Sometimes you just don’t know what to believe on the internet. Okay, most of the time.
I received an email today with a link to a blog post about an apparent problem that the Orthodox Church in Finland has with homosexuals. No, not fighting them. Joining them in their fight for equality! The blog Theoprovlitos has some interesting posts about this, linking also to another blog in which is described how the situation is complicating relations between the Church in Finland and the Moscow Patriarchate.
As it seems this is not something that happened over night but has been a problem for awhile. Thought I’d post about, perhaps someone who is more familiar with the actual situation can fill me in.
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Icon above: Saints Sergius and Bacchus. The following is from wikipedia:
Saints Sergius and Bacchus’s close relationship has led many modern commenters to believe they were lovers. The most popular evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, in the Greek language, describes them as “erastai”, or lovers. Yale historian John Boswell considered their relationship to be an example of an early Christian same-sex union, reflecting his contested view of tolerant early Christians attitudes toward homosexuality. The artist Robert Lentz (image above) advocated this view, portraying the men as a gay couple in his religious iconography painting.
In his study on “The Origin of the Cult of SS. Sergius and Bacchus” David Woods classified some of Boswell’s arguments as “superficial”. Other historians and Byzantine analysts [citation needed], along with the official stance of the Eastern Orthodox Church, argue that the ancient Eastern tradition of adelphopoiia, which was done to form a “brotherhood” in the name of God, and is traditionally associated with these two saints, had no sexual implications.
AGAIN AND AGAIN 
http://www.sergiusandbacchus.org/
They were like brothers and not lovers. they were tortured to death and put in the same cell. Just read the link I put above. Any one that uses them to prove that homosexuality is fine in the Churches eyes should be Excommunicated. If this article is true then the Orthodox Church of Finland should be cut off like an infected limb.
Fr Milovan
Hristos Voskrese!
Unfortunatelly I had to go back on the issue since things are going from bad to worse on the issue. Please read
http://theoprovlitos.blogspot.com/2009/05/blog-post.html
Blagoslovite
Who better to respond to this than the person from whose blog I received it.
Thank you. I know very little of the Church in Finland other than the fact that they follow the Gregorian Calendar for all calculations, including Pascha. This was a little shocking for me. We should certainly pray for the Orthodox there, pray especially for the hierarchs that they might “rightly divide the word of truth…”
Thank you for your comment and may God bless you.
Fr. Milovan
Otac Milovan blagoslovite!
Unfortunatelly what is written in the blog is more than true. I have even more information which I do not publish in order not to expose the personal sin of some people (this is NOT my task).
When the article on the Finnish Orthodox magzaine Aamun Koitto presenting Ss Sergius and Bacchus as well as Jesus Christ as homosexuals was published back in 1995 or so, MANY people protested. I then made a research on adefopoiisis, found out that it was a service that was in use for a limited period in Montenegro and in reality it was spiritualy linking two friends or families. It had nothing to do with homosexuality.
I had explaiend that in the Balkan countries the role or the bestman or the Godfather please an important role in our societies and it is a way to unite spiritualy two people or families. In mainland Greece, Crete etc the Koumbaros (kum) is more than a friend. After the sacrament there are strong spiritual links sometimes stronger than relations by blood. We also had the habit of blood-brothers.
The Finnish, western and Norther societies CANNOT understand what Koubaros or kum means and they think that the ONLY way two men can have a special relationship is homosexuality.
My leter was transalted in Finnish by a Finnish nun who lives in Greece and was sent to the Finnish magazine. It has neer been published, as well as none of other protest letters people sent to the magazine. No wander: The writer of the blasphemus article was the editor in chief himself and friend of the Ecumenist priest who is behind the gay movement in the Finnish Orthodox Church.
II can reasure you that every single word presented is true (besides I am also presenting the links) but if I have to, I can ask for the testimonies of various people and present documents, among them the letter of the Holy Synod of Finland sent to the ecumenical Patriarchate as an answer to protest about what is going on in the Finnish Orthodox Church.
Unfortunatley something is so rotten in the Kingdom of finland that they do not hesitate fooling and lying to the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself.
Last but not least I would like to emphasize on the DARK role the Secretary of the ecumenical movement, Fr Heikki Hutunen is playing. There are two thorns in the relations between the orthodox and the Protestants: Gay Christians and Women Ordination. Fr or rather Mr Huttunen is being VERY WELL PAID to pass these two heresies in the Orthodox Church. His presbyera is writing articles so that women will be ordained in the orthodox Church.
Hvala
Theoprovlitos
Christopher – Thanks for the info. I’ll have to look into it. I was actually just with him about a month ago for a meeting. I didn’t know he studied at St. Vlad’s.
Romanos – Thank you for the brief history lesson. “Christ sent them out by two…” very good point, indeed! Of course, I knew that there were gay Christian communities out there and I even knew that there are Orthodox ones, but when I saw the icon I was a little shocked. I admit that I had never read of the misuse of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. You are absolutely right in using the story of the monk – people tend to accuse others of the very thing they are most guilty. Thanks again.
The use, or may I say abuse, of the example of Saints Sergius and Bacchus has been a propaganda tool of the Gay Movement in many churches that acknowledge or know about the early saints. The fact is, as we know, what we call “gay” in the current sense, never had currency in ancient times, not even in Greco-Roman culture.
The excesses of Emperor Elagabalus, a homosexual and transvestite pervert of immense depravity, were just as abominable to the Romans then as they would be to any normal modern. After four years of outrageous wantonness, his own guards murdered him and his immoral mother, and shoved their bodies into the sewers of Rome.
There are many examples from early Christian times until today of two same sex individuals who had given up thought of marriage and decided to live and work together, either as monastics in seclusion or as missionary partners. Most of these, I believe, were male, but only because their stories have come down to us due to their exploits. Females living this way often lived lives of quiet charity unseen by the world, even by the church. To assert that any of these pairs (remember, Christ sent them out two by two, and such has been the way in Christian missionary work ever since) were living in anything even remotely like the modern “gay” lifestyle, is not only wishful thinking and gross anachronism, but disrespectful of the ancients concerned.
In the Desert Fathers, there is a story of a perverted monk who came to complain to one of the abbas, that a couple of monastics, living together, were “of evil life,” that is a euphemism for living in a homosexual lifestyle. The old man had the two men come and stay with him awhile, watching them, seeing how after the customary prayers they lay down side by side on their mats, and he did this for many days. He determined that there was no substance to the accusation, and it turned out that the accuser was himself guilty of the offense. It goes without saying that those who attempt to smear the paired saints of antiquity are like this perverted monk accuser.
It is something to watch out for, however. It appears to me that Holy Orthodoxy is just as much under attack as the non-Orthodox Christian “churches” by the Gay Movement, and unless we remain firm, we will begin to see similar abuses arise in some of our jurisdictions. I am already seeing the beginnings of it in the Greek Orthodox church I belong to in Portland, Oregon.
Forgive me, Father, if I have unknowingly said anything that gives offense to the truth, but these are the facts to the best of my knowledge.
Peter Drobac of the Serbian Church in Canada wrote his Masters dissertation at SVOTS on adelphopoiia. You may be able to get a copy of it from either him or SVOTS.