Father Pavel Florensky (1882-1937)—widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s foremost Orthodox theologians, and best known for his 1914 The Pillar and Ground of the Truth—wrestled spiritually, theologically, and academically with the same questions of sexuality and gender that comprise an important focus of Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s work a hundred years later.

Florensky never wrote anything entitled “Orthodoxy and Masculinity.” What follows, rather, is a small selection of representative extracts from a few sources which fall under this rubric. What motivates us is our continuing concern for a frankly bizarre “Orthodoxy-is-not-for-sissies” discourse and “Orthodox machismo” recently  perpetuated, of all places, on Ancient Faith Ministries, a department of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese. (See Orthodoxy, Sissies, and the Performance of Masculinity: Part One, Giacomo Sanfilippo’s response to Father John Guy Winfrey’s glorification of John Wayne, Steve McQueen, and assault weapon ownership as paradigms for Orthodox Christian masculinity. We have just now discovered that both his blog and podcast seem to have been taken down from the AFM website after the publicity generated by Sanfilippo’s article.)  

From Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius, Avril Pyman

Pavel, moreover, as he grew from babyhood to boyhood, had discovered a fundamental grudge against human life. He was not a girl…and all the pretty things he coveted, the floating silks and chiffons, the complex pleats and delicate, pastel colours, the flowery scents and opalescent jewellery, and the dazzling prospect, when grown up, of a hat with a humming-bird—were to fall to the lot of his younger Luisa (short for Julia), who had not fine feeling for such things. Boys were not supposed to be interested in ‘glad rags’…. (P. 6) 

Deeply concerned, El’chaninov [known to us as the author of Diary of a Russian Priest] had broached the question of homosexuality or, as he put it less clinically in his diary of 7 July 1909, ‘Pavliusha’s indifference to ladies and frequent falling in love with young men.’ He writes: Read More

We have removed the wildly popular “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!” by Father John Whiteford, published on July 1, at the request of our host this morning. Father Whiteford had contacted WordPress to allege copyright infringement on our part under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

WordPress invited us to submit a DMCA Counter Notice claiming fair use. We very well might have prevailed: we republished Father Whiteford’s article from his blog as part of an ongoing conversation (see our Father John Whiteford’s Latest Fit of Hysteria: A Preliminary Response) and gave full attribution. We quickly deemed it not worth the bother to file a Counter Notice.

Instead, you may read Father Whiteford’s piece—in which he concludes by  repeating the tiresome and frankly absurd juxtaposition of committed same-sex couples with pedophiles—at the source.

We apologize to our readers for the inconvenience, and to Father Whiteford for any emotional hardship that we may have inadvertently caused him.

Orthodoxy in Dialogue remains committed to calling out Orthodox clerics who misuse the power and authority of their position to harm Orthodox children, teens, and adults who identify somewhere along the LGBTQI spectrum. If this incident can help Father Whiteford and others like him to understand the immeasurable emotional hardship caused to these persons and their families by their rhetoric, then it will have served a useful purpose. 

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In stark contrast with the religious freedom and separation of church and state guaranteed in the Ukrainian Constitution, the illegal, Russian-sponsored secessionist movement in Eastern Ukraine moves to rid the area of all faith communities except parishes and institutions of the Moscow Patriarchate.

In the following report, DPR = Donetsk People’s Republic, LPR = Luhansk People’s Republic.

“NO SECTS IN THE DONETSK PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC”

All Faiths outside the Moscow Patriarchate under Fire in Russia-Backed Donbas “Republics”

Over the last weeks, at least two churches in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] have been forcibly closed, with the church premises seized by the Kremlin-backed militants. Judging by new rules on ‘re-registration’, many other religious communities are likely to find themselves outlawed in the near future.

Alexander Moseychuk, Pastor of the New Life Church in Makiyivka reports that on 6 July,  seven ‘DPR’ representatives, some of them armed, burst into the church and announced that it no longer belongs to them. Father Alexander notes that their Church has helped over 700 people during the four years since the beginning of the war. Around 120 believers can be expected to arrive at the gates of the Church on Sunday and will find it sealed. He asks if this augurs the beginning of persecution.  Read More

Question: You wrote the book On The Neurobiology of Sin. What motivated you to write it?

Archbishop Lazar: The question of depression was the original motivation. I had read an article by a Protestant minister who suggested that depression does not really exist, that it is only a demonic temptation. At about the same time, an Orthodox priest stated the same thing. Since depression can be the first symptom of a serious illness, and since there is a segment of the brain that has a depression/despair loop, the Brodmann area 25, I thought it was necessary to say something about this.

Depression can, of course, be caused by the circumstances of life, but it can also be the first symptom of a brain tumour, Wilson’s disease, or several other even life-threatening conditions. There is also clinical depression which, if not treated, will cause the hippocampus to atrophy. So I thought I should make a response to that.

Question: Your book turned out to be rather controversial, did it not?

Archbishop Lazar: I was not really aware of any controversy, and I was not concerned about it. I have no idea how controversial it was. It seems there was more controversy about my editorials than about the book.

Question: The chapters on human sexuality seemed to have caused some consternation. What motivated you to write those chapters? Read More