If our Letters to the Editors page were an article, it would rank in sixth place out of 290. The high volume of traffic to this page is due partly to the fact that we announce in our Facebook group and on Twitter each time a new letter is posted. 

We bring this to your attention as one of several ways to join in our ongoing dialogue. If you feel disinclined for whatever reason to submit a full article to Orthodoxy in Dialogue, consider writing a letter.

On average our letters run to about 200 or so words. If you need to go much longer than that, you might consider organizing your thoughts into a short article: some of our articles run as short as 600 to 800 words. Read More

Vasillios Pistolis, a U.S. Marine, clubs a man with a wooden flagpole during the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The May/June 2016 newsletter of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Charlotte NC feted the high school graduation of Vasillios Pistolis. (Scroll down to page 8 here.) The congratulatory blurb mentions his past involvement in the Marine Corps Junior ROTC, his recent enlistment in the United States Marine Corps, and his imminent departure for boot camp at Parris Island.

A year later—as reported jointly by ProPublica and Frontline/PBS last month—the young Pistolis showed up in Charlottesville as a member of Atomwaffen Division. The report explains:

Of the many white supremacist organizations that have sprung up in the past few years, Atomwaffen is among the more extreme, espousing the overthrow of the U.S. government through acts of political violence and guerrilla warfare.

The day after the ProPublica/Frontline report, Pistolis’ hometown newspaper—The Charlotte Observer—identified him as one of their own and a member of the Greek Orthodox cathedral parish there.

The ProPublica/Frontline report begins chillingly:

The 18-year-old, excited by his handiwork at the bloody rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer, quickly went online to boast. He used the handle VasillistheGreek.

“Today cracked 3 skulls open with virtually no damage to myself,” the young man wrote on Aug. 12, 2017. Read More

We thank Bishop David for sending this letter directly to Orthodoxy in Dialogue for publication. 

While the President has signed an executive order halting the separation of children from their parents at the border, it remains unclear what impact—if any—this will have on the children who have already been separated. The order also seems to allow for the indefinite internment of families in detention centres.

Mr. President,

I agree with you that our borders are important and that we need to be vigilant against those who would try to enter our country to do us harm. What I cannot agree with is the disruption of families in the name of security. No child willingly leaves the love and protection of their parents. No parent who is worthy of the name would willingly let their child be separated from them. What gain do you expect when your actions are contrary to nature and even God’s divine commands? Where is the good that is done when a child is taken from their mother or father in the name of “National Security?”

Mr. President, you have done many good works and inaugurated many helpful and positive policies. You and your administration do seem to have the best interests of our country at heart. So why now would you destroy your good work by enacting a policy that will harm innocent children for the rest of their lives?

Recently, your Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, invoked St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 13 to call us to obedience. I would caution you, sir, that invoking God in such a situation can be detrimental instead of helpful when the purpose is to stop dissent from the people. And I would remind you that the Gospel of St. Matthew has a more fitting verse for this situation:

But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Mt 18:6) Read More

This is the second article in our “The Wheel 13/14: Responses” series.

Pavel Florensky and Sergei Troitsky. 1906.

On June 18 Public Orthodoxy published Luis Salés’ review of The Wheel‘s long awaited issue 13/14—Being Human: Embodiment and Anthropology—in which my “Father Pavel Florensky and the Sacrament of Love” appears. The challenge of doing justice to articles by fifteen separate authors in a 1280-word essay would have proven daunting to anyone.   

Dr. Salés devotes most of his critique of my article to five short sentences of mine:

On the feast of the Meeting of the Lord two weeks later, [Florensky] composed the poem, “Two Knights.” It depicts a scene in which [he and his partner, Sergei Troitsky] have removed their armour and laid it under an aspen tree, where resin drips on it from a quivering leaf. The knights kiss on the mouth, embrace tightly “like brothers,” and “break their spears” with each other. Even the sun undresses as it sets amidst fiery clouds. Tears flow in almost every stanza.

In response to this, Salés raises the following objections:

Sanfilippo’s piece implicitly disagrees with [Yannaras, Thermos, and Nassif] but is nonetheless uncompelling. The author wishes to draw attention to the potentially homosexual expressions of Fr Florensky’s life—for which, to be sure, there is meaningful evidence—but his analysis of the texts is problematic. For example, his exposition of the poem Два рыцаря (Two Knights) as a homosexual encounter will likely strike those with firsthand knowledge of Slavic literature and culture as affected and unconvincing. He reads a jousting match as a penetrative homosexual encounter by claiming that the knights remove their armor (nowhere stated in the poem) and “‘break their spears’ with each other” (67). But the line in question depicts a different context: “I will break spears with you in honor of the Lady” (сломим копья с тобою в честь Дамы, stanza 1.4). It is unclear who the “Lady” is (Florensky’s sister Olga?), but surely, queering texts needs no female erasure to make a point. Read More