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A kitchen cabinet member sent me this:
If certain priests had withheld Chrism as often as some others withhold Communion, we wouldn’t be having this debate. In my estimation, on average, the character of those aspiring to the priesthood has declined over the last 40 years. Don’t panic. We have options. If you want a priest to commune an ordinary gay person, talk to his wife. There are powers-that-be that can make life very uncomfortable for certain priests; as we say, “Mатушка сказала” (“Matushka skazala”: Matushka said so). What if he’s unmarried? Then, call out the babas. It might be distressing for the hipsters to learn, but the repository for what’s normative in the church resides amongst women over 60. When I first came “out” and was still attending my church in the narthex, there were babushkas that would purposely come stand near me. One even smiled, once. Have we lost the sense of loyalty to each other that we’ve forgotten our ethos? Anyone with good manners, who spent a decent amount of time drinking tea with the babushkas, who thanked them for their cooking, who went to confession, and who showed up at Vigil never got a second look in Communion line, no matter how flaming/butch they were. Furthermore, if you’d visited them in hospital or taught their grandsons the Bible, you were golden.
Let’s be clear here. Lay homosexuals have NEVER been an important issue in the Church in the American diaspora, or in the homeland. The Church has been around for over two millennia, it knows a thing or two. There’s a key differentiation between lay gays and open clerical poofters. We leave the former alone; we don’t tolerate the latter. It’s why the MP Holy Synod deposed Bishop Nikon Mironov in Yekaterinburg in ’99… he was bloody-minded, but his theology was straight (after all, he burned ADS’ nasty Renovationist tomes in public). Yet, his homosexuality became open… so, the Synod shit-canned him and sent him off to the Pskovo-Pechersky Monastery (the abode of the late Elder Ioann Krestiankin of Happy Memory) to repent. After some years, they allowed him to live in retirement in Veshnyaki Raion in the eastern outskirts of the city of Moscow, where he’s the honorary rector of a parish (the Synod removed him as the ruling bishop of Yekaterinburg; they didn’t depose him). In 2008, Patriarch Aleksei Rediger gave him the Order of St Sergei of Radonezh, and, in 2010, His Holiness gave a panagia on the occasion of his 50th birthday. That’s what REAL Orthodox do with exposed clerical Sallies, if their theology’s straight. You’ll note that they didn’t put him under an anathema and throw him under the train as Fathausen and his minions do. He lost his clerical position, he had to go for a period of repentance, but that was all, so, he’s not only an Orthodox believer, but an Orthodox cleric (I do think that he’s under an order not to serve publicly, though), today. On the other hand, the Church deals with homosexuality in monastic houses harshly. However, even there, the worst that happens is that the miscreant’s laicised and sent away, we don’t throw them out of the Church. I asked a Russian priest of my acquaintance about the usual practise concerning lay homosexuals:
You know, Alekseyev {a prominent gay activist: editor} is a communing Orthodox believer. As long as they’re respectful, don’t disrupt services, and do what everybody else does, there’s no problem. The Church is against propaganda in favour of sexual minorities {“gays” in Russian usage: editor} amongst children, it’s against gay parades because they’re provocations, and it won’t bless homosexual unions, but it doesn’t bless hatred against sexual minorities, either. Homosexuality’s a sin… but so are greed and adultery, and we don’t expel adulterers and misers.
That’s why Moriak is chock fulla shit on Mark Stokoe. Mark wasn’t “in the closet”. Everyone knew of his “state”… Archbishop Job Osacky knew… Fr Ted Bobosh knew… hell, even I knew (and I don’t know everything). Moriak KNEW of Vladyki Job’s oikonomia, yet, one of his first actions was to piss on Mark to curry favour with Fathausen. Moriak also went against the “institutional culture” of the Diocese of the Midwest… that was unwise in the extreme. When you add in how Moriak set up his son in a comfy situation in the diocese (and the whispers about Moriak’s tastes in certain matters), it’s a recipe for a gigantic and malodorous Shit Sandwich, and Moriak had the brainlessness to force everybody to take a big bite (boy, what THAT ever STOOPID and hutsky-klootsky).
It’s simple… individual lay homosexuals aren’t harassed and attacked, although we do depose gay clerics like Gleb Podmoshensky… do recall how Fathausen, Freddie M-G, and Dreher all had guru-disciple ties with him after his deposition… it certainly puts a new “spin” on Fathausen’s loud fulminations against homosexuality, doesn’t it? Do bear in mind that closeted gay clerics (of all sorts, not merely Orthodox) are usually acridly and vehemently anti-gay in an attempt to draw attention away from themselves. If you want my plain blunt opinion, Podmoshensky’s a covert manipulator of Fathausen (along with Potapov), and, through Fathauen, manipulates the witless konvertsy… they’re all acridly anti-gay in public, yet, their real leader is as queer as a three-dollar bill. That’s why Fathausen has to go… his guru’s an unrepentant sodomite deposed by the ROCOR Holy Synod for good cause.
The REAL Church shows compassion to all… it doesn’t hold anyone up to public obloquy. Look at the Church’s real Christian forbearance and compare it to the abusive hatred spewed forth by the loud OCA konvertsy. Well… it looks like the konvertsy aren’t Orthodox in their heart-of-hearts, does it? Mark it well… the Church is the BIG TENT… that’s why they call it the Orthodox Church!
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Wednesday 25 January 2012
Albany NYPanagia,
