Breaking the Silence on Sexuality within the Orthodox Church

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It Gets Better: My “real” version

Last week I posted a script for an “It gets better” video as I imagined it could be presented by someone representing the position on homosexuality taken by so many who perceive themselves to take a traditional view. I pointed out in the thread beneath it what I thought was wrong with it. Below is an “it gets better” statement as I might really do it, with words addressed to a young gay Orthodox Christian person:

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An excerpt from An autobiography of Jasmin Roy

An excerpt from An autobiography of Jasmin Roy, Les Éditions des Intouchables, Montreal 2010, in French.

Jasmin Roy eventually found a fulfilling career in the performing arts, after a horrible youth in which he endured years of bullying and the tacit participation of adults and educators. They exacerbated his persecution through their own ignorance and silence, or even by joining in the laughter of oppressor youth, and finally in their trivialization of his youthful burdens. He writes of the slow and faithful friendships and long therapy which lifted him from near suicidal anxiety and self-deprecation. This brief excerpt makes a poignant appeal against ignorance which breeds oppression, and underlines the complexity of human relations and personality that cannot be reduced to sexual orientation alone.

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Bishop Cassian Bezobrazov: Traditional and Free

We are perfectly aware that theological research ought to be on the one hand completely free and on the other hand rooted in Tradition.  We do not close our eyes to the fact that our encounter with the West has considerably enriched us.  Before the First World War we were well acquainted with German, particularly Protestant, scientific biblical literature.  During the course of our work in Paris, the treasures of French, English and American theological thought—not only Protestant but also Roman Catholic—have been open to us.  For it is in the confrontation of opinions that one is able to discover the Truth.  Facing new problems, enriched by new knowledge we are led to formulate responses which our forefathers had not the least idea, nor we ourselves had not wars and revolutions changed the face of the world and had not our points of view been overthrown.

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Fr. Josiah Trenham

Sexual Relations

Fr. Josiah Trenham

American Orthodox Christians find themselves at the beginning of the 21st century encompassed by a cultural milieu that is post-Christian, secular, and foreign to the mind of the Church. Nowhere is this reality more evident than in the area of human sexuality. Sex has been violently torn from its proper context, and, isolated from the wisdom and blessing of the Church, contemporary man is adrift in sexual confusion. On the one hand we know more about the practice and mechanics of sex than ever before, yet on the other hand we know very little about the purpose, meaning, and control of sex in God’s grand design.

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Metropolitan Anthony, Man and Woman

1989-05-09-1-E-E-C-EW01-002Man&WomanEdited

Forum talk by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh MAN AND WOMAN

I

9 May, 1989

The subject of man and woman has become more and more essential in the course of the last decades, not only because a number of people have been very vocal about the situation of women both in the Church and in society, but because more and more, the Christian vision has ripened, deepened, and problems which did not exist a century ago have come to the fore – not only forced upon the Christian consciousness by circumstances, but coming from within the Christian consciousness. A variety of groups of people have taken up the subject in the secular world, and also in the Churches.

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The Body’s Grace

By Rowan Williams

To ask, “Why does sex matter?” sounds a rather futile way of beginning an address in these circumstances. It’s rather obvious that it does matter, and that it matters in different ways to different people. To some it matters as a cause for alarm, to others as a cause for celebration: there would be less need for LGCM and kindred organisations if sex were not alarming to so many, and less impetus to join or support LGCM, if sex were not something a little more than another good cause.

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