti-Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.

But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism. Read More