In recent interview Abp. Elpidophoros affirmed he will baptize children of gay couples again. He also compared hierarchs of the Greek Church who openly protested the legalization of gay marriage in Greece with Nazis.
In May 2024 the outlet lifo.gr published an interview with Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America entitled, “Discriminating against people based on their love life isn’t Orthodoxy.”
In the interview, the Archbishop discusses the Baptism that he served in Greece in the summer of 2022, dubbed the Greek Church’s “first openly gay Baptism” by one of the gay fathers of the children who were baptized.
The event became an international scandal, and the Greek Holy Synod sent a letter of protest to Abp. Elpidophoros and a corresponding letter to Patriarch Bartholomew. The Archbishop was not accorded the usual greeting of a hierarch when he visited Mt. Athos in January of this year because of the public spectacle surrounding the “gay Baptism.”
Nevertheless, Abp. Elpidophoros affirms in the new interview that he would absolutely serve such a Baptism again.
He also compares the hierarchs of the Greek Church who openly protested the legalization of gay marriage in Greece with antisemites and
Abp. Elpidophoros also argues that because 70% of Orthodox marriages in America today are to non-Orthodox or even non-Christians, the Church can’t have an “exclusionary mentality.” He has openly stated in the past that because of the prevalence of these mixed marriages, the non-Orthodox spouses of Orthodox Christians should be allowed to receive Holy Communion in Orthodox churches.
Read the relevant portion of the Archbishop’s new interview:
—Is there room for modernization in the Church?
Abp. Elpidophoros: Over the years, the Church has changed and evolved. Clearly, what cannot be influenced are the principles of the faith. Everything else, however, can be modernized. Undoubtedly, some people get agitated even at the mention of the word “change.” I advocate that the practice of our religious duties cannot be threatened, just adapted. You change the way the truth of the Gospel is expressed. You put new wine into old wineskins, as our sacred texts mention. Confidence and courage are needed from the clergy so that in every era we can speak the language and communication codes of the time. Otherwise, we only manage to marginalize the Church and put ourselves out of community. Consider that today 70% of marriages in the United States are made with non-Orthodox and in many cases non-Christians. Therefore, if we adopt an exclusionary mentality, our flock will diminish each year. However, the Church has always embraced and will embrace all people. Everyone is accepted and welcome.
—You faced intense criticism for serving the first Baptism of a same-sex couple’s children in Greece. After everything that was written and said, do you have any regrets?
Abp. Elpidophoros: First, let’s clarify, because this was also misinterpreted, that we are talking about a Baptism ceremony, not a marriage. When the parents asked me to baptize their children, as I was obliged to do, I accepted with great joy. Besides, the Godparents were Orthodox and I had absolutely no reason to refuse. This novel and truly incredible criterion that some use, namely that we must discriminate against people based on their sexual life, is not Orthodoxy, it doesn’t even count as a humane attitude. We can’t elevate sexual behavior and someone’s love life as the sole criterion either to accept or reject them. These are unprecedented things and I would say that in Greece, they are a result of an imported Western Puritanism.
For example, they interpret the original sin as sexual. If you read Genesis, nowhere does it mention sex nor that the original sin was related to a “sexual” act. Essentially, it was nothing more than the rejection of God’s authority on moral issues, namely disobedience, i.e. a misuse of the freedom of choice. We don’t even know if it was an apple, if it was generally a fruit, because it doesn’t matter. The motive was selfishness and ambition, not sex or love. It was a Puritan fabrication and nothing else, aimed at incriminating sexual acts and romantic behavior, and on top of this guilt narrative, which has nothing to do with Christian teaching, some invested in order to control people, projecting an inherited punishment.
Thus, we reached, even in Greece, this extreme phenomenon, where the sexual behavior of a person becomes a criterion for any discrimination in professional, social, or political spheres, even within the Church. It is entirely un-Christian and never has Greek culture weighed any person according to their romantic behavior. We must condemn all forms of violence, verbal and physical, and denounce the hatred and prejudice based on each person’s differences.
—Did the criticism and what was written about your trip to Mount Athos and the possibility of a postponement because you would not be welcomed bother you?
Abp. Elpidophoros: Criticism makes us all better and it doesn’t bother me. What saddened me is that the facts were misrepresented, something that also reflects the real intention of the people who protested. What we eventually saw happen is a defamation campaign on the verge of yellow journalism. I repeat, all I did was baptize two little children. And it’s something I would do again, without any difficulty.
—On the occasion of the voting on the marriage equality bill, we heard incendiary statements from metropolitans like Nikolaos of Mesogaias, who in his lengthy report to the Synod characterized homosexuality as a deviation and mentioned that “our biggest mistake would be to accept that the homosexual act, apart from being a psychological disorder, is not also a sin.” How would you comment on that?
Abp. Elpidophoros: Look, I listen carefully to everyone who seeks my advice. However, I am neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist. Therefore, to come out publicly and stigmatize anyone, I must tell you, I consider it fascistic. And fascistic behaviors are based on blaming our fellow citizens for some reason. We have seen it historically happen, e.g., with the Nazis. It’s an extremely dangerous mentality, which manifests in various aspects. Look what’s happening with the rising trend of antisemitism. Therefore, is it possible for the Church to give the impression that it blesses or covers up or tolerates such behaviors with its silence?
This is a malignant disease, a carcinoma that will spread to other parts of the body. Today it may be Jews, tomorrow homosexuals, the day after tomorrow dark-haired, blond people, and at some point, fascism will knock on our door and we will feel the cold metal cutting our neck. Especially, the degree of antisemitism in a society shows how healthy it is. These are ideologies that bloodied Europe and the world and can have no relation to Christian theology, no matter how some try to dress their extreme ideological fantasies in a Christian cloak.
—There were also some metropolitans who argued that those who voted for the marriage equality bill should be banned from entering the churches. What did you think of this?
Abp. Elpidophoros: You see how the cancer I told you about progresses? Do you see that when something is left unchecked, it goes further? The abscess must be cut and we need to set a limit, because as a society, we’re very likely at risk. It’s clear, therefore, that fascist behaviors have no place in the Church.
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HT: Orthodox Christianity article. (Bolding of key words and phrases, and some minor content organizational changes made by blog editors to improve readability.)
Exposed: The Myth That Psychiatry Has Proven That Homosexual Behavior Is Normal
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM-II).
This decision was a significant victory for homosexual activists, and they have continued to claim that the APA based their decision on new scientific discoveries that proved that homosexual behavior is normal and should be affirmed in our culture. This is false and part of numerous homosexual urban legends that have infiltrated every aspect of our culture. The removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder has given homosexual activists credibility in the culture, and they have demanded that their sexual behavior be affirmed in society.
What Really Happened?
Numerous psychiatrists over the past decades have described what forces were really at work both inside and outside of the American Psychiatric Association and what led to the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Dr. Ronald Bayer, a pro-homosexual psychiatrist has described what actually occurred in his book, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis. (1981) In Chapter 4, “Diagnostic Politics: Homosexuality and the American Psychiatric Association,” Dr. Bayer says that the first attack by homosexual activists against the APA began in 1970 when this organization held its convention in San Francisco. Homosexual activists decided to disrupt the conference by interrupting speakers and shouting down and ridiculing psychiatrists who viewed homosexuality as a mental disorder.
In 1971, homosexual activist Frank Kameny worked with the Gay Liberation Front collective to demonstrate against the APA’s convention. At the 1971 conference, Kameny grabbed the microphone and yelled, “Psychiatry is the enemy incarnate. Psychiatry has waged a relentless war of extermination against us. You may take this as a declaration of war against you.”
Homosexuals forged APA credentials and gained access to exhibit areas in the conference. They threatened anyone who claimed that homosexuals needed to be cured. Kameny had found an ally inside of the APA named Kent Robinson who helped the homosexual activist present his demand that homosexuality be removed from the DSM.
At the 1972 convention, homosexual activists were permitted to set up a display booth, entitled “Gay, Proud and Healthy.” Kameny was then permitted to be part of a panel of psychiatrists who were to discuss homosexuality. The effort to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM was the result of power politics, threats, and
intimidation, not scientific discoveries.
Prior to the APA’s 1973 convention, several psychiatrists attempted to organize opposition to the efforts of homosexuals to remove homosexual behavior from the DSM. Organizing this effort were Drs. Irving Bieber and Charles Socarides who formed the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Deletion of Homosexuality from DSM-II.
The DSM-II listed homosexuality as an abnormal behavior under section “302. Sexual Deviations.” It was the first deviation listed. After much political pressure, a committee of the APA met behind closed doors in 1973 and voted to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM-II. Opponents of this effort were given 15 minutes to protest this change, according to Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, in Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Satinover writes that after this vote was taken, the decision was to be voted on by the entire APA membership. The National Gay Task Force purchased the APA’s mailing list and sent out a letter to the APA members urging them to vote to remove homosexuality as a disorder. No APA member was informed that the mailing had been funded by this homosexual activist group.
According to Satinover, “How much the 1973 APA decision was motivated by politics is only becoming clear even now. While attending a conference in England in 1994, I met a man who told me an account that he had told no one else. He had been in the gay life for years but had left the lifestyle. He recounted how after the 1973 APA decision, he and his lover, along with a certain very highly placed officer of the APA Board of Trustees and his lover, all sat around the officer’s apartment celebrating their victory. For among the gay activists placed high in the APA who maneuvered to ensure a victory was this man, suborning from the top what was presented to both the membership and the public as a disinterested search for truth.”
Dr. Socarides Speaks Out
Dr. Charles Socarides has set the record straight on how homosexuals inside and outside of the APA forced this organization to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder. This was done without any valid scientific evidence to prove that homosexuality is not a disordered behavior.
Dr. Socarides, writing in Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality writes: “To declare a condition a ‘non-condition,’ a group of practitioners had removed it from our list of serious psychosexual disorders. The action was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved an out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also a number of other serious studies by groups of psychiatrists,
psychologists, and educators over the past seventy years…”
Socarides continued: “For the next 18 years, the APA decision served as a Trojan horse, opening the gates to widespread psychological and social change in sexual customs and mores. The decision was to be used on numerous occasions for numerous purposes with the goal of normalizing homosexuality and elevating it to an esteemed status.
“To some American psychiatrists, this action remains a chilling reminder that if scientific principles are not fought for, they can be lost-a disillusioning warning that unless we make no exceptions to science, we are subject to the snares of political factionalism and the propagation of untruths to an unsuspecting and uninformed public, to the rest of the medical profession, and to the behavioral sciences.”
The Importance of the DSM
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is the most widely used diagnostic reference book utilized by mental health professionals in the United States.
It’s a manual by which all diagnostic codes are derived for diagnosis and treatment – every single physician (an estimated 850,000) in the United States refers to this book in order to code for a diagnosis. In plain English, what does this mean? It means that for over 30 years physicians have been prevented from properly diagnosing homosexuality as an aberrant behavior and thus, cannot, recommend a course of treatment for these
individuals.
Prior to that time, homosexuality had been treated as a mental disorder under section “302. Sexual Deviations” in the DSM-II. Section 302 said, in part: “This category is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts… performed under bizarre circumstances. …Even though many find their practices distasteful, they remain unable to substitute normal sexual behavior for them.” Homosexuality was listed as the first sexual deviation under 302. Once that diagnostic code for homosexuality was removed, physicians, including psychiatrists, have been prevented from diagnosing homosexuality as a mental disorder for more than three decades.
‘For this reason God gave them up to passions of dishonor. For both their females exchanged the natural use into that contrary to nature, and in like manner also the males left the natural use of the female, . . .’(Romans 1:26, 27)
All these passions then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; . . . But behold how here too, as in the case of the doctrines, he (St Paul) deprives them of excuse, by saying of the women, that they changed the natural use. For no one, he means, can say that it was by being hindered of legitimate intercourse that they came to this pass, or that it was from having no means to fulfill their desire that they were driven into this monstrous insaneness. For the changing implies possession. Which also when discoursing upon the doctrines he said, They changed the truth of God for a lie. And with regard to the men again, he shows the same thing by saying, Left the natural use of the female. . . . But when God has left one, then all things are turned upside down. And thus not only was their doctrine satanic, but their life too was diabolical. . . St. John Chrysostom