Are gays allowed in the Orthodox churches?

[TheBreak]

English is not my first language, I’m sorry for any misspellings.

This is going to be the last thread for me about LGBT people. I’ve already asked if gays are allowed in the Catholic church and the Evangelical churches and so far I see Catholics are more tolerant with the issue, so it is The Orthodox church’s turn.

Are gays who are okay with their homosexuality (maybe in same sex relationship) but yet wants to attend the Sunday mass (without eating from the host of course) allowed to get inside the Orthodox church without getting bothered or discriminate against ?

PS: I wish if this thread will not turn like the other one about the evangelical church where now is about 4 pages long. It is very easy question that could any orthodox person or someone who know the Orthodox church’s point of view about it answer.

 

[PietroPaolo]

Can I ask why you want to know? It seems that anyone who wants to “get inside” a Catholic or Orthodox Church would also want to adhere to their moral teachings, including the teaching that homosexual actions are gravely sinful while homosexual attraction is not sinful at all.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

So long as they aren’t making a ruckus.

 

[ComeHome2Rome]

English is not my first language, I’m sorry for any misspellings.

This is going to be the last thread for me about LGBT people. I’ve already asked if gays are allowed in the Catholic church and the Evangelical churches and so far I see Catholics are more tolerant with the issue, so it is The Orthodox church’s turn.

Are gays who are okay with their homosexuality (maybe in same sex relationship) but yet wants to attend the Sunday mass (without eating from the host of course) allowed to get inside the Orthodox church without getting bothered or discriminate against ?

PS: I wish if this thread will not turn like the other one about the evangelical church where now is about 4 pages long. It is very easy question that could any orthodox person or someone who know the Orthodox church’s point of view about it answer.

The Church is a hospital to heal our spiritual (& sometimes physical) infirmaties. If someone is sick with the spiritual disease of actively practicing homosexual acts but does NOT want to be healed, then why in the world would he/she want to go to an Orthodox (or Catholic) Church? To what purpose, to what end, would such a person choose to go to an Orthodox Church, if not to be healed?

 

[TheBreak]

Can I ask why you want to know? It seems that anyone who wants to “get inside” a Catholic or Orthodox Church would also want to adhere to their moral teachings, including the teaching that homosexual actions are gravely sinful while homosexual attraction is not sinful at all.

I’m a guy who believes so much in Human Rights, one of the biggest issues that made me become atheist before is the issue of human rights and religion, I’ve already said that, we live in age where being black is not problem like it was tens of years ago, but being gay is still big issue, gays getting killed everyday for being gay and I do believe that gays are human being like me and you. I don’t need to know what religion teaches about homosexuality because I already know that, but what I don’t know is what will happen to gay/lesbian person if come to the church. For example, if gay guy come to a mosque he might get arrested in some countries even might get beat to death. so look at that, YES! I wanna know what your church would do if gay person come to it, especially the Christian Churches sense Jesus Christ asked his followers to love everybody. Isn’t that what Jesus Christ did to all sinners, are not Christian supposed to be Christlike.

God bless

 

[PietroPaolo]

I’m a guy who believes so much in Human Rights, one of the biggest issues that made me become atheist before is the issue of human rights and religion, I’ve already said that, we live in age where being black is not problem like it was tens of years ago, but being gay is still big issue, gays getting killed everyday for being gay and I do believe that gays are human being like me and you. I don’t need to know what religion teaches about homosexuality because I already know that, but what I don’t know is what will happen to gay/lesbian person if come to the church. For example, if gay guy come to a mosque he might get arrested in some countries even might get beat to death. so look at that, YES! I wanna know what your church would do if gay person come to it, especially the Christian Churches sense Jesus Christ asked his followers to love everybody. Isn’t that what Jesus Christ did to all sinners, are not Christian supposed to be Christlike.

God bless

Three things jump to mind:

1. Your big on human rights, which is great. But if there is no God, then there can be no human rights either. Human rights become something merely given out by the State and what the State giveth the State can taketh away.
2. More Christians are killed every year for being Christian than gays are killed for being gay.
3. Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox Church teaches or supports attacking homosexuals.

 

[TheBreak]

The Church is a hospital to heal our spiritual (& sometimes physical) infirmaties. If someone is sick with the spiritual disease of actively practicing homosexual acts but does NOT want to be healed, then why in the world would he/she want to go to an Orthodox (or Catholic) Church? To what purpose, to what end, would such a person choose to go to an Orthodox Church, if not to be healed?

Please what I’m going to say is not to you but it is to every person who saying what you saying.

WHO ARE YOU?! To decide when this or that person will stop doing what they are doing, WHO ARE YOU?! To tell a person, look if you stopped doing this you are welcome. WHO ARE YOU to put yourself in God’s place. WHO ARE YOU?! To act like a boss for people’s lives. Let God judge NOT you.
Please please Christians DO NOT fall in the same trick where the Jews fell when Jesus come to earth, because most of us are going that way.

If I was priest, I would welcome everybody, yes I will tell them ONCE that what they are doing is not right and THAT IS IT. I’m not going to shut the Church’s door as if I’m saint of saints and look down to them.I will let them come to the church and who knows when that person will get a second thought, and if s/he didn’t until they died then LET GOD deal with them, not you.

End of the story.

PS: I might sound angry because I’m. One of the most things I hate when ignorant talking as if s/he saint and God put him/her judge to decide who and who not allowed in the church, PLEASE stop crucifying the Christ again, because you are doing that, you who you think you are GOD.

 

[ComeHome2Rome]

English is not my first language, I’m sorry for any misspellings.

This is going to be the last thread for me about LGBT people. I’ve already asked if gays are allowed in the Catholic church and the Evangelical churches and so far I see Catholics are more tolerant with the issue, so it is The Orthodox church’s turn.

Are gays who are okay with their homosexuality (maybe in same sex relationship) but yet wants to attend the Sunday mass (without eating from the host of course) allowed to get inside the Orthodox church without getting bothered or discriminate against ?

PS: I wish if this thread will not turn like the other one about the evangelical church where now is about 4 pages long. It is very easy question that could any orthodox person or someone who know the Orthodox church’s point of view about it answer.

The Church is a hospital to heal our spiritual (& sometimes physical) infirmaties. If someone is sick with the spiritual disease of actively practicing homosexual acts but does NOT want to be healed, then why in the world would he/she want to go to an Orthodox (or Catholic) Church? To what purpose, to what end, would such a person choose to go to an Orthodox Church, if not to be healed?

 

[PietroPaolo]

Please what I’m going to say is not to you but it is to every person who saying what you saying.

WHO ARE YOU?! To decide when this or that person will stop doing what they are doing, WHO ARE YOU?! To tell a person, look if you stopped doing this you are welcome. WHO ARE YOU to put yourself in God’s place. WHO ARE YOU?! To act like a boss for people’s lives. Let God judge NOT you.
Please please Christians DO NOT fall in the same trick where the Jews fell when Jesus come to earth, because most of us are going that way.

Christ commands us to love one another. It is not an act of love to sit silently while your neighbor destroys their soul and risks eternal damnation. Telling someone something once (only if you are a priest) isn’t love. It may be tolerance, but Christ never commanded us to tolerate one another. I may tolerate the neighbor’s kid skipping school and taking drugs, but if my son was (someone I love) I would never tolerate that behavior. God expects, rather commands, us to treat EVERYONE the way we treat our own family.

 

[TheBreak]

Three things jump to mind:

1. Your big on human rights, which is great. But if there is no God, then there can be no human rights either. Human rights become something merely given out by the State and what the State giveth the State can taketh away.
2. More Christians are killed every year for being Christian than gays are killed for being gay.
3. Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox Church teaches or supports attacking homosexuals.

There are Christians getting killed and that get me sad too, They are getting also everyday, last night Christian family was killed in Egypt and today they caught 9 gusy was trying to attack church in Egypt, or who could forget October 2011 in Egypt where Christians were getting killed live on TV by the military trucks.

About your first point, you are %100 right and that lead me to believe there is God. According to the natural selection that the weak and not fittest should die and than I should not care about the people who getting killed or dying by starvation because that is the nature’s way to tell you, you are not welcome on this earth.

 

[TheBreak]

Christ commands us to love one another. It is not an act of love to sit silently while your neighbor destroys their soul and risks eternal damnation. Telling someone something once (only if you are a priest) isn’t love. It may be tolerance, but Christ never commanded us to tolerate one another. I may tolerate the neighbor’s kid skipping school and taking drugs, but if my son was (someone I love) I would never tolerate that behavior. God expects, rather commands, us to treat EVERYONE the way we treat our own family.

My question was clear and I don’t want to go into debate because I don’t want to feel that being Christian means to be against my gay friends, please understand that I’m still new in faith and I don’t want to feel any pressure that might make me feel like being with Christ is going to change my values about my gay friends, at least for now.

Are LGBT people who are okay with their homosexuality allowed to attend the mass in the Orthodox church or not ? As simple as that.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Please what I’m going to say is not to you but it is to every person who saying what you saying.

WHO ARE YOU?! To decide when this or that person will stop doing what they are doing, WHO ARE YOU?! To tell a person, look if you stopped doing this you are welcome. WHO ARE YOU to put yourself in God’s place. WHO ARE YOU?! To act like a boss for people’s lives. Let God judge NOT you.
Please please Christians DO NOT fall in the same trick where the Jews fell when Jesus come to earth, because most of us are going that way.

If I was priest, I would welcome everybody, yes I will tell them ONCE that what they are doing is not right and THAT IS IT. I’m not going to shut the Church’s door as if I’m saint of saints and look down to them.I will let them come to the church and who knows when that person will get a second thought, and if s/he didn’t until they died then LET GOD deal with them, not you.

End of the story.

PS: I might sound angry because I’m. One of the most things I hate when ignorant talking as if s/he saint and God put him/her judge to decide who and who not allowed in the church, PLEASE stop crucifying the Christ again, because you are doing that, you who you think you are GOD.

This outburst has nothing to do with what ComeHome2Rome replied.

It seems you wanted to set up the conversation to say exactly this… which is not what you were getting in the responses but still you wanted to explode with your own righteousness.

On this same subject, Who are you to impose your views on anyone else? You cannot, in good conscience, criticize the very thing you are doing…

Matthew 7:3-5(RSVCE)
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

The Church is here because God Himself instituted It. Is it open to **all **who desire to be heal and those who desire to help others.

Do you go to the Doctor’s office to pick up a fight? Then why go to the Church to pick up a fight?

Jesus also said:

Matthew 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’?[a] 6 So they are no longer two but one.** What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”**

Those are His Words. You are free to take your issues up to Him as well.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

Please what I’m going to say is not to you but it is to every person who saying what you saying.

WHO ARE YOU?! To decide when this or that person will stop doing what they are doing, WHO ARE YOU?! To tell a person, look if you stopped doing this you are welcome. WHO ARE YOU to put yourself in God’s place. WHO ARE YOU?! To act like a boss for people’s lives. Let God judge NOT you.
Please please Christians DO NOT fall in the same trick where the Jews fell when Jesus come to earth, because most of us are going that way.

If I was priest, I would welcome everybody, yes I will tell them ONCE that what they are doing is not right and THAT IS IT. I’m not going to shut the Church’s door as if I’m saint of saints and look down to them.I will let them come to the church and who knows when that person will get a second thought, and if s/he didn’t until they died then LET GOD deal with them, not you.

End of the story.

PS: I might sound angry because I’m. One of the most things I hate when ignorant talking as if s/he saint and God put him/her judge to decide who and who not allowed in the church, PLEASE stop crucifying the Christ again, because you are doing that, you who you think you are GOD.

Well they are welcome to come I would argue so long as they don’t interrupt during the liturgy or cause a distraction. But they if openly in a homosexual relationship should not expect communion or such other holy things till they have repented. That being said I still think it should be allowed for any institution to discriminate.

 

[Z_Ninja]

My question was clear and I don’t want to go into debate because I don’t want to feel that being Christian means to be against my gay friends, please understand that I’m still new in faith and I don’t want to feel any pressure that might make me feel like being with Christ is going to change my values about my gay friends, at least for now.

Are LGBT people who are okay with their homosexuality allowed to attend the mass in the Orthodox church or not ? As simple as that.

Short answer: I would think any person is welcome to attend mass.

But to be in good standing would need to be living a chaste life and not acting on any impulses or engaging in sin. This is not me judging that a person is, I’m just saying they should not engage in sinful activity to be in good standing and be able to receive all the sacraments. this would go for heterosexual people as well. Jesus said to love our neighbors, he also said, “go and sin no more.”

I think if you’re saying a person is “okay” with their homosexuality, then they are participating in and actively living in a same sex relationship, that would be different from someone who “accepts” they have same-sex attraction, yet lives a life of celibacy and chastity.

 

[PietroPaolo]

I don’t want to feel any pressure that might make me feel like being with Christ is going to change my values about my gay friends, at least for now.
.

As a recent convert I can tell you being with Christ will change your values on a lot of things. He has a tendency to transform us in ways we could never image.

 

[aemcpa]

Can I ask why you want to know? It seems that anyone who wants to “get inside” a Catholic or Orthodox Church would also want to adhere to their moral teachings, including the teaching that homosexual actions are gravely sinful while homosexual attraction is not sinful at all.

He wants to know if such a person can attend an Orthodox Divine Liturgy, not if that person can join the Orthodox Church.

 

[TheBreak]

This outburst has nothing to do with what ComeHome2Rome replied.

It seems you wanted to set up the conversation to say exactly this… which is not what you were getting in the responses but still you wanted to explode with your own righteousness.

On this same subject, Who are you to impose your views on anyone else? You cannot, in good conscience, criticize the very thing you are doing…

Matthew 7:3-5(RSVCE)
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

The Church is here because God Himself instituted It. Is it open to **all **who desire to be heal and those who desire to help others.

Do you go to the Doctor’s office to pick up a fight? Then why go to the Church to pick up a fight?

Jesus also said:

Matthew 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’?[a] 6 So they are no longer two but one.** What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”**

Those are His Words. You are free to take your issues up to Him as well.

“pick up a fight” Oh really!!! because all gays who come to the church wants to “pick up a fight”. Okay, next time I see my gay friends I will tell them DO NOT ENTER ANY CHURCH BECAUSE THEY WILL THINK YOU ARE GOING TO “PICK UP A FIGHT” Jesus thinks that you are going to him because you want to pick up a fight.

 

[PietroPaolo]

“pick up a fight” Oh really!!! because all gays who come to the church wants to “pick up a fight”. Okay, next time I see my gay friends I will tell them DO NOT ENTER ANY CHURCH BECAUSE THEY WILL THINK YOU ARE GOING TO “PICK UP A FIGHT” Jesus thinks that you are going to him because you want to pick up a fight.

I believe the poster thinks you want to pick a fight because you keep WRITING IN ALL CAPS which makes it read like you are angry and shouting.

 

[TheBreak]

Well they are welcome to come I would argue so long as they don’t interrupt during the liturgy or cause a distraction. But they if openly in a homosexual relationship should not expect communion or such other holy things till they have repented. That being said I still think it should be allowed for any institution to discriminate.

As human being and as human rights activist, I’m so disgust from you IGNORANT anti christian comment. “allowed for any istitution to discrimintae!!” ARE YOU SERIOUS? 7 countries in the world where being gay means DEATH. more then tens of countries where being gay can get you to jail and you still think of other discrimination. just disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. no wonder why easter europe still in the dark ages, now I see why.

 

[TheBreak]

I believe the poster thinks you want to pick a fight because you keep WRITING IN ALL CAPS which makes it read like you are angry and shouting.

Hold on, does using the capital letters means I wanna have fight?! When I use the capital letters I try to make you focus on the important points in my comment.