Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2).

Mr. John Maddex: Ancient Faith Radio presents Transformation, an in-depth look at same-sex attraction through the lens of Christ and his Church. I’m John Maddex, and I hope you’ll listen all the way through this series before drawing your conclusions. There is no doubt that you’ll hear some things you agree with and some things you don’t. Your perspective may change a bit after listening, or it may not. Whatever the case, we hope to show the love of Christ as reflected in real people, in real stories, in real pain, and in real transformation.

And don’t be fooled by that word. Some may assume that we are saying that transformation needs to happen in those who are same-sex attracted; in other words, the need to have these inclinations transformed and learn to change their predisposition through therapy or prayer. Others may assume that we’re using that word as a hint that what we are really trying to do is transform the historical teaching of the Church on same-sex marriage and sexual activity between members of the same sex. But the transformation we are addressing here is through the renewal of our minds, leading to a discovery of God’s will. Maybe we could call it a third way.

In this presentation, we’ll hear about the theology and canons of the Church, the oikonomia of pastoral care, the psychology of same-sex attraction, and the experience of real people with real facts about their lives, experience, and orientation. The transformation we are talking about is not artificial, it’s not directed to one group or people, it’s not political—but rather is a true heart transformation through mind renewal in Christ, seeing people as Christ sees them, surrendering the passions that war against our souls, whether that is a passion for the lust of the flesh or for lust of power. Walls have been built and sides taken, but sometimes they’re walls of confusion and misinformation; walls that have hurt men and women who have followed Christ and remain obedient to what the Church asks of us. And maybe there can be some light shed on this topic rather than heat. Perhaps we can set aside our fears and presuppositions for a moment and listen.

In this documentary, you’ll find people using different terms in describing themselves and others. Some use the term “gay,” while others prefer “same-sex attracted.” You’ll hear some use the word “queer” when referring to both gay and lesbian individuals or groups. But we try not to get too hung up on the terms, so that we can get to the heart of what they are trying to say.

So where do we start? What is the overriding theme of our approach? His Eminence Archbishop Michael:

His Eminence Archbishop Michael: There’s a quote from Abba Theodore of the Paradise of the Desert Fathers, and he says, “If you are chaste, do not judge him who is guilty of fornication, or you will break the law like him. For he who said, ‘Do not commit fornication’ also said, ‘Do not judge.’ ”

So we don’t approach this with a cavalier attitude, claiming we have all the answers—we don’t. There are matters where the Church is clear in her statements, in the canons, in Scripture, and there are things that are more nuanced, debatable, unclear. For example, is a same-sex attraction genetic or environmental? In other words, are some people born with this disposition or is it a product of upbringing, social pressure, or other outside influence? Can one be rid of this attraction through therapy? Is the attraction itself sinful, or just the sexual activity?

But before we address these questions and many others, let’s meet and respectfully listen to real people who are made in God’s image, who are loved by God, and—this is important—who are faithful and obedient to what the Church asks of them. Meet Gregg Webb.

Mr. Gregg Webb: So back in early adolescence, I began realizing that I experienced attractions toward the same gender, which was not how a lot of my peers were experiencing their attractions. I was homeschooled first through twelfth grade, so most of my community were awkward, nerdy homeschoolers, to be fair. And so my kind of contrast in how I was maybe different, but a lot of my peers was maybe not, until I hit 15, 16, and started kind of branching out into more secular environments or broader settings. So I didn’t expose to anybody that I had these attractions until I attended the Antiochian Village for my first time when I was 15, and it was in the context there of confessing with a priest at the camp. It was the first time I’d ever told anybody that I had exclusive attractions toward the same gender.

With almost no exceptions, that was the only context that I would disclose that for the next four years, so there was something that was safe about having a priest who basically sees the confessions of some, like, 150, 200 kids every summer, not to mention all the staff and other counselors. So if there’s anybody who’s not going to be shocked or surprised by almost anything they hear, it’s going to be the head camp priest at Antiochian Village, most likely.

Mr. Maddex: Gregg is a celibate Orthodox Christian, and a member in good standing at his Orthodox parish in Chicago. He sings in the choir, is a godfather, and has chosen to be obedient to what the Church requires of him.

So a couple of times you used the word “traditional” to describe your Christian experience. You’ve used the word “celibate.” So what do you understand is required of you in order to stay a faithful, traditional, celibate Orthodox Christian?

Mr. Webb: Yeah, so in my experience—I’m no theologian by any stretch—my kind of area of expertise, so to speak, is much more in the day-to-day lives of same-sex attracted people or sexual minorities or queer people. Whenever I’m speaking about theology, I can… I take it with whatever way you will, but for me, the Orthodox Church has been fairly clear. For it, marriage is the only context for sexual genital expressions and intimacy, and that marriage—the sacrament of marriage, because marriage is a sacrament—has only ever been understood to be between one man and one woman. So for me, all other expressions of sexuality, particularly of physical, erotic sexual interaction outside of the context of marriage would be considered sin. I think that’s been the main kind of sole teaching of the Church on this matter throughout its history.

So when I say that I’m celibate, I believe that the Church has called me to either a marriage to a woman and that being the context for a sexual expression, or for me to remain chaste and celibate in singleness. So I, in my own journey and own experience, do not see the potential for a long-term marriage with a woman; that’s just never been something that’s I feel is on my radar. There are people within kind of that community who do find themselves in those situations, and often it’s because they’ll find themselves attracted to one particular member of the other gender, and they’ll develop a close emotional relationship that can become physical, but that’s not been my experience. So I believe that the Church would call me to celibacy, to chastity, as a single person within that Church, so that is where I find myself.

Sometimes, some days it goes better than other days, but I think for the most part all Orthodox Christians who find themselves wrestling with same-gender attraction or being gay or find themselves as a sexual minority in those communities, they would be called to a life of chastity and celibacy if they don’t find marriage to somebody of the opposite gender is where God has them.

Mr. Maddex: Gregg Webb fought this battle most of his adolescent and adult life, starting with confession at Antiochian Village Camp, where he says he had a good experience with the priests.

How did he react?

Mr. Webb: So, really, really well. At the time, the phrase that I remember him sharing… And at the time, I was mostly just disclosing were all these patterns of sin in my life related to my sexual desires and all these other confusing thoughts. I didn’t really have labels or terms for everything at that point, so I think I said that I was gay or that I was attracted to men or something like that, and he simply responded out, “You’re not your sin. It doesn’t define you.” And for me at that point, I think that was really what I needed to hear, was to just kind of speak into this anxiety, that this didn’t make me some freak or cast me out of the Church or make me unlovable. It didn’t make me any weirder or different or more broken than anybody else around me. And so I was given that grace and I remember literally almost skipping back from the chapel back to my cabin. It’s odd, because that same summer was both the same time I’d ever acknowledged this to anybody else, but it was also the first summer that I remember at least twice outright denying it when other campers would ask. And that was just a strange kind of dichotomy almost: that same summer that was the first time I disclosed it was also one of the first times I found myself: “Oh no, I’m not gay. That’s not me.”

So that was just very kind of terrifying in a lot of ways, but after that, all the priests that I would confess with at Antiochian Village were very positive and receptive. Only one or two towards the last couple of years had any more personal relationship with me, kind of outside of that context, and so then, over time, kind of the context of confession and my priests have been very sensitive and an important element for me in my faith. Because wherever your own parish is, that’s going to be the person you’re going to be confessing to is that priest. And so what they think or how they react or respond to that disclosure has a lot of impact for your experience within that church and within that community. So for me at that time, I did not have parish priests that I felt comfortable with. So even through adolescence… It’s not always rational. I think the early years of my life, those fears may have been rational and justified, but the priests at the Antiochian church that I was at through most of my adolescence, later on we’ve had conversations, and he’s handled things well. But there’s still just that fear. They know your parents; they know everybody. So it was a big deal for me when I moved to undergrad, that I began that process of disclosure again with a brand-new priest. It was just a couple months after I started my undergrad program, and so that first confession was kind of like the make it or break it. The next four years of my life are going to be in a place where I can be welcomed and okay and have that refuge and have the absolution in that context—or it’s not going to be. And fortunately for me, that priest was very gracious and loving and compassionate in these areas of my life and my struggles.

God has, for whatever reason, given me priests who are very different than myself and very different than what I might have selected for myself. I tend to be… have a pretty strong independent streak, and I tend to be kind of on the gray side, and the last two priests that I’ve had as my father confessors have been a little bit more on the black-and-white, like it’s a struggle, like everything’s a struggle. So that’s been kind of an interesting juxtaposition for me.

Mr. Maddex: Gregg is a part of a group of individuals who have embraced a different way of thinking and living that sets them apart from many in the gay community. He describes it as “Side B” as opposed to “Side A.”

Mr. Webb: Within kind of the gay Christian community, so to speak, there are two different camps that have developed. You have what are called, a group, the Side A, which would be the affirming… basically affirming that God would bless same-sex unions in the same way that he would bless heterosexual unions. And then you have Side B, which would say that God does condemn same-sex sexual activity and would call most gay Christians to a life of celibacy. So within those camps, particularly within Side B, there [are] lots of conversations about what exactly does it look like to have long-term committed friendship. So you’ll have some people within those circles who are having conversations about having same-sex chaste partnerships or celibate partnerships, where you might use a lot of the same language that you would in a traditional boyfriend couple relationship with an assumption or mutual pursuit of celibacy and chastity within that relationship.

Now, they’re debated and they’re discussed, and some are not on board with the romantic language but are on board with the idea of committed partnership or friendship. For me, I think what I would hope for would be potentially committed friendship or a covenanted friendship. A friend of mine, Ron Belgow, I think at one point used the term “roommates who move together” as a way of talking about… or at least a way of meeting the need for some form of long-term stability. I think that’s one of the unique difficulties that comes from being a celibate gay Christian is that sense of: Who will still be there for me? Who is going to be my emergency contact? When I am 70 and I’m ill, who is going to be there and care for me?

And so the kind of natural current view would be the solution is: you get married and you have a partner, and they’re legally obligated to be there for you in all of these ways. And so, how do you do that within friendship, and how do you do that when marriage and that type of relationship is off the table? So you talk about committed friendship and relationship, in ways that are not just casual. I know a couple of people in Nashville who are trying—they’re Anglican and they’re trying to form almost a monastic community, where there’s certain levels of commitment and vows that are taken to that community and to those relationships. There’s been lots of experiments within Christianity around intentional community. So I know a couple of people who have found places for them within those communities as a single gay person, of being in a Christian intentional community, where there is kind of a rubric for a life of prayer. I have also known Orthodox gay Christians who have found a home in a monastic environment. I don’t think monasticism at all is the default calling for most gay Christians, because I do believe it is a vocation in and of itself. I myself have never had a strong interest. I’ve been around monastic life for most of my life. I appreciate it, I enjoy it, I find its beauty amazing, but I’ve never once felt like, “Oh, this is where I want to settle down and grow old.”

So how do we answer that question, of what is a long-term life and what does long-term stability look like for single gay people within the Church? And so I think lots of the kind of conversations around this are just trying to grapple and figure out potential answers to that question.

Mr. Maddex: Then there is Elisa Erickson, or, her baptized name, Eleni. Now, her story is quite a bit different from Gregg’s. After growing up in the LDS church, her introduction to Christianity was actually in an MCC or Metropolitan Community Church, known to be a haven for the LGBTQ community, who want both the Christian faith as well as the freedom to keep their lifestyle. But she had this nagging voice that wouldn’t go away and kept telling her that she need to become a nun. Let’s listen.

Mr. Maddex: At some point you did embrace [the] Christian Church, and did you remember where that was and what denomination that was?

Ms. Elisa “Eleni” Erickson: That was Holy Covenant in Brookfield, so it was very close to my house. I came out when I was twelve, which is a very unusual experience. That’s very young. Most gay men don’t come out by the age of twelve. Lesbians tend to come out a little later in life. And so I really felt like I was only the gay person in the world, and especially the only lesbian in the world. And one of my friends was like, “Well, there’s a church in Brookfield that’s flying a gay flag. You should go check them out.” And even though I was an anti-theist and I was very angry with religion because of all the religious trauma I had experienced in Mormonism, which was rather significant, I wanted to check it out; I wanted to give it a chance.

I’ve seen recently among Christian influencers, there was this tweet where somebody said, “What’s a church that I can go to as an atheist where I won’t be pressured to change?” And the response was, “UCC.” Like, everybody was like: “Go to the UCC or go to the Unitarian Universalists,” and actually UCC’s official account said, “Come to our church.” [Laughter] And a lot of conservative Christians look down upon that, but I absolutely would have never become Christian if I hadn’t started out at MCC where nobody cared that I was atheist, and nobody pressured me to change.

Mr. Maddex: That was the bridge.

Ms. Erickson: They just let me. Yes, they just let me show up and loved me to death, and allowed God to change me. None of them felt that it was their job to change me. They were like: “Oh, God will figure it out.” And he did! What else can I say?

Mr. Maddex: Maybe not how they expected it, but he did.

Ms. Erickson: Maybe not how they expected it, maybe not how anyone expected it—certainly not how I expected it.

Mr. Maddex: Sure.

Ms. Erickson: But the MCC church, that specific MCC church, was absolutely filled with former Roman Catholic priests and nuns. There were a few former high church Lutherans. There was only one Pentecostal, and he left us for another church; it wasn’t his style of worship. And a lot of them were much, much older. Most of them were my parents’ age and older. And it was a really good experience. It was really good to see all of these well-adjusted gay people who were really embracing their faith. I didn’t have the experience of the first time I’m meeting people like me is at a bar or a nightclub or seeing people like me in movies first. I didn’t even see a movie with gay characters before I went to this church. I actually met real, well-adjusted people who were living their lives and were actually adults. Do you know what I mean?

Mr. Maddex: At the church.

Ms. Erickson: At the church. A lot of them were in committed relationships. A lot of them were in marriages that were decades long. And it was a really good experience. I don’t know what else to say. They taught me how to pray the Our Father. A former nun taught me how to pray the rosary. I had never prayed before in my life, and these are the people who taught me to pray. It is very much so like the first experience of family that I had, and I absolutely loved that church. The problem was that I felt this call to become a nun almost as soon as I started believing in God—almost before I started believing in God. I was like: I really should become a nun.

And, remember, these are a lot of former Catholic priests and nuns. A lot of them had actually been embracing celibacy effectively—like, they were actually celibate—and they were kicked out of their orders because they were gay, by Pope Benedict, in response to the sex abuse crisis.

Mr. Maddex: Oh, interesting. So they were remaining celibate as a monastic, but because they were known to be same-sex attracted or gay, they’re gone.

Ms. Erickson: Yeah.

Mr. Maddex: Wow.

Ms. Erickson: And, I mean, that’s not the experience of everybody there. I’m sure that there’s a variety of experiences. There were probably people who were in relationships that were not consistent with their vows. There probably were people there who, the second that they got kicked out, got into relationships. I don’t think most of the people at that church were continuing to embrace celibacy, but they had been before they were kicked out. I was told in no uncertain terms, no matter how well you embrace celibacy, these conservative churches will eat you first before they eat each other. This is very much so every time, in these conservative churches, there’s a crisis involving sex. The first people they burn at the stake are gay people, no matter if gay people were the cause of the crisis or not, and usually when they’re not.

Mr. Maddex: So, Eleni, it sounded like you were in a good situation there. You were with people whom you loved and you were treated right and you could have your faith in God. What changed? Why leave?

Ms. Erickson: I don’t think I would have left if I hadn’t gone to college. I had to go to college; I had to find a different church. MCC churches are extremely different, church to church, so that church was very comfortable, liturgical, high-church sort of church. And the MCC church that I came to in the city was very Pentecostal, very Evangelical-style. It wasn’t the same, and I wasn’t really comfortable there. I had no idea what to do. The first time I went to an MCC church that wasn’t that one was Jesus MCC in Indianapolis, and these ladies invited me to sit next to them, and that was wonderful. And then one of them started to “feel the spirit” next to me, and I had never even heard of that and I thought she was having a seizure. I had my cell phone out and I almost called 911 before somebody stopped me and was like: “She’s feeling the spirit,” and I was like: “Is that what you call seizures here?” [Laughter] “What is going on?”

Mr. Maddex: “What’s going on here?”

Ms. Erickson: They had communion there, and it was just, like, a guy sitting alone in a room, and I got sent in there, and I was about to say something, and then he just shoved the wafer in my mouth, and I was like: “Okay, that’s how they do communion here.”

Mr. Maddex: Done, yeah.

Ms. Erickson: It just wasn’t for me.

Mr. Maddex: Yeah.

Ms. Erickson: So I went to the Episcopal church after that, and that was a phenomenal experience there, too. The priest there, Mother Sarah, wanted to instill a very contemplative atmosphere and allow her a lot of contemplation for the people at that parish. So she would even have contemplation sessions, where we would sit in the church and have some incense burning and you would just be quiet, and that was phenomenal. That was one of the greatest experiences of my life. But the problem was that I couldn’t be quiet anywhere, and I couldn’t pray any more, without this overwhelming feeling that I should become a nun, even the words in my head: “Become a nun. Become a nun.”

Mr. Maddex: Wow.

Ms. Erickson: And I thought that that was crazy. There’s no way to become a nun. That’s insane; that’s not for me.

So I basically cut contemplation out of my life, I cut silence out of my life, I cut prayer out of my life to try to get rid of this. Whenever I talked with people about it around me, they’re like: “Oh, you must want to become a priest. Becoming a nun, that’s so sexist. You should just become a priest. We have women priests here.” And then I wound up visiting an Episcopalian convent, and that was a great experience. The more time I spent there, it’s like: “Oh, I could definitely be very happy here.” But I prayed about it, and the answer was: “No, not here,” and that was kind of heart-breaking, like, well, I finally brought myself to a convent and now you’re saying, “Not this one.” Why?

Mr. Maddex: Do you have any sense why you felt this was not the place for you?

Ms. Erickson: There are several things. All of the nuns at that convent were over the age of 60. I think the youngest nun there was over 60. They had one nun who was in her 30s, and there was definitely a sense that they were presiding over the death of this convent.

Mr. Maddex: So what was next, then, for you?

Ms. Erickson: For a while I didn’t go to church, and then for a while I started hanging out at this one Roman Catholic church in my neighborhood and just kind of going, even though I knew I wasn’t going to convert and I knew I wasn’t going to become a member of that parish. It’s very easy to just go and sit in a Roman Catholic church and then just leave. They don’t necessarily have a coffee hour. They’re not going to ask you to get involved in every ministry. It’s very easy to go there and not be bothered.

Mr. Maddex: Slip in and slip out, yeah.

Ms. Erickson: Yep. But again I wound up with the same problem, which is I kept—every time it was quiet, every time I was in one of these churches, every time I was holding a rosary, it was like: “Become a nun. Become a nun. Become a nun.”

Mr. Maddex: You’re starting to get the idea that this might be something you need to do.

Ms. Erickson: Yeah. Also during that time I visited two Orthodox churches.

Mr. Maddex: Aha!

Ms. Erickson: Yeah. One of them was All Saints, and I went there for vespers, and one of them was Holy Trinity. And when I went to Holy Trinity for the first time, somebody… So, first off, Holy Trinity is a Russian-influenced OCA church.

Mr. Maddex: Yes.

Ms. Erickson: And so I went to Holy Trinity and a woman started talking to me in the narthex, and she’s like: “Are you Russian?” And I’m like: “Oh, no, my mom’s Ukrainian.” And she’s like: “Oh, your church is two blocks that way,” and she meant the Uniate church. [Laughter] She was absolutely trying to be helpful; she really was.

Mr. Maddex: Just, to comment here, Eleni’s experience at Holy Trinity has been replicated countless times, and the horror stories have been shared by us converts. But before we get too critical of how she was treated, let’s show some grace and give the benefit of the doubt. Converts are often confusing to older cradle Orthodox who either came to the US directly from their mother country or were born on the shore shortly after their parents arrived. I choose to believe that the motives are good when they suggest a church down the street, as an act of kindness, and the assumption that they are helping as opposed to trying to put up barricades. Let’s continue with Eleni’s story, which eventually brings her to Orthodoxy.

Ms. Erickson: But then I actually wound up going to All Saints with Fr. Pat Reardon, and I only went to vespers, because I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t going to join their parish, that I was very happy at my Episcopal parish and I was never going to become Orthodox. So I went to All Saints. That’s what really put the fire in me, because that night, I think it was a deacon or a subdeacon who was preaching… And the vespers sermon isn’t usually long at an Orthodox church, but at All Saints they do it like 20 minutes. They love their vespers sermons! And this deacon or subdeacon read the Life of St. Hilarion the Great, who is a very monastic saint. And so I immediately looked up St. Hilarion when I got home, and I was completely enamored. And, of course, YouTube being what it is and Google being what it is, and having its algorithm was like: “Oh, you like desert saints…”

Mr. Maddex: Mm-hmm. “We’ve got some more for you.”

Ms. Erickson: “Let’s just send you all these desert saints.” And then I read the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, the mother of all penance, basically, and I remember it was Ash Wednesday in the Episcopal church, and we had this one little corner—because the priest we had after Mother Sarah hated icons, he hated statues, he hated anything “Catholic,” and so he actually put a sheet over our statue of the Virgin Mary.

Mr. Maddex: Oh wow.

Ms. Erickson: And he put sheets up to block our one icon of St. Peter. So the only icon in the church—it was St. Peter’s church—the only icon was St. Peter. So I went over to that corner, I was looking at the icon of St. Peter, and I prayed to St. Mary of Egypt. I was like: “Make sure I get enough penance this Lent.” And that was a really stupid prayer. [Laughter] No one should ever pray that prayer ever! Never pray for penance, ever, ever, ever.

Anyways, so while I was praying that prayer, a toilet on the second floor broke. [Laughter] And so I spent my Ash Wednesday mopping up some excrement and some water that was dripping down these stairs, flowing down.

Mr. Maddex: Oh lovely.

Ms. Erickson: The entire time I was like: “Sorry, guys, it was me. I prayed for this.” What was I thinking? [Laughter]

Mr. Maddex: Throw Jonah overboard or something.

Ms. Erickson: Right, but it was also: These saints will answer prayers, and they do not play around. So I started to look more at these saints, and I started to get the feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to leave the Orthodox Church alone.

Mr. Maddex: Eleni ended up at the parish where she is today in Chicago. So I asked her about the concept of a celibate gay Orthodox Christian being part of the broader Orthodox experience and what her observations are.

Ms. Erickson: I think for a lot of Orthodox people, being gay was presented as something that other people were doing, and when I look at the way that Orthodox people talk about this online, when I look at Ancient Faith Radio, every podcast has at least one episode on homosexuality—like, not every one of them, but almost all of them. And almost all of them are straight people talking to other straight people about gay people as other.

Mr. Maddex: Fair enough.

Ms. Erickson: And they’re… You know, I think one interview that I saw before I actually went to Christ the Savior was Fr. Josiah Trenham’s interview with Dr. Wesley Hill.

Mr. Maddex: Yes.

Ms. Erickson: And that was one of the first times I had seen a conservative Christian talk about gayness to and with and for gay people. But having a conversation with and to and for gay people is much better than having all of these weird kind of obsessive conversations about gay people that oftentimes don’t make any sense to gay people. Like, we’re sitting there: “That’s not the case. We’re right here. You could’ve asked us.” [Laughter]

Mr. Maddex: Which we’re doing right now, right?

Ms. Erickson: Yes! I really appreciate this.

Mr. Maddex: Those of us who don’t live the experiences of Eleni or Gregg can miss the hurt that they feel by comments of sometimes well-meaning people who are acting from false presuppositions or from fear. Eleni shares one such experience.

Ms. Erickson: After a while, there were a couple of times where people would say things that were really bad, like really bad, like “I almost did not go back to church ever again” bad. I’ll just bring up the specific thing—

Mr. Maddex: Yeah, I was going to ask you for a specific.

Ms. Erickson: A woman came up to me and said, “You know, there’s a gay person at this parish. We’ve got to watch our children. We’ve got to keep our children from her,” because she didn’t realize that I was the gay person.

Mr. Maddex: She said that to you?

Ms. Erickson: Yeah.

Mr. Maddex: Oh boy.

Ms. Erickson: She didn’t realize I was the gay person—because I guess I don’t look gay enough? [Laughter]

Mr. Maddex: Gee. I mean, how did you react?

Ms. Erickson: I knew immediately that there was probably some sort of trauma behind that or some sort of translation error behind that. She was fresh off the boat from Russia, and I was like: “Do you know what ‘gay’ means?” And honestly, it doesn’t sound like she understood that “gay” does not mean “pedophile,” because, again, the word in Russia for “gay” I think is very closely associated with the word for “pedophile” or is the exact same word as “pedophile” or is just the word “pervert” or something like that? So she didn’t really understand. And also, there was some trauma there. I got her talking, and there was an incident of her surviving abuse in her own life. She didn’t want to be around perverts and sexual assaulters, and I think that’s valid. She just didn’t realize that Americans have this distinction for people with same-sex attractions that doesn’t have anything to do with people who are sexual assaulters.

Mr. Maddex: Eleni has made a life-long commitment to celibacy, which, interestingly enough, is not related to her sexual orientation. She feels that this makes her situation easier for her than for others in an Orthodox Christian context.

Ms. Erickson: It’s so easy for me to be gay in the Orthodox Church, so much easier than it would be for other gay people. It’s so easy, because—

Mr. Maddex: And the reason? Yeah, go ahead.

Ms. Erickson: I’m celibate.

Mr. Maddex: Yeah, and that’s a commitment or a calling that you felt completely aside from the fact that you are gay.

Ms. Erickson: Exactly.

Mr. Maddex: Whether you were gay or not, in other words, you would have felt this calling.

Ms. Erickson: Oh yeah, if I woke up straight tomorrow, I would still be celibate, absolutely. And Gregg and I have had this conversation—I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this, but he’s said if he woke up straight tomorrow, he would absolutely get married. So it’s a completely different experience for the two of us, and it’s very easy for me as somebody who just is inclined toward celibacy outside of all of this to be a part of a parish and just be flourishing. I don’t think it would be as easy for other gay people.

Mr. Maddex: Eleni feels that we should be very careful about approaching the chalice for Communion, and in direct communication with our priest. The role of confession and transparency in the sacramental life of the Church can be easily overlooked.

Ms. Erickson: I feel like being in the Church isn’t being in the line for the chalice; I feel like being in the Church is like being in line for the confessional. Because if you’re in the line for the chalice, you had better be metaphysically in line for the confessional; you had better be in the line for the confessional yesterday and in the line for the confessional tomorrow, or maybe day-of. You shouldn’t just be approaching the chalice. I think that maybe, kind of going back to my story about Holy Covenant and being an atheist and everyone was kind of hands-off with me and my atheism, and they’re kind of like: “God will change her.” And God did.

Like, I’m not God. I can’t be God for someone else. And I can’t even know what God’s plans are for someone else. No one at Holy Covenant would have seen God’s plan for my life as joining the Orthodox Church and possibly becoming a nun.

Mr. Maddex: Sure.

Ms. Erickson: I have no idea what God’s plan is for anybody’s life, and I also don’t see myself, just because I’m taking Communion right now—I don’t really see myself as better than people who are not taking Communion right now. Maybe what it is is that I’m weak and God knows that I need the extra help and that I need to be taking Communion every week because I need that because I’m weak.

Mr. Maddex: But isn’t that the attitude we should all be coming to the chalice with? Obviously, we shouldn’t be looking to the right or to the left and feeling like: “Well, they can’t, but I can, because I’m not doing what they’re doing, and so—look at me”?

Ms. Erickson: Exactly.

Mr. Maddex: It seems like: Go sit down. I mean, that is such a wrong motivation or a wrong attitude to come to the chalice. I’ve got enough sin to worry about that I cannot spend time trying to fix other people’s sins. That’s between them and God and their priest, and who knows what that couple—what kind of conversations they’ve had with the priest and what they’re trying to move toward. That’s not my business. And we’re told—not judge, but we’re told: Bear one another’s burdens.

Ms. Erickson: Yeah.

Mr. Maddex: Next we meet Margaret—which is not her real name, and her voice is altered. She’s in her mid-60s and is a faithful member of the Orthodox Church, coming to it late in life like some of the rest of us. She is both theologically and politically quite conservative. She remains celibate but, unlike younger people, she has not publicly come out, and worries about the ramifications if she did. She battles shame virtually every day of her life, despite the fact that she is celibate.

Margaret: Another thing you see from time to time is: “Their needs”—and we’re always a “them”—”those people, why do they think they’re special? We all struggle with many things, and so they should just shut up. Why do we have to talk about this?” I don’t know what other needs there might be—categories of needs: someone who’s getting divorced, someone whose child has gone off the deep end, someone who’s struggling with addictions—I could be wrong, but I don’t know what other need might be analogous in terms of: I don’t think I can go to the Church for this. The Church does not want to hear about it, and I will simply feel further shame. They will just reinforce the fact that who I am is shameful. Who I am—not my actions—they’re long in the past—but my very existence.

Mr. Maddex: It breaks your heart to hear her story. She doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere. She can’t identify with the younger gay community, even those who are celibate. She doesn’t know where she fits.

Margaret: We get it from both sides. I’m never going to be accepted by the gay community—nor would I want to be. I look at that and say, “I don’t fit in there,” but nor do I have a place in a world where I’m fearful if I say, “This is who I am. This is where I need help and this is where I need support.” I believe I run a high risk of being told to shut up and mind my own business.

Mr. Maddex: Margaret grew up in a different time, when some things were better left unsaid and covered up. It wasn’t until her adulthood that she embraced her orientation. Being gay back in the ‘50s and ‘60s? Not an option.

Margaret: It didn’t dawn on me until well into adulthood, whereas now kids in puberty are sort of making a decision, which is absurd and foolish, but, once again, it was not an option. So whatever is not working inside me might be a variety of other things, but it was never even a question that I asked. People would laugh now at how old I was. And then there’s a whole period, long period, of “maybe I am, maybe I’m not”—meaning years, not months: years.

Mr. Maddex: She is not theologically minded, although she loves good biblical preaching, which, ironically, was her entry point into Orthodoxy.

Margaret: We joke about this. If you asked me about the Orthodox Church, I would have said, “You mean, like the Greeks and the Russians?” All I knew was my one… I had two people from growing up who I knew were both Greek. I knew one of them sometimes went to a church that was not close by, and one summer I went to the fair in August at the church. [Laughter] Whatever the festival was, some kind of festival. I was brought up in my own household with a very strong anti-Catholic bias, knew nothing whatsoever about the Orthodox Church.

I, once again, in my early 40s, happened to have a copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs in the house, and never—still have not gotten past the first couple of chapters at most. Read the first couple of stories about Perpetua and Felicity. I don’t know… Ignatius—I don’t even recall. I just saw in that the fact that they knew something that was nothing like the faith that we today know. I didn’t know anybody who would ever be martyred. I wasn’t aware that it was going on in the 20th century. I didn’t know anybody who— except in the rarest of cases. But certainly I didn’t know anybody who would go to that level of devotion.

I questioned also, if God is who we have always believed he was, I was always taught he was, why were we never face-down on the floor in my worship? That, I started to wonder—gee, we never do that, but wouldn’t that be an appropriate pose if you’re in the presence of God? I had grown weary of the new contemporary worship which ironically I had been a very big part of in bringing to a very large church, but had found that to be wanting. And even in my lack of theological knowledge, I started to ponder the fact that we never in my church recited the Apostles’ Creed, perhaps once a quarter, but I began to see the Protestant church as anchorless. They weren’t hanging onto anything, and this was… When I don’t think it was really… I’m not giving myself credit for it somehow being prescient or something, but it seemed to me if there’s no anchor, it will drift. And so I pondered that.

I was pretty much of the opinion that I probably was not going to find a church, that the Protestant church had lost its moorings. I certainly wasn’t a charismatic, a Pentecostal, any… I tried some Catholic churches—didn’t quite get it. An Episcopal… I never found one that seemed to connect. And I actually came to the Orthodox Church through strong biblical preaching, and accidentally, quite accidentally, happened upon some good biblical preaching and went to an Orthodox church having no idea what to expect, absolutely no idea—and came week after week because it seemed to me that this church—and I didn’t even know if it was the church specifically where I was attending; I didn’t even ask the question about other Orthodox churches. This was still a great unknown to me, so I didn’t know whether this was just this particular parish where I was attending or others—I had no idea.

And I didn’t worry about questions that many people ask: What about Mary? What about this; what about that? What about the real presence? I did find, over the course of months, that questions that I had that I wasn’t in any hurry to answer did become answered anyway: the importance of the Theotokos, the importance of Mary, things like this. And finally it became a question of: Why am I not Orthodox? I’ve left the Protestant church quite a while ago; I can’t see going back there. We’ve only moved further apart. So that’s how I joined the Orthodox Church without knowing it was what I was looking for. I can’t imagine now going back.

Unfortunately, this created a further divide. Let me back up. Back when I was trying the Metropolitan Community Church, back when I was in a relationship with a woman, I came out to my mother. My father was long out of the picture. It did not go well. Joining the Orthodox Church put further distance between us. I knew when I joined the Orthodox Church it was going to be a problem for my family, some of whom, as my mother and some of my siblings, are very strong Evangelicals, and they don’t want to talk about it.

And, back to the issue of sexuality, I had never brought it up. So they won’t talk about the Orthodox Church, and I’ve only ever discussed the issue of my sexuality with one of my siblings, who is the one who is not a church-goer and is the one to whom I know I can cry. He would like to see me happy; he grieves with me that I’m lonely. He has on occasion suggested that I try to find a church that would be open to my having a relationship with a woman. He doesn’t push. He’s the one family member whom I can go to when I’m crying, when I’m lonely. He’s the one family member who wants to help. I don’t dare bring it up with other family members. If I had to bet, I guess their response would be: “That’s nice. I don’t ever want to talk about it again.”

Mr. Maddex: But it isn’t the theology that is the primary reason she remains celibate, even though she embraces everything the Church teaches. She sees it more as an act of love for Christ.

Margaret: Well, let me back up and say, in my early 40s, then I came across for the first time Christians who felt like it was perfectly okay to be in relationship with someone of the same sex. And so I kind of tried that out for a while. I was in a relationship and tried the… So the Metropolitan Community Church I think is this denomination, trying to find if that was a world where she and I would fit. My theology hadn’t changed, and I was not comfortable with the… It just didn’t seem right. I could not have articulated anything at that point. I tried to read some of the literature that comes out of that side. I couldn’t even tell you the names of the big authors, the ones who go back and re-interpret the Scriptures and presumably find evidence in historical records that the Church condoned this. I don’t know. I could never be bothered with digging too deeply in that stuff.

It was not anything that I… It was just not something I was going to debate with others. It was mostly an issue I kept to myself. So, for example, where other people might have been debating with friends or family members, “Oh, God loves this. God thinks this is wonderful. He just wants us to be happy, and these are committed relationships,” and so on, I’m just not an arguer and a debater in those things, so I never got involved too much in that. But so anyway, I tried that. That didn’t seem to be a place where I fit in either. So these places that presumably I should have fit in… and I couldn’t find any of them where I fit in.

That relationship that I was in, which was short-lived, but that ended by my choice, and I was in my early 40s. That woman has gone on to get married, I see. I don’t have any contact with her, but I know how social media works, and I see that she’s married to a woman and has taken the approach of “God just wants us all to be happy.” And so made the decision to be celibate… was not by settling the question of… definitively on the issue of whether God was supportive or not of same-sex relationships. The way I approached the issue was this. So you’re my dear friend, and there’s something that I want to do. I don’t know how you feel about it. If I do it, I’m not sure—it might hurt you, it might not: I don’t know. If I don’t do it, I know I won’t hurt you, because it will never happen. So my decision to be celibate didn’t come out of any conclusion about what God felt. What it came down to was: I don’t know the answer, but if I’m celibate, I know I won’t hurt the Lord.

So that’s how, in my early 40s, I decided that the right answer for me was to be celibate. And then I started to address other issues about the Church, and that’s actually what started my… I don’t even want to say journey to the Orthodox Church, because I was not looking for the Orthodox Church! [Laughter] I was looking for good Bible teaching and… Anyway, that’s… They happened about the same time in my early 40s, 42-ish. And so that’s been what, 23, 24, 25 years ago.

Mr. Maddex: Finally, we want you to meet Jennifer—not her real name—whose experience was different [from] Gregg’s, Eleni’s, or Margaret’s. Jennifer grew up in a strong Christian non-Orthodox home. She was the only girl among several brothers. One of her brothers tragically died. She liked the closeness of both boys and girls as an adolescent. Her family moved into a Native American reservation to do social work, and she was shunned at first but finally was able to make friends. At age 13, her mother would confide in her about problems she was having with her father. And then later, an extended family member sexually abused her on multiple occasions. Let’s listen.

It really brings up an interesting point that we’ve approached on the documentary from several angles. And because of your upbringing and the loss of your brother and moving to a different community and being a minority in mostly Native American culture, and then the sexual abuse by an extended family member, would you say that played the principle role in your sexual orientation back then, or do you think it was always existent in you somewhere but these things helped to draw it out?

Jennifer: Boy, that is a really good question, and I’m not sure I can say. I know that at least one of the therapists that I had early on—well, actually in my late 20s—never said so much, in so many words, “This is how come… These reasons are how come you’re like that,” but he definitely implied it strongly, saying, “Since you had all this negative experience with men, and you needed more nurturing from a female, maybe you could even say a maternal, nurturing than you seemed to need, well, this is how you coped with it.” I think it probably played a part. I’m not going to say, “Oh no, that has nothing to do with this.” I think it played a part, but I just am not really sure… It seems complicated to me. I just know that that is where I landed.

Mr. Maddex: Yeah, and that’s a good point, because at some point does it really matter? The reality of the moment is kind of what is reality for some, as we’ve talked with a psychologist, for example. For some, at a young age, these kids are just trying on different hats—it’s cool—and for others, there is something genetic; there is something innate that was either chemically or more naturally a part of who they were without their own choice. And then, for others like you, you don’t know. You’ve not figured that out, and you shouldn’t be expected to. And so it’s just the reality that you dealt with, right?

Jennifer: Right, exactly. It could be that I had the propensity, and, you know what? I almost wonder if… how many, many people in this have that propensity, and it’s a matter of that fluidity and that latency that happens as an early teen or a teen that sort of flows and then certain things come together that your choice or your attraction sort of tend to flow one direction or maybe both directions. I wonder about that sometimes, if really that’s not more of a possibility than we want to admit or we understand.

Mr. Maddex: She started feeling a sexual attraction to women in college, and later, after graduation, she actually started an affair with a married woman, something she is not proud of today, but she shared it with us so that we can understand her story.

Jennifer: This is so hard for me to say, but I made friends with a married woman in my church, and after a bunch of months—not right away—we had an affair. We started an affair. And it was the walls, the barriers, the boundaries, healthy boundaries were missing in that relationship, in that person, and I just felt like I didn’t resist any more, bottom line. So that was a long-term relationship.

Mr. Maddex: That relationship broke off after many years, and she later found her way to the Orthodox Church. She also met a man who eventually became her husband. They are both Orthodox now and have been married for many years. I asked her if she is now at peace with her life and her circumstances.

Jennifer: I am at peace, and it’s great to be at peace. I would say my sexual orientation, though, is bisexual, but I don’t spend a whole lot of energy reviewing that or labeling myself too much anymore. And that’s because, I guess, I have put my heart and soul into my choice to be in this marriage, to love this man and take what he offers me from his unique self while I’m learning to do the same. And he and I have reaped the results of the… how we started out and what we have done in our working on our marriage. So, yeah, I feel very blessed, and the grace of God is profound.

Mr. Maddex: That’s so good to hear, and it kind of begs the question—and we talked about this a little bit before we started recording—and it might be a good time for me to ask you about this. Some might recommend marriage as a “good solution” for someone maybe in your similar situation. What are your thoughts on that?

Jennifer: I think it can be good for some people. I think if you do decide that it’s a good… you want to see about that, you want to be open to it, and then you do meet up with someone who seems to be a potential partner, by all means, do open yourself up to that. Do let it kind of evolve. But at the same time, as early on in the relationship as is prudent—maybe not the first date; it depends on who you are, but you need to lay your cards on the table, which is what I did with my to-be husband. When I noticed, when I saw that we really were… this was moving in that direction, I knew that he deserved to know my story, and he deserved the right to be able to say, “You know what, I can’t cope with that. I’m sorry. I love you or I like you, but I can’t.” He needed to… And I didn’t really want him to say that. Oh, I was at the place in my life where I didn’t want him to say, “I can’t cope with it,” but I knew he absolutely had to know. And so that was quite the night, let me tell you.

And he couldn’t have been more caring, and that’s when he began to share some of his own vulnerabilities and some of his own stories in the past—not anything like mine, but we became… the whole trust factor and the whole commitment factor became very obvious. The willingness… I asked him, I said, “I think we should have counseling, even now,” and he had not even asked me to marry him. And we did. We went to couple’s counseling, a Christian, so that we could see things and understand things and understand expectations and all those good things that most couples need to do, and that really established us on a good path, I believe.

Mr. Maddex: Our thanks to Gregg, Eleni, Margaret, and Jennifer for their honesty and vulnerability. Coming up next is Part 2 of our series, where we learn about what the Church says and doesn’t say about Christian faith and same-sex attraction. You may be surprised!

Fr. Thomas Hopko: And on this issue it’s very hard to speak about it generally because it involves human beings, human persons, with a life, with a history, with a family, with a tradition, with feelings. Same-sex attraction is not a choice and it’s not a sin. It’s simply a fact.