New York Chapter Plain ASCII Online Edition N E W S L E T T E R Vol. 12, No. 4 AXIOS USA Inc. July-August 1995 Eastern & Orthodox Christian Gay Men and Women +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In this issue: Cover: Icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos Transformation..........................pp. 3-4 Letters.....................................pp. 4-5 Comments on Centurion and other articles; thanks from QLGPC Biblical Verses Misused.............p. 6 News.......................................pp. 6-8 Boston & Las Vegas chapters; Forest Fire in Greece; Human Rights Violations in Romania; Pope calls for Closer Bonds with East; Accusations; Adelphopoiia in New Jersey =========================================================== [begin page 2] A X I O S ------------------------ \ _|_ / \ __|__ / \ | / \ \| / \ |\ / \/ Eastern & Orthodox Christian Gay Men & Women The Axios Newsletter is published every two months by Axios USA, Inc., a nonprofit organization of Eastern and Orthodox Christian Lesbians and Gays founded 1980 in Los Angeles, CA. The New York and other chapters were then founded on the same principles. This year our New York chapter newsletter enters its 12th year of publication. Submissions are most welcome and encouraged; for example, articles on theology, Orthodox spirituality, lives of saints, homosexuality and the Church, as well as news of relevance to the Eastern and Orthodox gay and lesbian community. Please send also your letters, comments and suggestions, so that we may better serve our membership. Material submitted for publication should be in plain text (ASCII), WordPerfect, or Windows Write format; also Macintosh text or "Stuffit" files (if by modem, disk, or e-mail), or clearly typed (if faxed or mailed); please call ahead before sending via fax or modem. Axios meets in New York on the second Friday of each month at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, 208 West 13th Street (near Seventh Avenue), in Manhattan, at 8 p.m. Meetings begin with a Vespers service, followed by the particular program or topic for that month’s meeting. The next meeting will be September 8, 1995; president Nick Zymaris will speak on gay marriage, and how the approach to this topic has changed in light of the situation in Hawaii, and the publication last year of the late John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. Special events are also scheduled from time to time. Dues for Axios are still $18 per year, which includes a subscription to this newsletter, and voting privileges in our elections. Please make checks payable to: Axios. Literature is available on a variety of topics, by mail or electronically. Updated information on chapters, current events, and other information of interest is also posted on the Axios Message Board on America Online (keyword: GLCF, select GLCF Message Boards, GLCF Discussion Boards, List Categories, Spirituality, and then Axios). Our mailing address is: Axios P.O. Box 990, Village Station New York, NY 10014-0704 Telephones: (718) 805-1952 (voice/fax/modem) (212) 989-6211 (voice) (718) 463-2901 (voice) E-mail: AxiosUSA@aol.com URLs: http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/orgs/axios http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/eastern.orthodox ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/ba/battweb/axios/axios.html 2 Transformation by John A. Bonnage, M.Div., Ph.D. It's 1995. We are at the end of the 20th century and rapidly approaching the 21st, and still -- despite two thousand years of evangelizing and missionizing -- the mandate of Christ does not seem to be widely practiced. And here is the essence of the message, the teaching of Christ: "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind and your whole strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself." Although we ourselves have heard this excerpt from the gospel time and again, still, it does not seem to reach even our baptized souls with the message of continual meta'noia (transformation) that Christ mandates. Our Eastern Churches expend a great deat of energy fretting about canonicity: who is in communion with whom; who has changed the immutable formulas of liturgy and sacraments; who allows whom to marry whom; who talks to whom; who maintains the pure "unbroken" link with apostolic times; who engages in ecumenical dialogues that can "dilute" the depository of the faith; who maintains the use of the ancient liturgical languages; who accepts what ecumenical council of the Church; whose priests are true priests; and who pays dues to maintain affiliation with the Church. It is no wonder that major contemporary issues that confront late 20th-century Christians are seen as subordinated to these more "urgent" canonical issues. A recent contributor to the "Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue" bulletin board on the Internet raised precisely these issues of what Christianity means in the lives of the canonical Churches. The writer expressed concern that while the officials, leaders and communications professionals of the communities concern themselves with the more traditional inter-ethnic, inter-jurisdictional issues, the spiritual lives of the baptized can languish, sicken and die due to neglect. This is a serious challenge. For baptized Christians, the realities of contemporary daily life force those who are alive and living (not merely existing) to grapple with a multitude of issues. These issues consist not only of the traditionally ecclesiastical issues like canonicity and sacraments, but also other broader and more personal issues that are considered irrelevant or, in some cases, non-existent to the leaderships and guardians of our various ecclesiastical communities. Our communities are seen as inviolable, unchanging and unchangeable bastions of religious orthodoxy and ethnic purity. If you marry outside the "group" -- you're out. If you leave the "true faith" -- you're out. If you're not integrated into your family, you're out. If you're "out," you're out. Other issues, such as poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, unemployment, clinical depression, loneliness, non-traditional relationships and AlDS are often swept under the rug as "nonexistent" in our respective ethnic groups. In a conspiracy of silence, these problems are most often not addressed. And in the few isolated cases where these issues are addressed, they are addressed primarily as a problem related to the individual's membership in the ecclesiastical and ethnic community, but often not as problems of the individual person who is an active member of general society. In this "in-house" approach, any personal issues or problems that are addressed and "dealt with," are solved by admonishing and encouraging an individual to transform themselves to conform to the traditional patterns that exist within the ethnic or ecclesiastical communities. This is indeed a transformation, but it is static transformation; it requires the individual to conform to an established, church or ethnic sanctioned structure. This type of metanoia/transformation is geared towards having the individual transform himself/herself to the pattern or model that the community has deemed appropriate -- or in the worst case scenario -- to the pattern that a individual "leader" or the "leadership" of a community has determined to be correct. This type of community-sanctioned meta'noia is quite different from the one that Christ preached. Christ's teaching tells us to love God and to love our neighbors: all of them, regardless of ethnic or ecclesiastical jurisdiction or personal circumstances. And our ongoing efforts at self-transformation are not intended to make us conform to what others say we should do, but rather to conform to what true love tells us to do. Although he is not a biggie among the theologians of the Churches of the East, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, provides an interesting perspective on how we can interpret Christ's mandate to love. He wrote: "Ama! Et fac quod vis." which is freely translated as: "Love! And then do what your heart tells you to do!" In this aphorism, Augustine advises us to use our heads in living our lives: be in love with the person and then rely upon your best judgment to make decisions about what to do. One theological reality that is often overlooked is the fact that Christianity is an adult religion: it requires us to behave like adults -- adults who examine and consider an issue and then make decisions. Christ's mandate to love both God and our neighbor requires the believer to actually THINK and subsequently make decisions about how to live his/her life based upon the reality of the obligation to love. Christianity is not merely a shopping list of behavioral obligations: do this; do that; do this on X day; do that on Y day. This "shopping-list-of-obligations" type of Christianity is the type of formulaic religion that Christ Himself condemned. In a plethora of examples, Christ condemned those who were more concerned with the letter of the law than with the spirit (Spirit?) behind it. From a more theological perspective, one could truly ask why Christ promised us the Holy Spirit (the parakletos -- literally, "companion," figuratively: the "sidekick") who is to remain with us until the end times? Is this "paraclete" not given to us to guide us (-->) [End of page 3] in our decisions about how to love God and our neighbor? If the guidelines and rules for living our daily lives are already firmly established (as some would have us believe), and the problems are already "answered" by conforming to traditions, then why bother dealing with a Holy Spirit [Paraclete] at all? Why bother praying for guidance? Just look up the answer in the scriptures or in the "holy traditions"? It is clear, or at least it should be, that those who rely only upon the "established truth" of ethnic/ecclesiastical "authority" are ultimately in danger of abdicating responsibility for their own lives by distancing themselves from access to the ever-present grace of the Holy Spirit available through prayer. [Lest some Bishop put out a contract on me, please note that I use the term "authority" in the technical theological sense of an impersonal "perennial and reliable source", i.e., a collective understanding of what the community has believed. lt's not a reference to the personages of the hierarchy.] Baptized Christians, through their prayer lives, are individually motivated by the graces given by the Holy Spirit. These prayer-induced graces are the expression of God's will for that individual. The collective body of all these individual and ever-ongoing graces constitute our traditions; these, collectively, are the "authority" that guides us. The upshot of all this is distilled to two main points: 1. Do not abdicate responsibility for yourself or for your soul to any person, custom, tradition or group. You alone have responsibility for the care and nurture of your soul. It is extremely valuable because God gave it to you; Christ redeemed it for you by His death upon on the cross, and its care is your responsibility. 2. Make time for prayer. Christ promised us the Holy Spirit to accompany us through life. ("I will not leave you as orphans."] He delivered on His promise on Pentecost Day and it is our responsibility, singly and collectively, to recognize the reality of this gift. We make use of this gift when we take the time to pray. As Christ explained, we each are to "go into your chamber and pray to the Father in secret...." And when we ask guidance and grace from God, these will come to us through the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. We need only ask -- in personal prayer. It's true because Christ promised. And His word is eternally true. And so: free your soul, your spirit, from the structures and formulas that are going on around you and assume responsibility for your own life. And no matter what you do, no matter how busy you are: pray! Set aside a period of time to sit quietly before God, and say: Lord, I'm here. Speak to me. And God will come to you through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Letters Liked news, hated Centurion article Dear Brethren: Enclosed please find a check in the amount of $25 as dues for this year. Please keep me on the newsletter mailing list since I really enjoy receiving and reading it. Let me say, the Chapter News column is wonderful. The "newsnotes" section is excellent since it keeps us informed about what is going on in the different communities....Some of the materials that have been included in the past issues have been very enlightening, although, I must admit, some have been really less than edifying and less than useful (The most recent article on the centurion's servant is bad scholarship and theologically stupid). ...Articles that obsess about the difficulties of being a gay/lesbian Christian, or that try to find "validation" in the scriptures or holy tradition, are not really helpful in that they portray gay/lesbian Orthodox/Eastern Christians as unsure either of their commitment to the faith or of their gay/lesbian personhood. In either case, that's not really affirming, either for the membership or for those outside who are looking in. If outsiders read flaky articles about scriptural personages who are interpreted as being closetedly gay, or if they read about some bizarre feature of gay/lesbian life that is not really characteristic of the majority of the community, then AXlOS might become more of an impediment to a life of Christian love and mutual acceptance than a bridge of understanding and mutual respect. As a Greek-American, I get just a teensy bit irate about people using Greek pseudonyms to cover their identity when they are unwilling to be published under their own names. I can fully understand why some people might want to conceal their identities in a publication, but for heaven's sake, don't make fun of other people's "funny sounding" names.... John A. Bonnage Falls Church, VA [Ed. note: Thank you for your dues and article submissions. The Centurion article stated that it was speculation on the possibility of a relationship between the Centurion and his servant, and did not claim to be a definitive study. It also showed the importance of the passage, and interpretations thereof, to someone coming out. While those who have been out of the closet for years may find little use for such material, they can be crucial for those less out. And one person's attempt at "validation" is another's refutation of bigoted (-->) [End of page 4] misinterpretations of scripture. I would think that with the pervasiveness of both internalized homophobia among gay people, and general prejudice and ignorance in society and the Church, it is necessary to present a truly Christian exegesis of Scripture and Holy Tradition. Even something "elementary" like the meaning of words like arsenokoitai and malakoi (I Cor. 6:9, I Tim. 1:10) must be discussed repeatedly, since many closeted people are alienated from the Church or made despondent by fundamentalist-style misinterpretations of these words. Speculation like that in the article also has its place. And it is also important to note the positive references to homosexuality, rather than merely refute "clobber passages." Consider, also, that this newsletter reaches clergy and others who counsel closeted individuals, but may not know how to respond when someone tells him or her "But the whole Bible says it's wrong and disgusting, and there is no place in the Church for me." With regard to the article being "flaky" and exhibiting a "bizarre feature of gay/lesbian life that is not really characteristic of the majority of the community," I really don't see how you came to such a conclusion. People nowadays, gay or straight, obviously do not have slaves, and slavery is illegal in the world, though violations of this certainly occur with, e.g., prisoners of war. But this is irrelevant, since the article was dealing with the practice in New Testament times, when slavery was common, and condoned. It was not "bizarre" or a "minority" practice; though it was certainly wrong (like many aspects of the Roman Empire which later martyred so many saints). The point of the article was not to condone slavery, or taking advantage of someone in servitude, but rather to show that there may have been a love between the Centurion and his pais, which would show a transcending of the usual sordid aspects of slavery, not a condoning of it. This transcending is valuable for all (not just gay people), and is not some narrow and limited attempt to say, "See! He does it, so it must be OK." Incidental to this, it also shows that neither our Lord nor the Evangelists seemed to be concerned with disclaimers over the possibility (whether true or not) of homosexuality. This is important in today's environment where some Orthodox clergy will support anti-gay laws (and church policies) and justify this by ridiculous generalizations and self-serving interpretations of documents. Mr. Pasisozis, at least, says that the relationship is suggested, not definitively proved, and says "I do not claim to be a skilled exegete." Would that certain authors of "Orthodox" books be that humble when they write about homosexuality! Regarding the pseudonym, though it was strongly discouraged, he did insist; and in any case means no offense by it; it simply means "of Emerald City and all Oz," a familiar campy reference. I agree that his statement that "it would be much easier just to be an outlaw" is hardly a very affirming thing to say, and in fact cringed a bit there, but nevertheless did not feel that censoring it was justified, since this indicates the context -- as a gay man just coming out, he would find it much easier to stay in the closet and believe the myth that the Orthodox Church has no place for him as a gay man, but he is compelled to feel and act otherwise; perhaps this will lead other closeted individuals to feel and act likewise. He is not saying that we are outlaws by being gay.] [Comment by Pasisozis: Mr. Pasisozis is now totally out, but prefers that his contributions to Axios continue to be presented under his pen name. He feels that what he has to say is more important that who he is. And his moniker, the Bishop of Oz, was bestowed on him by a priest who was totally ignorant of the struggles he was undergoing at the time. Mr. Pasisozis adopted it as a pen name, totally unaware of its Dorothean implications. Lately, it has become his e-mail address and screen name....] Thanks from Queens Lesbian & Gay Pride Committee (QLGPC) Dear Friends, The hectic activities of Pride month are now behind us. We can finally catch our breath and get back into our daily routines. But before we settle into an "Absolutely Fabulous" summer, we must give credit where credit is due. The QLGPC would like to thank you for your participation in our third annual Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival. Your involvement made this year our most successful yet! And while I have your attention, let's fast forward to 1996. Keep the following dates in mind: Saturday, February l0, for our third annual WinterPride Dinner Dance and Sunday, June 2, for the fourth annual Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us. We want to hear from you! Thank you again for making our parade and festival such a great event! Have a safe and happy summer and we'll see you in '96! Stanley M. Reed, March Committee Co-Chair Flushing, NY 5 Biblical Verses Are Used as Crutches to Prop Up Old Biases by Deb Price An engineering professor is treating her husband, a loan officer, to dinner for finally giving in to her pleas to shave off the scraggly beard he grew on vacation. His favorite restaurant is a casual place where they both feel comfortable in slacks and cotton/polyester blend golf shirts. But, as always, she wears the gold and pearl pendant he gave her the day her divorce decree was final. They're laughing over their menus because they know he always ends up diving into a giant plate of ribs but she won't be talked into anything more fattening than shrimp. Quiz: How many biblical prohibitions are they violating? Well, wives are supposed to be "submissive" to their husbands (I Peter 3:1). And all women are forbidden to teach men (I Timothy 2:12), wear gold or pearls (I Timothy 2:9) or dress in clothing that "pertains to a man" (Deuteronomy 22:5). Shellfish and pork are definitely out (Leviticus 11:7,10) as are usury (Deuteronomy 23:19), shaving (Leviticus 19:27) and clothes of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19). And since the Bible rarely recognizes divorce, they're committing adultery, which carries the rather harsh penalty of death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:22). So why are they having such a good time? Probably because they wouldn't think of worrying about rules that seem absurd, anachronistic or -- at best -- unrealistic. Yet this same modern-day couple could easily be among the millions of Americans who never hesitate to lean on the Bible to justify their own anti-gay attitudes. Bible verses have long been used selectively to support many kinds of discrimination. Somewhere along the way, Jesus' second-greatest commandment gets lost: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Once a given form of prejudice falls out of favor with society, so do the verses that had seemed to condone it. It's unimaginable today, for example, that anyone would use the Bible to try to justify slavery. Yet when the abolitionist movement began to gain momentum in the early 19th century, many southern ministers defended the owning of human beings as a divinely approved system: "Slaves, obey in everthing those who are your earthly masters..." (Colossians 3:22). In an influential anti-abolitionist essay, South Carolina Baptist leader Richard Furman declared in 1822 that "the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures." Meanwhile, anti-slavery crusaders were taking an interpretative approach to the Bible since a literal reading "gave little or no support to an abolitionist position," author Carl Degler says in Place Over Time: The Continuity of Southern Distinctiveness. Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, a Virginia court defended racial segregation by saying, "The Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents....he did not intend for the races to mix." The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that ridiculous reasoning in 1967 when it struck down laws in 16 states forbidding interracial marriage. Like advocates of racial equality, suffragists found the literal reading of the Bible was their biggest stumbling block. Many ministers even condemned using anesthesia during labor because pain in childbirth was punishment for Eve's bite of forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:16). Susan B. Anthony eventually declared in frustration: "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." Studying the Bible is often akin to looking at Rorschach ink blots, says biblical scholar Joe Edward Barnhart, author of The Southern Baptist Holy War. "What we get out of it is sometimes what we put into it," he explains. The punishment the Bible metes out to all men for Adam's downfall is toiling "in the sweat of your face" (Genesis 3:19). Yet, Barnhart notes with a laugh, there's one bit of progress never denounced by preachers hot under the clerical collar: air conditioning. [Deb Price, who writes this weekly gay issues column for Gannett and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, is the co-author of the newly released And Say Hi to Joyce: America's First Gay Column Comes Out (Doubleday). ] Chapter News Boston: This recently-formed chapter is doing well and has many members. Its coordinator, Chris, marched with Axios New York in the New York Pride march in June. Their phone number has changed, and they now have e-mail. Contact information: AXIOS - Boston, P.O. Box 380739, Cambridge, MA 02238; phone: (617) 648-5737 or (617) 569-4364; e-mail: Jim_Dupre@hchp.org (preferred) or JimDupre@aol.com Las Vegas: A new chapter has formed and will begin meeting on September 3. Meetings will be on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sundays of each month at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of Southern Nevada, 912 East Sahara Av., behind Bertha's Furniture, Las Vegas, NV, at 3 p.m. The community center's number is 702-733-9800. To contact the chapter, call Axios - L.V. at (702) 382-1112, or write to: Axios - Las Vegas, 1120 Almond Tree La., Suite 207, Las Vegas, NV 89104. Fax: (702) 366-1609. E-mail address to be supplied. (The chapter shares facilities with the Lighthouse AIDS Ministry; all mail, faxes, and phone messages should be "c/o Lighthouse," e.g. on the fax cover sheet). Other News Forest Fire Raging Near Athens Gradually Brought Under Control By Costas Paris Athens, Greece, July 23-25 (Reuter): A huge forest fire which has raged through the outskirts of Athens for the last three days, gutting homes and destroying woodland has been brought largely under control, the fire brigade said on Sunday. "The blaze is under partial control but many units remain in the area to make sure the wind does not fan any new fronts," Panayotis Liotos, a fire department spokesman told Reuters. "We believe we will fully control it very soon." Agriculture ministry general secretary Yannis Sbokos said: "We are very close to finish[ing]. The fire will be soon extinguished." As gale winds eased, Greek, French and (-->) [End of page 6] Italian planes bombarded the blaze with tons of water. Five helicopters from Germany were due to join the fight later in the day after the government asked for urgent help from European Union partners. The region northeast of the city, where thousands have been evacuated, has been declared a disaster area. Military units were drafted to help firemen and residents fight flames driving through thick pine forest. "Of course they will bring it under control because there is nothing else left to burn," said Angeliki Kipriotaki, whose house was destroyed on Saturday in the Drafi area. "The fire engines came in hours late when everything was already finished." Agriculture minister George Moraitis said at least 10,000 acres (4000 hectares) of forest had been destroyed along with 30 houses and other buildings. Residents said a minimum of 80 houses had been gutted. "It is a biblical, disastrous fire with a 20 kms (12-miles) front and the weather is against us." Premier Andreas Papandreou said on Saturday. "It has been 50 years since we had something like this in the Athens area." Thousands of people were evacuated from houses, hospitals and summer camps and police reported 20 people injured, none seriously. They said the intensity of the fire had eased on Sunday with only one small front still going. Thousands of firemen and local residents fought throughout the night against the fire. Gale-force winds and smoke kept water-dropping aircraft grounded for much of Saturday and fire engines could not reach many rugged areas. The blaze started early on Friday near Mount Penteli overlooking Athens which is dotted with luxurious villas, summer homes and children's summer camps. Authorities suspect arson. Officials said the environmental damage is immense as Penteli was the one of two remaining green areas in the greater Athens area. Residents used garden hoses and shovels to fight flames approaching their homes. Children cried and screamed and old women prayed for mercy. Police said another fire erupted on Saturday near the port city of Patras west of Athens forcing the evacuation of a village and a summer camp. (The fire was brought under control on Monday, July 25, but the 10,000 acres of damaged pine and fir forests make Athens even more vulnerable to severe flooding during autumn and winter rains. The forests are already affected by heavy development. In addition, the forests had a mitigating effect on Athens' serious air-pollution problem. Nikos Hlikas, a foresty expert, told the newspaper Ethnos that "Their destruction will surely have an impact and it will take 20 to 40 years to get them back." Authorities suspect that arsonists set the fire to make way for further development, but the government vowed to replant the burned area and demolish any illegal construction. Athens is one of Europe's most polluted cities, largely due to heavy automobile traffic. [Unleaded gasoline was still a novelty into the early 1990's]. The government has taken measures to limit car traffic to reduce smog and pedestrian deaths. In the summer of 1988, hundreds of people died as a result of heavy air pollution during a heat wave). Pope Appeals for Closer Bonds with Eastern Churches By Brian Murphy Vatican City, May 2 (AP): Bemoaning the "sins of the past," Pope John Paul II urged Roman Catholics to find more common ground with Christians in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The letter, addressed to Catholic clergy and followers, advances the pope's quest for closer bonds with Orthodox and Eastern-Rite Catholic churches by the year 2000. He called the break a "cause of scandal to the world" and stated that "These sins of the past unfortunately will burden us and remain ever present. It is necessary to make amends." The pope appealed to Catholics to broaden their knowledge and respect of the Eastern churches, which he called "an integral part" of Christianity. The 54-page document does not attempt to pull the Eastern churches under the authority of the Vatican. Its aim is to try to wipe away centuries of "mutual ignorance and prejudice" and bring the faiths on the road to possible unification. However, the pope chose not to deal with ways to overcome some fundamental differences, including papal control and celibacy in the priesthood. He did meet with the president of the Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, and discussed the return of some church property. The pope wrote that Roman Catholics must "embrace all the Eastern churches in the variety of their different traditions ... there can be no second thoughts about pursuing the path of unity." Last year, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I took part in the pope's Good Friday procession at the Colosseum. In June of this year, the pope plans to issue an encyclical on strengthening bonds among all religions. (This article is a slightly-edited version of that which appeared in the June, 1995 issue of The Religious Observer, p. 17). Human rights violations in Romania Serious human rights violations persist in Romania despite the overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in December of 1989, according to Amnesty International (AI). AI issued a report in May 1995 which condemned Romania for restrictions on free expression, imprisonment solely for homosexuality, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, and a pattern of police failure to protect Gypsies from racist violence. 7 Accusations from OCA clergy New York At the recent All-American convention of the OCA, four clergy anonymously informed a New York priest that a member of Axios in Michigan was misrepresenting his and his cathedral's views in public Internet postings. This priest then sent e-mail to the Michigan member, accusing him of these things, and called homosexuality a "sinful inclination," which he and his cathedral "do[es] not endorse." He said, "Yes, all are welcome to worship at our church, just as Christ calls all mankind unto Himself," but continued with "However, the proper response to His call is repentence [sic] -- changing our minds and re-orientation of life." Axios was also criticized for using the name "Axios," which means "worthy." He stated that these accusations were by four anonymous priests, one of whom was later identified as Fr. Basil Rhodes of San Jose, CA. None of them has substantiated their accusations or otherwise come forward. The situation is quite strange, and apparently unprecedented at this cathedral. Needless to say, it would be easy enough for any of these clergy to verify that no such postings were ever made by Axios or any member of Axios; our message board on America Online, which is accessible to all persons on that service, including the bearer of the accusations, do not contain any misrepresentations as were alleged. He later apologized to the member whom he accused, saying "the whole thing stinks." The incident is surprising since the priest who relayed the accusations is an honorable priest who would not normally be prone to making groundless accusations, nor to persecution. [Ed. note: Regarding the use of our name, Axios as an organization began in 1980, but before that there was a newsletter put out by gay Orthodox clergy in Pennsylvania. The use of this term has never implied that we are worthy before God because we are gay, which is what the the priest seemed to imply, without ever mentioning the word "gay." Indeed, we are all unworthy, but "Christ makes us worthy", as the priest then says. The typical antigay view, however, basically says, "Yes, we're all theoretically unworthy, but we are (or claim to be) celibate or heterosexually married, unlike those sinners who dare to call themselves Orthodox and gay". This view says that one is made worthy by one's real or apparent heterosexuality or asexuality, which is also not a very Christian concept. Gays are just as worthy, and just as unworthy, as anyone else; this is the meaning of "Axios" as used by us. Why is it that no one feels it is improper when "Axios!" is used not only in ordinations but in appointment of parish council and similar lay members (as is customary in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North & South America); the term "Axia!" has even been used for female appointees at St. Paraskevi (a Greek Orthodox Archdiocese church in Suffolk County, NY), and doubtless also elsewhere, but when homosexuals use it we are accused of being steeped in prelest (spiritual deception)? Could it be because of an un-Orthodox prejudice, postulating that homosexuals are specially unworthy by virtue of that prejudice? That everyone is sinful, but only gays have "sinful inclinations" which require a disclaimer such as "We do not endorse anyone's sinful inclinations..."? The same applies to the notion that repentance is the "solution" to homosexuality. Anyone familiar with the so-called "ex-gay" ministries knows that they are fraudulent, and do not change sexual orientation despite years of torture, spiritual and otherwise, including forced psychiatric measures such as electroshock therapy and cultlike "deprogramming" techniques. All people need to repent, but what we must repent of is our sins and shortcomings, and the result of our fallen nature. Homosexuality, like heterosexuality and bisexuality, aside from being an innate part of us not amenable to change, is at root, a capacity to love a particular gender, and since "God is love," can not ever be intrinsically evil or connected with the Fall as Augustine and Pope John Paul II, among others, falsely claim. Those who persist in such claims are invited to search our Holy Tradition, especially lives of Saints, where one does not find a single instance of "deliverance" from any sexual orientation, though one does find gay saints whose orientation does not seem to bother anyone (though they were martyred for their faith in Christ)]. New Jersey In other OCA news, an OCA priest in Bergen County, NJ (Fr. John) will be marrying his lover by the rite of adelphopoiia on September 3, using the text of Jacobus Goar. He says that six months after he was ordained, his bishop decided to deny that he had ever been ordained, on account of his being gay. The intent is apparently to prevent him from serving in any other jurisdiction, since he does not have a letter from his bishop proving that he is an Orthodox priest. He also says that he was told privately to go to Axios, though it would then be necessary for the OCA to publicly condemn him for doing so. [Ed. note: Image taking precedence over Christlike behavior? We welcome further commentary and information about this incident from anyone familiar with it. The bishop in question, like the priest in the previous article, is also known as a humble and honorable person who one would not expect to resort to such tactics, but "church politics" are perhaps also influencing this situation]. 8