On Being Gay In The Eastern Orthodox Church

ON BEING ORTHODOX AND GAY

By Nicholas Zymaris

May 1997


Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!


"You're gay and Orthodox? How could you possibly reconcile the gay lifestyle

with Orthodoxy?"

Have you ever heard anyone say this?  All too often, we see this sentiment

expressed; the implication is that this "lifestyle" is so heinous that it

should be self-evident that it cannot be compatible in any way with our faith;

the phenomenon is found in most other denominations as well.

I don't see what seems so strange about being gay and Orthodox.  It is hardly

a new thing for Orthodox to be gay; if you talk to actual gay people you will

see that this is not something chosen, but an innate thing which is

discovered.  To throw around terms like "the gay lifestyle" is best left to

the fundamentalists who don't know any better.  To the general population, it

evokes images of evil rituals, orgiastic back rooms, and the like, and

encourages the mistreatment of gay people.

What is the reality?  What is the typical "gay lifestyle"?  The typical gay

person gets up in the morning, has breakfast, goes to work (or church if

it is Sunday or a feastday, and he/she is Orthodox), comes home, does the

laundry, errands, etc.; if he or she goes to a bar, chances are it's to do

nothing more than chat with some friends.  Yes, some of us have sexual

relationships.  Even though society fails to support the relationship as it

supports heterosexual relationships, life goes on; and I look in admiration

at the many truly devoted and loving gay and lesbian relationships I have

seen over the years. Whereas many a heterosexual grudgingly stays with

his/her spouse till the children are grown, then divorces when the

"obligation" is past, these devoted gay couples stay together for no other

reason than love and devotion.  And there are many times when a couple loves

each other but is pressured by society, family or even the church to break up

because the love is of the same-sex variety.  Some are encouraged to have

short-term relationships, or even one-nighters, because at least that can be

confessed, and is not "living in sin" like a committed relationship would be

considered.  That is not healthy either from a physical or spiritual

perspective, and the fault lies in antigay attitudes of society and the

church, and the individual's internalization of same.  Even in these

situations, despite the cause of it, there is still much tenderness and

goodwill shown between the partners, who often become lifelong friends (if

they are not ordered by their confessor to avoid the other on account of

there being an "occasion of sin").  It should be noted that for many gays

living in isolated areas, this is the only way to achieve any kind of human

contact with someone who understands.  It's a fallen world and a fallen

situation, but by God's grace, sometimes good comes of it.

This, then, is the "gay lifestyle".  To suggest otherwise is to encourage a

slander against our community which has gone on for too long, and by the

grace of God is beginning to lose its credibility, finally  (Needless to say,

when heterosexuals cheat on their spouses, this is not condemned as "the

heterosexual lifestyle", but when one talks about gays, it is assumed that

every gay person performs uniquely evil deeds which no heterosexual does; "we

are all equally sinners but some sinners are more sinful that others",

especially if they can be rationalized away as some marginal group existing

only in urban gay ghettoes with their bathhouses and raunchy bars.).

Does our Holy Tradition oppose these things?  Yes -- it opposes slander, and

has nothing bad to say about what the real "gay lifestyle" involves.  If one

wants to cite extreme cases like that of Jeffrey Dahmer (or even the leader

of the "Heaven's Gate" cult, which the _Philadelphia Gay News_ reported was

strict in his celibacy rules owing to his being closeted and at odds with his

own homosexuality), then one would have to make the same condemnations of "the

heterosexual lifestyle" based on the fact that the great majority of

criminals are heterosexual, and most heinous crimes by far are committed by

heterosexuals. Heterosexual rape is also much more common than homosexual

rape.  As you see, it is obvious that only prejudice could permit one to

condemn all heterosexuals for the sins of a few.  Does not the same seem

obvious with regard to homosexuals?

Are gays inclined to molest or otherwise corrupt children?  From the

statistics I've seen, 99% of child molestations are heterosexual, so when one

considers that 4%-10% of the population is gay, and an additional percentage

are bisexual, child molestation is up to 10 times as prevalent (maybe more)

in the heterosexual community.

Regarding our Tradition, it should be noted that much can be found

criticizing rape, pederasty and fornication.  Fornication, like the Greek

"porneia" found in the New Testament and the Fathers, refers literally to

prostitution, and is extended in meaning to refer to forms of sexuality which

do not involve money payment but nevetheless resemble prostitution.  It is as

relevant pastorally to gay couples as rape is to heterosexual couples.  Even

St. John Chrysostom states, about Romans chapter 1, that "ou gar eipen oti

erasthesan kai epethimisan allilon, all' `exekauthisan en ti orexei auton eis

allilous' " (P.G. 60:417, col. 1, near bottom of the column).  The part in

single quotes is a quote from Romans 1:27; the full translation of the above

being: "for he did not say that they fell in love [< "eros"] or had passion

for each other, but rather that they `burned in their appetite for each

other' ".  Because of this distinction, St. John Chrysostom says they had no

excuse.  If they actually did love each other, or even "had the hots" for

each other (an admittedly colloquial translation of "epethimisan") it would

have been a different thing.

It is obvious from Romans, in fact, that the sin was idolatry, and giving up

the truth of God for a lie, for which God allowed their errors to permeate

the rest of their lives; it strongly suggests pagan cults of the time where

men as well as women engaged in frenzied rites which were indeed sometimes of

a same-sex character (much like the Eleusinian or Bacchanalian mysteries),

which culminated in the men being castrated and thus literally "receiving in

themselves the penalty" for their error (Rom. 1:27).  Again, how could one

claim that this is even remotely relevant to a loving gay or lesbian

relationship?  Does the typical gay man today engage in frenzied rituals and

call out the name of various pagan deities as he castrates himself?  Do

lesbians lacerate themselves into a bloody mess while dancing around an idol

of some fertility goddess (a very persistent and heterosexual form of

idolatry, I might add)?  People dedicated to the slander of gay people might

want us to think this, but I'd rather pursue the truth.  And please keep in

mind that these revelers in Romans chap. 1 "exchanged" the natural for the

unnatural; it should be clear that a gay person is already gay, and has not

"exchanged" anything; St. Paul is not only referring to idolaters, but to

people who are not engaging in same-sex activity out of love or passion, but

gave up what is in their nature (loving heterosexuality; they were

_heterosexuals_) to engage in depraved acts.  The fact that these acts were

depraved and loveless is shown by St. Paul's and St. John Chrysostom's

description of how they got to doing such things.  To say that all homosexual

acts are this way is ridiculous, however.

If one wants to cite I Cor. 6:9 and I Tim. 6:10 which condemns "malakoi" and

"arsenokoitai", I would advise the reader to note that "malakos" is an

adjective meaning soft, and is used to refer to a number of morally neutral

things; to use "soft" in a negative sense is hardly a condemnation of

homosexuality; as for "arsenokoitai", it is strange that this feminine plural

is used to condemn gay males; some even have taken it upon themselves to

consider "malakoi" as feminine homosexuals and "arsenokoitai" as masculine

homosexuals; they obviously don't know their Greek.  St. John the Faster notes

that "some men even commit the sin of arsenokoitia with their wives" (P.G.

88:1893) so one can hardly consider it as something uniquely homosexual.

The first known usage of the word "arsenokoitai" (always a plural, by the way)

is in the apocryphal Sibylline Oracles (Oracula Sibyllina) where it is

prophesied that the arsenokoitai will come from the north and steal the

children.  Kidnapping or child molestation, perhaps; a relationship it's not.

As for the Old Testament, the King James Bible's condemnations of "sodomites

and whores" refers to "qedeshim" and "qedeshot"; i.e. male and female temple

prostitutes, respectively.  We know that service as a temple prostitute was

often forced, that the victims had to "perform" regardless of their gender or

inclinations, and that sometimes this involved castration or other

effeminization of males.  It makes the condemnation in Leviticus of "men lying

with men as with a woman" make more sense; in a gay relationship there is no

imitation of heterosexual intercourse, and a man having sex with a man as with

a woman (i.e. vaginally) is a biological impossibility.  Furthermore, why are

lesbians not mentioned, is this then permitted while male-male sex is not? 

And the proponents of anti-gay uses of Leviticus don't care to observe its

other precepts on avoiding mixing of fabric types, seeds and the like.  I

don't think even Orthodox Jews nowadays would check a potential synagogue

member to see if his "stones" have been crushed, another O.T. cause for

excommunication.  Christ, of course, had no problem with eunuchs in the kingdom

of heaven, and the account of the Ethiopian eunuch's conversion is inspiring

to all.  Why are we so selective, and ignore these O.T. rules if they can't be

made to apply to gays?  Could it be simple prejudice and misunderstanding? 

What about David and Jonathan in I and II Samuel?  Such was their love for

each other than they exchanged their garments, their souls were knitted

together as one, and when Jonathan died, he was eulogized with the words "My

love for you was pleasant, passing the love of women".  Doesn't this remind

you of another place in the O.T. where it is said "the two shall become one"?

And don't forget Ecclesiastes chapter 4 (KJV used):

       8  There is one [alone], and [there is] not a second; yea, he

      hath neither child nor brother: yet [is there] no end of all his

      labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither [saith

      he], For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This [is]

      also vanity, yea, it [is] a sore travail.

       9  Two [are] better than one; because they have a good reward

      for their labour.

       10  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe

      to him [that is] alone when he falleth; for [he hath] not another

      to help him up.

       11  Again, if two [men] lie together, then they have heat: but how

      can one be warm [alone]?

       12  And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and

      a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

What an eloquent way of describing the need for companionship!  In fact, this

very passage is used by a 19th century saint who feared that his beloved would

leave him (see the life of Ss. Zosima and Basilisk, published by St. Herman of

Alaska Press, Platina, CA).

If one wants to cite Sodom, then just get out your online Bible and check

every single mention of the word "Sodom" in the O.T. and N.T.:  it is very

clear what Sodom does and does not represent.  Look at what Ezekiel and Our

Lord have to say in particular; also note that a mob gathering around Lot's

house shouting "Bring them out that we may know them" (Gen. 19:5) looks

awfully like an attempted gang rape; hardly relevant to a _loving_

relationship.  And if that passage was about sexual morality, why is it that

as soon as the family escapes Sodom, being the only righteous there, each of

the daughters in turn get their father drunk and commit incest with him?

Shall we say that incest is permissible, heterosexually, because Righteous

Lot permitted his daughters to do what they did? (I don't think one can argue

that Lot was unconscious and did not know what happened; after all, each

daughter conceived, and this means that he had to be able to get aroused

enough to sustain an erection and to ejaculate, _twice_, which is difficult

for many a sober man with an adult, nonfamilial partner).  Or shall we

condemn all heterosexuals because of this incident?

Also from our Tradition, it is right there in the Patrologia Graeca, that the

relationship between the martyrs Ss. Sergius and Bacchus was described using

the term "o glykys hetairos kai erastes" (sweet companion and lover; erastes

is derived from eros and has the expected meaning) (P.G. 115:1024B; i.e.

paragraph 15, which begins with "O synathlos de Sergios...")

It is not just one phrase either; read the whole Life of these saints and see

what you think.

If it was good enough for St. Simeon Metaphrastes, it's good enough for me.

By the way, this was not the edition that John Boswell used.  There is a

faction of scholars who seem to suspend normal scholarly objectivity when it

comes to John Boswell, and dismiss anything that he has written.  Having

talked with him, I know he made some errors, but there are some things that

the anti-Boswell faction tends to ignore:

1.  Years before Boswell published anything on this subject, gay Orthodox knew

about our tradition.  He did not invent the idea of same-sex union, but merely

made a wider audience familiar with it.  The Protestant Metropolitan

Community Church has been doing what it calls "Holy Unions" since the late

1960's, and though they used to think they invented such a ceremony, we know

now that a union ceremony has existed since before the ninth century A.D.

And since all the editions of Adelphopoiia refer to Ss. Sergius and Bacchus,

it is safe to assume that their relationship was an example to those engaged

in similar relationships (their martyrdom was in 296 A.D.).

2.  Much is said about Boswell's errors.  We all know that he wasn't even

Orthodox, but most of the material he cites is Orthodox, and as he doesn't

understand it too well, he makes some errors, such as interpreting a

Trisagion as "Holy, Holy, Holy", where of course it is not a "Sanctus" but a

"Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us".

3.  What the critics of the Rite of Brotherhood and of Boswell's work always

fail to adequately explain is:  if these ceremonies are not for the blessing

of same-sex love, what exactly _are_ they for?  The answer is invariably a

very jittery and unscholarly "We don't know, but it's anything but THAT!"

As you will see below, some of these critics constantly change their story as

to what the rite is, starting by saying it's a holy rite of the church so it

could never have anything to do with THAT; and ending up by denying it ever

existed, because they realize that it does indeed deal with THAT.

Critics of Boswell even chose to write two reviews of his last book a year

after his death, to "eulogize" him with slander in _Touchstone_ and

_Sourozh_, as well as an article in St. Sophia Quarterly, which had so little

of substance to say that it began by saying it found the picture of Boswell

on the back cover of the book to be ugly, and supposed that the university

scene behind him is to lend academic legitimacy to the book (actually,

Boswell was a popular history professor at Yale; why should he have pretended

otherwise?). There was also an article in the New Republic.  All of these

articles cited lots of opinions, and had a few references; all theorized that

Boswell was mad to come to the conclusion he did; all of them repeat like a

mantra that Boswell is a terrible scholar whose work is worthless (if they

just came out and said that they dislike gays, they'd be labeled as bigots,

but this way they appear as "legitimate scholars"); none offer a credible

explanation of what the rite is, if not a same-sex union. One even suggests

that Boswell's work is terrible because the actual ideal for Christians is

some sort of super Platonic love which seems suspiciously like a homosexual

relationship without the sex; the imagery used by this proponent of total

celibacy among gays is surprisingly erotic; and it would seem likely that the

author is just another frustrated closet homosexual who sadly does not

realize that what he advocates does not work.

In 1994, shortly before Boswell's _Same Sex Unions_ book came out, news of

its impending publication was leaked to the Orthodox internet list at Indiana

University, which is dominated by fundamentalist-like Synodal (ROCOR) Russian

Orthodox, many of whom are actually recent converts from actual Protestant

fundamentalism and don't seem to have shaken it very well (As an example, one

of them admitted that he considered pastoral concerns "irrelevant" to

homosexuals and that most of his peers would rather that all gays just die off

of AIDS.  Of course the gay community is not only not dying off, but

flourishing, despite all the obstacles people try to put in our path.  There

are still, of course, plenty of gays in isolated areas who live in constant

fear of violence, estrangement from family and friends, and the like, not to

mention eternal damnation from the slightest thought about their orientation.

Truly, they are in great need of a little genuine pastoral support, not

phariseeism).

At the same time, a translation I made of the adelphopoeia rite (this is the

Greek name for Rite of Brotherhood, literally "Brothermaking") in 1989 was,

without my knowledge, scanned or typed into a computer with internet access

and entered into the discussion on that same list.  I should note that my

translation was from Jacobus Goar's Euchologion of 1730, which is easily

available at many theological and university libraries in the U.S. and

abroad; it is not some recent invention of gay activists, nor is it

particularly inaccessible.  It is and has been familiar to many researchers of

this subject in the U.S. and abroad, before and after Boswell's research.  When

Boswell's book came out, he revealed that his research was also started when a

friend mailed him a copy of the rite from the same Euchologion.  My interest

in this edition of the rite was sparked when an Orthodox bishop in San

Fransisco said he used Goar's text when his parish performs the rite (this was

in 1988).

Now, if it seems strange that "brotherhood" is used in a spousal fashion,

consider that the term has several meanings aside from this: brother by

common mother ("a-delphos"); (2) brother by common Father ("brother in

Christ"); (3) brother by common abbot (monk); (4) brother by common situation

("brother in struggle"), or (5) common race ("brother" in the black

community).  No one disputes that one word refers to these different

relationships.  Now look at the Song of Songs where the phrase "my sister, my

spouse" occurs repeatedly (So. 4:9-12, 5:1).  Are we talking about incest

here?  No, we are talking about fraternal terminology being used for a

relationship of eros between two persons not related by blood.  The term

"brother" is also seen in the aforementioned account of the relationship

between David and Jonathan in I and II Samuel.  Boswell has his own theories

on the use of the term "brother"; he considered it a synonym for "lover" among

medieval gay lovers; one might compare this to the term "warme Bruder" ("warm

brother") in modern German which precisely means a gay person.

To return to the discussion of adelphopoeia on the net, how did the Orthodox

on the list react to this?  A few desired to look into it, and saw that the

rite's content did seem to suggest a same-sex blessing.  The others at first

did not take this seriously, and used the standard argument I had heard for

years from most of those who knew about this rite:  it is merely mutual

adoption.  But wait, said the others, adoption is "yiothesia", not

"adelphopoiia", and canonists make an explicit distinction between the two.

Well, then, it must be a ceremony for two monks to do missionary work

together (where does the rite mention that?  And they say Boswell was picking

at straws?  Indeed the pot was calling the kettle black). No, said the other

side, it is specifically forbidden to monks, which makes sense since they had

to be celibate.  OK then, it was a rite to pacify two warring kings, and they

cited one king who united himself with a rival.  One advocate self-conciously

said that he realizes many will just think that they were too busy having sex

with each other to bother fighting each other; like "make love not war".

The anti-gay side was losing its credibility.  Drastic measures were taken.

First of all, the list owners denied access to anyone they hadn't previously

screened; this was explicitly to weed out any gay-sympathetic voices.

Second, the new party line was declared:  this rite never even existed; it

was invented by Paul Halsall (a professor at Fordham University) and Axios.

Third, all proponents of this view, especially Halsall, were to receive

physical threats by phone, private e-mail, and U.S. mail.  Such Christians!

Fourth, a priest from a Serbian jurisdiction pronounced an anathema on

Halsall, which is strange since Halsall has nothing to do with that

jurisdiction (more to the point, the anathema was simply a smokescreen to

avoid dealing with the implications of the existence and use of adelphopoeia

in Orthodoxy).  I was apparently the only critic of them who did not get

threatening phone calls and other forms of harassment, etc.; even a straight

professor who said he's against homosexuality but thinks one can't just brush

this under the rug got harassed.  Those tactics prove that they had not a

foot to stand on.  Their lie that the rite never existed after all was

made more ridiculous by the posting of the passage from the Pedalion

(Rudder), which even has a section devoted to Adelphopoeia; it is a

subsection of the chapter on Impediments to Marriage, and is separate from

and after the section on Impediments from Adoption.  The commentary states

(this is not a canon but a commentary compiled by the Chicago businessman

Aristotle Makrakis; the original author may be St. Nicodemus of the Holy

Mountain) that this rite should be prohibited because it is the cause of much

abuses; it is against nature (you know what _that_ means) because adoption

creates a son not a brother, and we all know why people do this, to satisfy

their carnal desires. There, he said it.  It's not just 20th-century gay

advocates who know about this, and it's not for monks, friends, or whatever;

it is for, as the rite says, "love not of nature, but of the Holy Spirit".

This love does not have biological reproduction as its end, but is still love.

But I am not merely relying on books.  There are parishes both here and abroad

which have never stopped doing adelphopoeia, and know exactly what it is for,

particularly in Albania.  Now, John Boswell knew many languages, but not

Albanian, but even he found some references in translation to what went on

there.  I know Albanian, and interviewed Albanian Orthodox in 1991, when the

churches were just reopening after decades of communist oppression.  In the

same year, there were rites of vellameria (the Albanian name for the rite)

performed in the Orthodox church in Elbasan.  All Albanians I spoke to (not

Albanian Americans, I might add, who do not seem to generally be familiar with

vellameria) knew about the rite, but only the ones from Elbasan had witnessed

one.  I talked with an individual from the late dictator Hoxha's birthplace,

Gjirokaster (also known as Argyrokastro, Greek for "silver castle") who gave

a simple but moving account of how Hoxha's attempts at promoting both atheism

and homophobia miserably failed; in his hometown people now practiced their

religion, and as far as the anti-gay violence and sentiments found elsewhere,

"that is unknown where I come from; everyone eats at the same table and those

differences don't matter".  As far as vellameria and the fact that some

researchers in the U.S. think it is a gay marriage, he simply said, "Yes,

that's what it is for".  No shock, no need to explain it away or make

elaborate theories to obscure the fact.  Other Albanians had no difficulty,

despite their heterosexuality, with going over my translations, word for

word, of a number of Albanian gay love songs and giving their insights on the

terms.  Not one of over 20 Albanians I spoke to about this was uncomfortable

with this, unlike most Albanian Americans who seem to have acquired American

homophobia in many cases.

(Note:  the former communist government of Albania passed a law banning all

"marredhenie seksuale ndermjet meshkujve", i.e. "sexual relations between

males"; in the 1990's this law was repealed and homosexual relations are now

legal for males or females of 14 years of age or higher, as with heterosexual

relations; and there is also an advocacy group, the Gay Albania Association

[Shoqata], which was also legalized, it is located in the capital, Tirana).

In fact, the rite continues to be performed even in N.W. Greece, as the Church

of Greece noted in _Adelphopoeia from a Canonical Perspective_ (Athens, 1982).

(It was written by Fr. Evangelos K. Mantzouneas, the Secretary of the Greek

Synod Committee on Legal and Canonical Matters of the Church of Greece).  An

English translation is available on the Axios website or via e-mail, as is

the discussion on the Orthodox list and other items I refer to.  The author

links the underlying relationship historically with the Sacred Band of Thebes

(an all-gay military unit which required its members to swear they were not

"addicted to women"; it was the embodiment of the widespread belief that "an

army of lovers cannot fail" because the love would motivate them to ever

greater heroism and a desire not to be disgraced in front of their beloved),

as well as the _Erotikos_ of Plutarch and various historical manifestations

of blood-brotherhood.

However, the Christian form of the blessing of this relationship was distinct

(there was even an attempt to suppress the blood-brotherhood and encourage

the "spiritual brotherhood" in its place; see Aries, P. and Duby, G., _A

History of Private Life_, vol. 1, p. 596).  Often, but not always, it

involved the pair receiving Holy Communion together.  It caused an impediment

to marriage, and the pair acquired many legal rights including that of

inheritance.  He cites the text of a contemporary (1982) rite from Epirus,

which is essentially the same as the Goar text; which he also cites.  This is

a very Greek way of saying it without actually using the "G-word" (i.e. "gay");

the rite is still performed and we don't have a problem with that, even though

there were two local encyclicals prohibiting it in the Church of Greece in the

late 1800's (Fr. Mantzouneas admits, like all scholars including the Albanian

Eqrem Cabej, that these encyclicals were generally ignored and the rite

remained popular).  Adelphopoeia is even a part of the secular Greek history,

and many of the fighters in the Greek War of Independence of 1821 were

adelphopoitoi ("united with adelphopoeia"); I'd say that if anything, this

helped them win the war, as homosexual love has been associated for millenia

with personal uplifting and the overthrow of tyranny (Plato said, in the

Symposium, that this is why oppressive governments like the Persia of his

time prohibited it, but Athens encouraged it.  The same might be said of

modern-day Iran, though there are of course other factors also).  Now, please

note that I am supplying these notes on pre-Christian and secular practice in

order to supply background information, and to explain such references which

Fr. Mantzouneas makes.  I am not saying that Ancient Greece or Albania or any

other culture is an across-the-board model for what we should do today in

either the Church or society; but it is certainly interesting nonetheless

(However, I certainly think that the ancient view on gays in the military,

not to mention in society, makes a lot more sense than Colin Powell's).

A note about "spiritual brotherhood":  This is the term often used to describe

the rite ("akolouthia eis adelphopoeian pneumatiken"), which of course refers

to the spiritual nature of the rite, especially as distinguished from blood

brotherhoods where actual blood was exchanged.  Blood brotherhood was

performed by Moslems and other non-Christians, and was discouraged.

Christians (both Orthodox and Roman Catholic) were not to drink each other's

blood, but only to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, which they did.

In countries like 19th century Albania where Christians and Moslems freely

mixed, there were all sorts of variations:  Christian spiritual brotherhood

(with Holy Communion and no blood exchange), interfaith (Christian-Muslim)

marriages with blood exchange, and same-sex concubinage without ceremony

(This was reported by Paul Naecke in 1880 and is not to say that all these

relationships were approved of by the Catholic or Orthodox Churches in

Albania; he is talking about what existed in the society.  However, spiritual

brotherhood was indeed common and was performed by a priest in church, and the

relationship was clearly conceived of as a same-sex relationship not excluding

eros; this applied to both male-male and female-female relationships.  While

later in the 19th century the Church of Greece issued two local encyclicals

against the Rite of Brotherhood, one must ask why it took the church 19

centuries to ban something like this.  It has been permitted much longer than

it has been prohibited). Spiritual brotherhood, moreover, was distinguished

by the phrase in it which stated that the couple's love was "not of nature

but of the Holy Spirit"; which I consider not only a wonderful explanation of

the term "spiritual" (it does not mean "non-sexual"; one should consider that

heterosexual marriage is sexual but is also spiritual) but a rebuttal of the

tired arguments about gay love being "against nature".

Adelphopoeia also was performed in Greece, Russia, Romania, Serbia and

Montenegro (Crna Gora) in the 19th century, and before that even in Italy.

However, in 19th century Albania it seems to have enjoyed a zenith of sorts,

and a number of Europeans note this with incredulity (especially the gay

ones, who left the Victorian era for what seems to be the same matter of fact

attitude that the modern Albanians I spoke with had).  There were even gay

love songs, which were compiled by the ambassador from Austria-Hungary to

Ottoman Albania, Johan Georg von Hahn, in 1854. One of these was reprinted in

part (starting with "The sun...") in Havelock Ellis' _Studies in the

Psychology of Sex_ (1928); the translation of the full song from Hahn's 1854

compilation is:

(diacritical marks omitted for clarity)

S'gjen ndonji zok qi kendon,        You'll find no bird that sings,

Te gjithe jane e po qajne.          They all sit there [lit., "are" ] and cry.

I mjeri ashik sa fort po duron,     The poor lover, how strongly he endures,

Prej dyllberit po e dajne.          [For] they separate him from [his] beloved.

Dilli, qi len ne mengjes            The sun, which rises in the morning

Si ti, o djal, kur me zallandise    [Is] like you, boy, when you are near me.

Kur me kthen syt' e zes'            When you turn your black eyes to me

Shpirt ment prej kres' mi gremise.  You drive me crazy.

                                     (lit.,"destroy the spirit and mind from

                                            my head")

Author:  Nechin of Permet, Albania, mid 19th century

(Translated June 1991, Nicholas Zymaris)

(Note: the terms "ashik" and "dyllber" are analogous to the Greek terms

"erastes" and "eromenos", respectively.  Also, the gender of both

("lover" and "beloved") here is male.  The dialect is Geg, with some

nonstandard spelling).

(See J.G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_ (Jena, 1854) re archaic terms, i.e.

the verb "zallandis" and the derivation of "ashik"; there are also other terms

used for the beloved such as "xhan", which means "[my] soul, [my] darling",

and is still in common use today).

(This is only one of many songs which Nechin composed, and all of them were

about male-male love.  Hahn states that he was oriented only towards males. 

Naturally, the term "homosexual" (or the German or Albanian equivalents of

this word) was not used since the term was not invented until five years

later, by Benkert in 1859.  But that didn't prevent the topic from being dealt

with, with terms like "ashikun le te gezoje" ("let him gratify his [male]

lover", from another song), or "manmaennliche Liebe" in German.

Incidentally, Hahn was a devout Christian who loved to illustrate Albanian

grammar and sayings by using passages from the Old and New Testaments in

Albanian).

This does not directly prove anything regarding what the Church should do or

has done, but is a refreshing change from the obfuscation and slander one

usually sees on the topic of homosexuality.  And I fail to see how obfuscation

and slander can have any place in a Christian discussion, even though nowadays

an otherwise intelligent Orthodox writer like Fr. Thomas Hopko or the

(now-retired) Fr. Stanley Harakas can go off the deep end when it comes to

describing homosexuality (according to them, we are all child-molesters who

should be prohibited by law from working with children, and so forth).

There is also the common, more moderate view that gay people are not monsters

and in fact their orientation is more or less morally neutral; however God

help them if they act on it.  It assumes that all gay people must, without

exception, never have a relationship and be totally celibate, even when one

cannot avail oneself of the benefits of either marriage or monasticism.

Both from my own experience and the experience of many others, such a view

encourages the fragmentation and compartmentalization of personality.  It

literally makes one sick, physically and mentally.  Look at the dismal record

of the group Courage, as well as the various 12-step anti-gay groups around

the country; their members have a very high AIDS rate (the NY chapter of

Courage stopped functioning for a while because of this) and are generally

quite miserable.  For those whom God has given the grace (charis) to live in

celibacy, such techniques may work.  But it is not for most people.  We

realize this with straights, and don't begrudge them marriage.  For gays,

attempts to totally suppress their orientation lead to misery and

promiscuous, desperate "acting out" when they can't stand it anymore.  These

situations are not likely to be conducive to either physical (i.e. re STD's)

or spiritual safety.  One expends all one's energy dealing with sexual

issues, and perhaps thinks one has accomplished a great work when having some

small "success" in this, where actually one's spiritual life is impoverished,

because one has no time or energy to deal with any other topic. Orthopraxia

should derive from sound theology; simply spending one's whole life

desperately trying not to masturbate or have any kind of sex or permit

thoughts of same is a little sad (and difficult, because such a person is

made to constantly think about sex by the anti-gay "pelvic theologians" who

are obsessed with the topic and thus expect everyone else also to be obsessed

about it.  The end result of this is misery and separation from the life of

the Church as the confessor sees that the penitent is unable to stop having or

thinking about sex; so he is denied the life-giving sacraments of the Church.

If he realizes that it is better to have a committed relationship, he is

shunned for "living in sin".  No matter what he does, he is criticized.

To conclude, it should be said that gay people should not have to waste years

of their life being tormented by the idea that their God-given capacity to

love is a sin to be utterly suppressed.  As fallen human beings, gay people

can and do sin in many ways, sexually and otherwise, as do heterosexuals.  But

we sin because we are fallen humans, not because we are gay.  No one in his

right mind would suggest that heterosexuals are sinful by virtue of their

heterosexuality; if one cheats on one's spouse or otherwise sins sexually, the

sin is not due to whether a male or female has been wronged; it is precisely

because someone has been wronged.  God calls us to love our neighbor, and this

applies to all relationships and all people.  Our Lord said "God is love"; we

should not be so quick to judge a particular form of love as bad.  Indeed, the

criterion to use in looking at various relationships should be whether true

love (of whatever form, erotic or not) is present.  If love is not present,

then and only then can the moralists talk about something "unnatural",

especially when their harsh antigay attitudes dismiss the idea of a gay

marriage and actually encourage the very promiscuity which they decry.  "What

God has joined together, let no one tear asunder".

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(Font: DEC Multinational; applies only to diacritical marks)

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