AXIOS - Eastern and Orthodox Gay and Lesbian Christians

I am an Orthodox Christian precisely because I believe the Orthodox Church is the same Church established by Jesus Christ Himself, the body that continues to pass on the holy Christian Tradition, wrote and preserved the Holy Scriptures, nurtured the Church Fathers and clarified our faith in, at the very least, 7 ecumenical councils. While much of what follows may seem critical of Orthodox Christianity, that is not my intention. I intend this writing to be basically descriptive and factual. I pray each day for knowledge of His will for me and for the strength and willingness to carry that out. I do not consider it my position to judge anyone. I am merely presenting a case, a case for love, compassion and fairness coupled with sanity that treats adults like adults. We do not have to hide our brains in the closet nor believe that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time to be Orthodox. Even though the “mind of Christ” was given to the Church at Pentecost, we can still wake up further to it more and more even 2000 years later as we live and work together in the Orthodox community and in our relationships. It is obvious to me that slavery by human masters is not within the mind of Christ. But literal scriptural interpretations do not help us. We understand through participation in relationships. The Transfigured Cosmos puts it this way: “Evil must not be shunned, but first participated in and understood through participation and then through understanding transfigured.” Whether people are killed in war or killed because they saved seeds, rain water, or stepped on US land mines, understanding our relationships in the mind of Christ is Orthopraxy. The work of understanding is critical to Orthopraxy and heterosexual philetism is truly soul deadening.

My search for historic Christianity began actually within a very devout Anglican background. My godmother was Darla Hood of the Rascals. Before my voice broke, I sang soprano solos at the Church of the Advent where the Nat King Cole family attended and I was charmed by Eleanor Roosevelt there. I usually served as acolyte or reader at 2 services on Sunday. I gravitated to the high churches in Los Angeles and usually attended daily offices when I could. In my youth, I never felt apart from God because of my homosexuality. But I gradually stopped trusting myself and began to believe what I read, at that time, from medical doctors, psychologists, clergy et al. that there was no such a thing as a homosexual. There were only heterosexuals some of whom were sick and needed to hug guys. I was active in the Canterbury club at UCLA where I had dinner and conversation with my third Archbishop of Canterbury. I was married. I was among 10 men selected to go to England to seminary and then to work in South Africa as priests. I ended up not going out of fear of not being able to keep straight and become a disgrace to my family. Before we had children, I came out to my wife and we decided to stay together. I sought counseling and “discovered”, at that time, that my homosexuality wasn't the problem but my needing to be open and honest about it was. Later, I found that a gay group of Catholics called Dignity held meetings in San Diego. Father Pat welcomed me. At that time, we could not gain entrance without our secret membership cards. But we discovered that most of the members were driving down from Los Angeles and the group decided to also hold meetings in Los Angeles. My wife and I offered use of our home. So the first two or three Dignity meetings in Los Angeles were held there and Mass was served on our dining room table. Soon Dignity received permission to use the Newman Center but was later evicted by the diocese. I felt enough at home there to help Dignity's building fund with $1000 founder's club membership.

Still I didn't feel at home. If it wasn't the gay issue, then it was the intercommunion issue. I had read too much honest Anglican and general Church history from a consular perspective to want to become Roman Catholic. Nevertheless I felt like a weird outsider as an anglo-catholic in the Protestant Episcopal Church and, anachronistically enough, I felt a complete lack of support as a gay person. The Anglican (Protestant Episcopal) Church in America today is working, even suffering, through an honest orthopraxy on that issue as opposed to the Orthodox Churches who are not even aware of their grave heterosexual philetism.

During winter of 1972-1973, I saw an ad for an Orthodox OCA Mission in Long Beach California and it was in English. I was drawn to it and within a few minutes of hearing the heavenly choir, I was amazed to actually hear the priest quoting Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Basil. This was like going back in time to the historic church. I was aware that many other churches named their church buildings after saints but here I was actually hearing the words of the saints that seemed like they were living and preaching a faith relevant for today. I was hooked. From then on, I was at every Divine Service and was helping out during the week. I was chrismated on July 22, 1973 and my children were both chrismated on September 23, 1973 by Father Vasilie. Worshiping God at St. Seraphim's was the most spiritually connected and joyful time of my life.

St. Seraphim Orthodox Church (OCA) began in Long Beach with 3 families and grew to 200 on the mailing list and 70 each Sunday for Divine Liturgy by the time of the patronal festival 5 years later. This was not an “activist parish” but simply a parish of devout Orthodox Christians according each other mutual love and respect as we worshipped God. Father Vasilie was a very intelligent priest however his written English was less than perfect. He asked me to be the parish newsletter Editor which I was honored to help prepare and that gave me a good opportunity to become acquainted with everyone and sing bass in the choir. During the entire 6 years I was there, there were only two occasions I ever heard comments made on the topic of homosexuality. Once L., a very generous and spiritual older lady said to me: “Do you know that D. and T. are gay?…but that is OK.” The other time a member of the board inappropriately confided in me that M. was in a hospital for a disease that gays get. So there was no “scandal” in that parish. And some time before, Father Vasilie had assured me that “the Orthodox Church does not excommunicate for that!” I had been temporarily visiting a Greek Orthodox Church to study Koine Greek. During that time, Father Vasilie resigned his position at Saint Seraphim to go back to Yugoslavia. A young priest came from Saint Vladimir's seminary, I learned later, with the intent to set everyone “straight” with support of his bishop. Within one month of his tenure, he excommunicated 12 communicants, including the entire Saint Seraphim choir. Soon the parish was again down to 2 or 3 families.

I spoke to one Antiochian priest about the matter who said the priest did it all wrong. What he would do would be to quietly ask each one separately to renounce their abomination and excommunicate one at a time. That way he would not have to contend with the wrath of the congregation.

As it was in St. Seraphim, half the congregation supported the gays to no avail. One year later, the young priest was defrocked for some reason unknown to me but what happened to the spiritual lives of all the members?

After this separation from my spiritual community, I personally fell into a deep, chronic, clinic depression that lasted years. I finally got sober though the spiritual exercises of Alcoholics Anonymous and through the loving, caring and sober friends I met there on March 12, 1985. I have a renewed faith now in the Orthodox Church and a trust in God that is unshakable. However, it always amazes me how often many Orthodox Christians behave so badly and ignore their own sins while they proceed to judge others. The mainline Orthodox Churches seem so “cold” and unloving to me now even though the Orthodox Church is the Historic Church that I had been searching for so many years. My formation at Saint Seraphim Orthodox Church in a truly loving, caring and honest Orthodox community was too deep to find a substitute home or to simply hide myself as others somehow have been able to do. I deeply miss my Orthodox friends.

Axios was founded in 1980 in Los Angeles, California. We met once a month with forty members for Vespers followed by a pot luck dinner and meeting to discuss our situation. We regularly participated in the West Hollywood Pride festival, distributed information through the then “Religious Gay Coalition,” and even had our own red tee shirts. But after three years of Axios solidarity, one of two members entrusted with the Axios mailing list and publication of the Axios newsletter, started insisting that we expulse the two or three Eastern-rite (Catholic) members we had. This person had, in the past, been asked to leave by the Melkites so seemingly he had some grudge with the Catholics. Axios, as a group, does not celebrate Divine Liturgy. So the membership unanimously, except for the two, voted to reaffirm full membership of eastern-rite Catholics. The two newsletter editors were furious and sent our entire confidential mailing list to the bishop in San Francisco. The OCA bishop in San Francisco sent down letters to all the clergy advising them to not serve Holy Communion to Axios members and also to discontinue the practice of “general confession” which was allowing gays to avoid being “confronted” in the confessional.

Now it should not be assumed that most Orthodox clergy actively seek out gays and refuse to serve them. In fact, the real attitudes of priests to homosexuality, have and still do, range all over the place as I have spoken to them. I am saying that the God-inspired conscience of many Orthodox priests does not conform to the official position against homosexuality present on the supposedly canonical websites. In confession, some say “do not confess anything you do not believe is a sin,” others say that it is a sin but no worse than gluttony as they point to their own stomach. Others call it an abomination and condemn devout gay lovers who have been loyal together much longer than straights often do in our society. This last kind of priest presumably thinks that having a devoted lover leads to committing an abomination more often and expects the non-straight Orthodox Christian to throw away their lover. How many gays and others have given up on the Orthodox Church because of this false orthopraxis as well as lack of transparency and consistency? My repeated attempts to restart Axios meetings in Los Angeles have been met with fear from the former members who said “Remember what happened the last time.” That seemed to work for those who are comfortable hiding themselves from everyone. Some of us eventually come to see honesty, integrity and dignity as essential attributes of the word “Orthodoxy”. Can “right worship” be possible where truth is hidden? The “clobber passage” most often used by homophobic priests, to justify throwing away one's lover, is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah which actually describes intended violence not love. Since the story is actually about rape instead of love, it seems obvious to me that these were straights trying to humiliate the strangers. If this fallacious argument actually worked then it would condemn all straights and not non-straights. It is a silly pretense of an argument but still prominent on the Greek Orthodox and OCA websites.

Around 1990, I realized that our situation had become steadily worse. With help from New York but no help from any former members of Axios in Los Angeles who were in hiding, I decided to do what I could to be helpful to non-straight Orthodox Christians who wanted to find safe and Orthodox places to worship God “in sincerity and truth.” I could never get a quorum together to start meetings again because those who practice “don't ask, don't tell” in the Orthodox parishes told me “It is no one's business what I do in bed.” By that, I understood they felt no solidarity with gays who instead have a real need to be honest at least with everyone with whom they share the “Holy Kiss” in Church. Here the reader might think I am dismissing all those gays who actually believe what is taught by the mainline churches in their official websites that gays must “bear their lifelong crosses” and never have a lover no matter how loving. Gays must immediately go to confession when they fall in love. Well I have spoken with and written to hundreds of Orthodox straights, Orthodox Lesbians, Orthodox gay men as well as many clerics in these 20 years of underground activity. I try to send those who ask to Orthodox Churches who will serve them. Out of all these people who just want to worship God in peace, I only remember 2 or possibly 3 who believed this sadomasochistic guidance was actually Orthodox and must be followed. I never attempted to interfere with their understanding in the matter. All the rest I know who are in Los Angeles follow the “it is no one's business what I do in bed” approach or have left the Church.

Please, may I ask you to pray for Michael, a beloved friend and also former member of St. Seraphim Orthodox Church choir. I learned only in 2000 that he died of AIDS a few years before, unknown to me I am very sorry to say, and was not served by the Orthodox church of which he was a member. For fifteen years after Saint Seraphim's doors were safely closed, the Orthodox Churches in Los Angeles could not bring themselves to lift a finger to help gays who were physically sick nor to help them remain close to God.

During the past 10 years that has changed somewhat. After the reality of AIDS became undeniable, clerical authorities saw fit to permit AIDS Ministries to exist. Two active AIDS Ministries I know of are at Saint Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles and also the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco. These are very worthy ministries but appear to receive lukewarm general clerical support.

So how is same-sex monogamy related to AIDS? The diocese reminds us: “Please do not get complacent. The disease appears to be taking off again and I fear in a totally different direction than we have seen in the past. New generations of young people are practicing unsafe sex. They have never experienced seeing people die of this dreaded disease. This ministry is compelled to get the message out that ABSTINENCE is the only completely safe means of preventing HIV/AIDS! This is in accordance with our Church teachings AND the Center for Disease Control. We are in an era where people want a separation of Church and State, but note the unity of this message. Abstinence is the only absolute means of preventing HIV/AIDS.” The only problem with this message is that it is not what the Center for Disease Control actually says which is:

• “Abstain from sex (do not have oral, anal, or vaginal sex) until you are in a relationship with only one person, are having sex with only each other, and each of you knows the other’s HIV status.”

Besides misquoting the CDC, the Abstinence argument would apply to married people as well. Marriage is no “absolute means of preventing HIV/AIDS. Instead the CDC prevention argument means you are in “a relationship with only one person, are having sex with only each other, and each of you knows the other’s HIV status.” So the Orthodox clergy have

1. misquoted the CDC
2. falsely stated the “church” position is in accordance with the CDC
3. forgotten that abstinence only works until one has sex
4. forgotten that real prevention involves knowledge, trust, love, caring

The Orthodox clergy have also forgotten that Saint Paul said “It is better to marry than to burn.” He recognized that the sex instinct is part of human nature, wanting to know another deeply, to trust, love and care deeply. It is celibacy that is a special grace given to only a few. Why all the English bibles that contain the word “homosexual” are wrong is simply that the concept was not present before the 20th century. Everyone thought that all humans were heterosexual. In my lifetime, even the psychiatrists and psychologists thought that homosexuals were merely sick heterosexuals until they figured out the difference. But today only Orthodox clergy and conservatives still think everyone is really heterosexual. So the psychiatrists and psychologists, through analysis and research, transfigured their common understanding. Now both straights and non-straights who are uncomfortable with non-straights are seen to have the problem.

If Orthodoxy were as simple as accepting the early scientific views of St. Paul, Origin or Aristotle we would be stuck with reincarnation and who knows what. Certainly more than the western church, Orthodoxy has been willing to let science make its observations and be concerned instead with the love of God and the Theology and Doctrine of Salvation that is THEOSIS.

• “Saint Athanasius tells us that God became man that man might become God: not in the Essence of God but in the actions of God i.e. love, joy peace, compassion, non-judgmental forgiveness.”
• In the words of Saint John Chrysostom: “For Christians above all people are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force… it is necessary to make someone better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.”

After the meetings stopped for Axios, one of the largest of Orthodox Churches in Los Angeles even initiated a counter-group called “Axios” with the express mission of nurturing “relatives” of gays in their homophobia and pain of having to suffer with “abominations” in their families. At another time, Antiochian bishop Basil (Essey) gratuitously said in front of 400 people, after the ordination of western-rite Father Deacon John, “There is no such thing as a sexually active Gay Orthodox Christian. That would be a contradiction in terms.” Not a peep from anyone, not even myself. I receive a lot of heat (judgement) from some gays for not immediately standing up in the dining hall and announcing “I protest!” or some such thing. But I would behave the same today. We treat our bishops in this one historic Church founded by God with respect for his office. I hasten to add that Bishop Basil is not teaching heresy here. He is simply acting like the Greek bishops who tried to convince Saint (Prince) Vladimir that he could be safely chrismated and still execute his traitors. Well, Saint Vladimir was chrismated but he henceforth forbad all executions. There are many extremely important matters within an Orthodox life that simply remain undecided by all Orthodox Christians. If Bishop Basil had properly said instead: “There is no such thing as a sexually active unmarried Orthodox Christian” he would have avoided heterosexual philetism however possibly at the expense of laughter. The bishops need the people to consent. That is the reason I am talking to people since the clergy do not want to talk to us especially about this issue of sadomasochism as well as suicide. Instead, I try to steer parents to the PFLAG - ”Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays” as a better resource for assisting parents when their children come out and emotions run high than the usual Orthodox Priest.

Why would I do this? Here are some statistics from the Trevor Project:

• Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers (Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey).
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers (2007 San Francisco State University Chavez Center Institute).

Love your children with true Orthopraxy that is non-judgemental. Continue to accept and nurture them in the Church services even as you did when they were very young when they felt at home praying together in Church with you. During the week, you might watch the movie Doing Time on Maple Drive.

In fact it is not spiritually safe to hide alone from those you give a holy kiss. Being honest and transparent has always been at the root meaning of the word Orthodox and also of the coming out process itself. Gays who are out hold the greatest paranetic truth that can be given back to the Church. In the process, the Orthodox Church can recover its love for honesty and transparency which marks the Truth. However no one should be pushed to come out before they are ready. The history of Axios demonstrates that only in solidarity can we help each other find the true Holy Orthodox communities that practice hospitality among the philetistic “orthodox” communities. Let us all pray and work for the day when we will be safely able to worship and be served in all Orthodox Churches with honesty, transparency and the non-judgmental love of God that is truly Orthodox. Keep coming back, and contribute if you can, to the Journal of Pan-Orthodox Opinion as a resource for sanity regarding Holy Scripture translations, writings of the Church Fathers and orthopraxis as well as heteropraxis within the Orthodox Churches today.

I would appreciate hearing from clergy or others about the supportive clergy you may know in confidence.

Peace, joy and happiness in the love of Jesus Christ our God, Father George (Battelle), parish editor and choir member, St. Seraphim Orthodox Church, Long Beach and twenty years service as Axios representative in California.

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