The Ukrainian Society E-Board in consultation with the OCF President have chosen four major topics for presentation and discussion:

• How the Russian Orthodox Church implements and propagates its relationship with the Russian state and Russian imperialism
• Relationship and connection of the Russian Orthodox laity to Moscow Patriarchate messaging and policy regarding the war in Ukraine
• Identity construction of (1) Ukrainian Orthodoxy and (2) the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) before, during, and after 2019 Tomos
• Your experience within the Moscow Patriarchate in advancing or criticizing official church messaging on Russian Church-State relations, canonical status in Ukraine, Russkiy Mir.

As Orthodox Christians, we are called, first and foremost, to love all—for “God is love.” But the reality for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Orthodox Christians today is that their relationship to the Church is defined not by love, but by apathy, exclusion, and condemnation. We must, as a faith, choose love and compassion—to “love thy neighbor”— instead. This requires no change of faith, but a fuller, more compassionate understanding of what our faith in loving God truly requires of us.

The Church is at a crossroads. We offer this symposium in love and faith, praying that the road we choose is the right one—the one that leads to God. 

We invite you to a conversation about ministering to LGBTQ+ Christians. The afternoon includes a panel review of the recently-published books Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality and Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy: Beyond Male and Female and a discussion of the opportunities, challenges, and resources for ministry among LGBTQ+ faithful.

Schedule

Until recently, it was possible to describe Orthodoxy as “unity in plurality.” Although Orthodoxy consisted of over a dozen local churches with a wide variety of local practices and without an overarching structure, body, or person, it was still possible to say that Orthodoxy was a relatively well-functioning church—indeed, one Church.

In the last decades, and especially the last decade, however, profound fissures have undermined that unity. The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in Crete, the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine—all have exposed deeper fault lines in World Orthodoxy. These include issues of church and state (Symphonia), church and nation, how to achieve consensus, authority in the Church, how one approaches history, and the attitude to human rights and modernity in general. How can Orthodoxy face these challenges?

Major support for the 2023 Orthodoxy in America Lecture is provided by Christ and Anastasia Economos with additional support from the Nicholas J. and Anna K. Bouras Foundation, Inc., and the Henry Luce Foundation. 

The exhibition’s primary focus is Mariypol Iconostasis from the Icons on Ammo Boxes project by Sofia Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko, artists from Kyiv. This project would never have seen the light of day if war had not broken out in Ukraine in 2014. In the over one thousand-year history of iconography, a canon has taken shape that, among other things, assumes reliability, durability, and solidity. In other words, an icon must be written on a high-quality, properly dried, and adequately prepared board of correct form, without seams and especially without cracks…

At first glance, the icons of Sofia and Oleksandr are a provocation, a bold challenge to tradition. They break with the typical imagery of iconography, not to outrage, but to show that an icon that breaks with tradition can be convincing. Phoniness is not in the substance but in the eye of the beholder. It is precisely a perfect, richly decorated, and finely written icon that might look wrong at a time when a terrible war has violated the daily lives of millions of people. Those who are wounded, are refugees, and have lost their loved ones feel that all beauty has gone from their lives. In its place is horror, suffering, and grief. But even today, God Himself, His All-Holy Mother, and all the Saints are near. Icons on Ammo Boxes speak namely of this.

Hours of Operation: Monday–Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, closed weekends and holidays.

In collaboration with InterArt Gallery, NY