Table Of Content“When Brothers Dwell in Unity”
Byzantine Christianity and Homosexuality
Stephen Morris
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
The following are reprinted with permission and grateful acknowledgment: Portions of the
Introduction appeared as “Orthodox Pastoral Response in the Past to Same-Sex Behavior” on
www.ocanews.org on July 27, 2011. Portions of Chapter 2 appeared as “The ‘Gay’ Male as
Byzantine Monster,” in The Horrid Looking Glass: Reflections on Monstrosity, eds. Paul L.
Yoder and Peter Mario Kreuter (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011). Portions of Chapter 3
appeared as “Remarriage and Ass-F**king: Shifty Byzantine Views of Sex,” in “Something
Wicked This Way Comes”: Responses and Representations to the Problem of Evil, eds.
Colette Balmain and Lois Drawmer (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2006), and “Sex and Holy
Communion in Late Antiquity,” in Studia Patristica 40 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006): 63–8.
Portions of Chapter 4 appeared as “Fire in the Valley: John Chrysostom’s Thoughts on the Land
of Sodom,” in (Re)Presenting Magic, (Un)Doing Evil: Of Human Inner Light and Darkness,
ed. Alexandra Cheira (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2012). Portions of the Conclusion and
Reflections appeared as “Are We Queer? Are We Medieval? The Need to Be All Things to All
People,” in Medieval Feminist Forum 36 (Fall 2003).
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 “Receive Not Any Boys, Beardless Youths, and Eunuchs”: Monastic Experience and the
Beautiful Boys
2 The “Gay” Male as Byzantine Monster: Civil/Secular Legislation and Punishment for
Same-Sex Behavior
3 “Better Than Free Fornication”: Suspicious Sexual Relationships in Canon Law and
Penitential Handbooks
4 “Their Teaching Satanic … Their Life Also Diabolical”: John Chrysostom on Same-
Sex Behavior
5 “Look Down From Heaven, Behold and Visit This Vine”: Liturgy and Anthropology of
Adelphopoiia
Conclusions and Reflections
Appendix I: St. John Chrysostom’s Homily 4 on Romans
Appendix II: Service to Bless a Second/Third Marriage
Appendix III: Service for Adelphopoiia
Appendix IV: Goar’s Canonico-Historical Notes on Adelphopoiia
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
List of Names and Terms
Acknowledgments
This project has been in the making, on and off, since the summer of 1996. Since that time,
there have been many people who contributed to its development and growth or who
convinced me that it was a project still worth pursuing when my own energy and attention were
diverted elsewhere. I especially want to thank:
Rob Fisher, who introduced me to the world of independent scholarship and shared my
enthusiasm for this project.
Lesley Hall and the members of the Sexuality Network of the European Social Science History
Conference, which met in The Hague (February 2002), who helped me sharpen the focus of
this project.
Susan Boynton and the New York Medieval Liturgy Group, who invited me to share my ideas
about the similar liturgical structure(s) of the second/third wedding service and adelphopoiia
in November 2002.
Michael O’Rourke and Noreen Giffney, with the members of the The(e)ories: Advanced
Seminars for Queer Research at University College, Dublin, who graciously invited me to
share some of my research on Byzantine canon law and penitential handbooks with them in
February 2003.
David Brakke, Mark Buchan, John Dillon, John Erickson, Tom Izbicki, Mark Jordan, Fr. Justin
of St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, Colin McCaffrey, Michael Pettinger, Vadim
Prozorov, Claudia Rapp, Christopher Sprecher, Gregory Tucker, and Rowan Williams
(sometime archbishop of Canterbury), who each took time from their busy schedules to
respond to my queries or discuss aspects of my research. I would especially like to thank
Claudia Rapp for sharing ideas, sources and texts, including portions of her as-then-
unpublished work.
The librarians and staff of the Butler Library and the Avery Library of Columbia University,
the Burke Library of Union Theological Seminary, the Sterling Library of Yale University, and
the New York Public Library, who helped track down difficult-to-find or missing-from-the-
shelves texts.
The anonymous readers who have previously critiqued portions of my work and those who
have reviewed this manuscript, whose wonderfully constructive criticism has made it better by
far through their comments and observations. Any mistakes that remain are clearly my own.
My partner, Elliot Kreloff, who put up with stacks of books, copies of articles and rubber-
banded batches of index cards piled around the house for years, who patiently endured the
dining room table becoming my office at various times, and who was nonetheless happily
intrigued to hear about the oft-forgotten labyrinthine twists and turns of Byzantine history and
practice.
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
Things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
The glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders which he has wrought.
(Psalm 77/78:2–4, RSV)
Behold, how good and how marvelous it is
when brothers dwell in unity.
(Psalm 132/133:1, LXX, as used in the Byzantine adelphopoiia service)
Introduction
“Liturgy by its nature is conservative; even as it maintains an aura of timelessness, at
certain moments it needs updating to remain effective, but its effectiveness can be
harmed by changes seen as radical departures from the familiar. A middle way of
adaptation and barely perceptible modification is best suited to changes in liturgy.”1
This description of liturgical conservatism can just as easily be seen as a description of the
general conservatism of church life—canonical legislation, homiletic exposition, and pastoral
application, as well as liturgical practice—as a whole, especially in the Byzantine
ecclesiastical commonwealth. How has this gradual adaptation and modification of teaching
and practice functioned in the past? Can it function again now as society is currently coming to
terms with those who are “homosexual”—that is, those men and women who identify
themselves as “gay” or “lesbian”—especially in terms of what is called “marriage equality”?
Many Orthodox, when faced with acceptance of gay and lesbian people by the larger society,
simply assert “It is forbidden!” without examining the previous practices of the church. For
many people, the label “Holy Tradition” simply describes what they have experienced or what
has become typical practice in the last fifty years rather than serving as a description of the
church’s existence over the millennia of its existence. Many times the church clearly
proclaimed a standard for behavior or belief, but then later developed a pastoral response to
accommodate changing social realities.2 Even Cyprian of Carthage (third century) was cited by
Matthew Blastares (fourteenth century) to demonstrate that it was acceptable for canons to
change as circumstances required.3
One example of this idea involves the charging, or payment, of interest on loans. Before the
development of modern banking and financial practices, usury (charging interest of any sort)
was one of the most serious sins any Orthodox believer could commit.
While commerce is accepted by the early church as a necessary—if unfortunate—factor,
charging interest on a loan has traditionally been looked upon as a particularly foul
practice.… Appearing charitable and altruistic when preying on those who most need the
assistance of their comrades, the ursurer throws an anvil rather than a rope to one who is
drowning.4
Charging interest was condemned loudly and repeatedly:
The brothers [Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa] both compare usurers to murderous
physicians who treat their ill patients by afflicting them with further illnesses, wounding
when they should be healing, and killing under the mien of offering a balm.5
Now the bishop ought to know whose oblations he ought to receive, and whose he ought
not. For he ought to avoid … an usurer, and everyone that is wicked and opposes the will
of God.6
Let any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon who takes interest, or what is called a
percentage, on money either cease doing so or be deposed from office.7
A priest ought not to communicate [give Holy Communion to] those who charge interest,
nor eat with them, if they persist in this transgression.8
The emperor Basil I forbade charging interest “on any pretext” throughout the Byzantine
Empire,9 and Ioasaph of Ephesus still insisted in the early 1400s not only that bankers be
forbidden burial but also that no prayers (“neither communion nor memorial services”) could
be offered on their behalf.10 Banking realities subsequently developed and changed, but it was
only seemingly recently (in “church-time”) that the condemnation of charging interest was
allowed to wither and finally fade away altogether.
Another example of this pastoral accommodation involved baptized Orthodox holding
positions of secular authority. Originally condemned by the church,11 holding secular
governmental office in the ancient Roman empire involved not only the possibility of offering
pagan sacrifices but also other duties seen as conflicting with the Gospel: the necessity of
collecting taxes,12 judging others,13 punishing or executing those found guilty of crime and
waging war,14 and administering or taking oaths.15
Even after the legalization of Christianity by Emperor Constantine, the emperor was expected
to remain a catechumen (an adult candidate preparing for baptism and therefore arguably
exempt from some of the behavioral strictures placed on the baptized) until he was dying—it
was only on his deathbed that the emperor was to be baptized.16 The closing of the
philosophical Academy in Athens, with the shuttering of great Hellenistic religious centers and
practices, as well as the destruction of synagogues, together with the imposition of Orthodox
Christianity as the “state religion” by the Emperor Theodosius, can be attributed, at least in
part, not only to Theodosius surviving his deathbed baptism in 380 but also his full recovery
and refusal to step down from the throne. As the first baptized Christian to actually sit on the
imperial throne, he was navigating uncharted waters: how should a baptized emperor behave?
Gradually the possibility of baptized Christians serving in political office was not only
grudgingly accepted but wholeheartedly endorsed as the nature of society changed and the
actions required of governmental officials were no longer deemed immoral.
Still another practice that the church strongly condemned, more directly tied to sexuality, was
remarriage after divorce or widowhood. The condemnation of remarriage began to gradually
abate somewhat, but the original expectations were still strong enough to provoke the
“Tetragamy” crisis over the multiple marriages of Emperor Leo VI. It was only in the eventual
resolution of Leo’s marital situation that the modern practice was hammered out: one marriage,
celebrated with the wedding service, although permission for a second or third (but never a
fourth) marriage could be obtained from the local bishop. These subsequent marriages would
be celebrated with the service for a second or third marriage, which includes significant and
penitential departures from the liturgical practices and texts of the first wedding service, and
severe penances would be attached to the couple that involved attending services but being
denied Holy Communion (often for a period of years or even decades). As the practice of
remarriage after divorce or widowhood became more generally accepted in society, these
severe penances were allowed to atrophy as well, until they become little more than token
gestures or vanished altogether. Thus, the church eventually found a pastoral response that
upheld the previous standards of behavior while making room in the church for those whose
lives departed from those standards and yet wished to remain members of the Orthodox
Church.
(Another result of Leo VI’s fourth marriage is the commemoration on August 31 of the use of
the sash of the Mother of God to heal the Empress Zoe, the fourth and most controversial of
Leo’s wives. The sash, now kept in the Vatopedi monastery on Mt. Athos, is considered one the
greatest treasures of the monastery; its role in the healing of the empress contributed to the later
imperial largesse to provide a suitable reliquary and housing for it.)17
In terms of “gay sexuality,” the historical practice of the church is far from what many modern
church members might expect it to have been.
Even the Bible is not as clear as many would like it to be. Although the epistle to the Romans
clearly condemns those men who have sex with other men, in the pastoral epistles (such as 1
Timothy) the condemnation is not of “homosexuals” (as some modern English translations
read) but of malakoi (the “soft” or “effeminate,” those who resemble insipid, weak-willed,
easily beguiled women).18 It is a moral characteristic, not a sexual act or orientation, that is
condemned. This term does appear in the canonical or liturgical literature and is encountered
most often by contemporary Orthodox in the pre-communion prayers,19 but it is not used in
reference to sexual behavior.
Another term encountered in the New Testament as well as in the canonical literature is
πορνεία (porneia). Often translated as the Latin fornicatio or the English “fornication,” it is a
much broader category of behaviors than simply sexual intercourse between a man and an
unmarried woman. (As unfair as this definition might sound to modern ears, the marital status
of the man has no bearing on the definition of the act: if the woman is unmarried, it is
fornication, and if she is married, it is adultery [μοιχεία].) Porneia appears in Matthew 5:32
and 19:9 as an “escape clause,” the gospel writer already apparently attempting to soften the
“hard saying” of Mark 10:11. Used to describe idolatry and illicit intercourse in general,20
porneia came to include a variety of behaviors that constituted legitimate grounds for divorce
