Orthodox Tradition and LGBT Inclusion Evidence from Early Russian History

When it comes to Orthodox tradition and LGBT inclusion, there is often a gulf between contemporary rhetoric, which tends to categorize sexual sin in absolute terms, and historical sources, which are often more ambiguous and open to interpretation.

One of the most influential texts addressing LGBT inclusion is late theologian Thomas Hopko’s 2006 book Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections. Mainstream scholars still praise Hopko for setting out a pastoral strategy rooted firmly in Orthodox tradition. And yet, while the book ostensibly advocates compassion, it also claims that same-sex intercourse is a “betrayal of the love God wills for His people” and that the “increase” in same-sex attraction is part of a resurgence in “confused and deformed desires”. Ultimately, it even proposes that the “first concrete goal of counselling with people having same-sex attractions […] is to persuade the counselee to stop his or her sinful behavior.”

Such language and approaches are far from inclusive, yet Hopko argued they were rooted in what he called the “traditional Orthodox Christian view.” He maintained that “Scriptures and saints universally testify that when the attraction between persons of the same sex is godly, genital sexual activity is precluded.” At other points he even suggested that certain conclusions were rooted in the “whole testimony of Church Tradition.” Hopko’s book continues to garner praise for its supposed objectivity, but can it really reflect Orthodox tradition in its entirety?

As a historian of Russian Orthodoxy, I am often struck by the tension between what clergy say about LGBT people on the one hand—“confused”, “deformed”, “sinful”—and the historical evidence they use to support it on the other. Like Hopko, many Russian theologians stigmatize LGBT folk through reference to “tradition”. For example, authors of the Russian Orthodox Encyclopedia have described same-sex marriage as an abomination partly because it supposedly contradicts old church regulations against sodomy. Yet when one turns to historical regulations, one finds that words for sodomy had little to do with same-sex intercourse. For example, the 1551 Russian Church Council categorized a whole host of sins as sodomy, from adultery and masturbation to bestiality, but nowhere did it make straightforward reference to same-sex sexuality. Some Russian penitentials categorized anal sex as sodomy, but seldom in gender-specific ways, with one representative 15^th-century text warning male readers that “if you committed sodomitic sin in your own passageway, in somebody else’s, or you gave your wife over to another, then penances should be issued.” How compelling is such evidence as an argument against same-sex marriage, and how objectively is it being invoked?

Early sodomy regulations are one of several topics I explore in my recent book Queerness in the Early Modern Russian Orthodox Church. One of the book’s main arguments is that reconstructions of Orthodox tradition tend to be subjective, reflecting not a “whole testimony of Church Tradition” as Hopko claims, but rather the sources an author chooses to prioritize and how he or she chooses to interpret them.

Whatever the rationale for these choices, LGBT believers live with their consequences. Take the case of spiritual brotherhood ceremonies, which the Russian Orthodox Church performed until the mid-17^th century. These rites joined two unrelated men in unions of “chastity and sincere love.” Scholars like John Boswell and Stephen Morris have proposed they can be understood as a same-sex equivalent to marriage and could be reinstated to achieve a traditional Orthodox form of marriage equality. In response, some Russian theologians have claimed spiritual brotherhoods had nothing to do with either homosexuality or marriage and “implied no form of sexual contact.” Once again, the evidence such theologians invoke is old church regulations against sodomy, which do not paint a straightforward picture of same-sex sexuality as sinful. They cite no historical sources relating to the rites themselves, such as the 1646 ban of spiritual brotherhoods in Kyiv (republished in Moscow in 1650), which stated that when two men are united by such rites, “matrimony will be between them.”

Depending on the evidence one chooses to prioritize and how one chooses to read it, different pictures take shape and different real-life possibilities emerge. Reading sodomy erroneously as a historical synonym for homosexuality while ignoring historical accounts of spiritual brotherhoods forecloses more inclusive lived realities for LGBT Christians. And rhetorically, choosing to use terms like “deformed” and “abomination,” however supposedly objective their authors may believe them to be, perpetuates stigma and exclusion.

If we are being objective, Orthodox tradition is not static or fixed, but evolving and, within certain parameters, flexible. Russian Orthodox history testifies to tradition as an ongoing process of renewal. The fact that rites of spiritual brotherhood, practiced since the 11^th century, were abruptly removed from liturgical books around 1646, points to the malleability of tradition. It is also worth pointing out that, in the centuries leading up to their ban, these rites were rewritten at least six times, with some redactions varying in length by around 90%. Their purpose and the language used to describe them differed substantially across the different versions. Hagiographies referencing spiritual brotherhood were rewritten over time as well. An early, 16^th-century version of the Life of Zosima and Savvatii of Solovki, for example, referenced spiritual brotherhoods when describing the foundation of Russia’s Solovetsky Monastery, but later versions omitted those references. This text is but one example of how the lives of saints have been reconceived over time. In Russia, numerous hagiographies have been literally rewritten over the course of centuries, often in ways that have fundamentally altered why certain people and relationships are deemed holy.

In short, the history of Russian Orthodoxy calls into question essentialist reconstructions of tradition that draw clear-cut, stigmatizing lines between the holy and the abominable.

And so, while some may commend Hopko’s approach for its faithfulness to Orthodox tradition, I would argue it is deeply subjective. And as a gay man once subjected to the counselling of compassionate Christians, I can say with confidence that trying to persuade LGBT Christians to abandon supposedly sinful behaviors while claiming to be compassionate inflicts profound and enduring harm. This is, of course, my subjective experience, but maybe what Orthodox conversations about LGBT inclusion need is greater transparency about what is objective and what is subjective in the interpretation of tradition.