LGBTQ+ Inclusion at the Grassroots Level in Orthodox Church Communities
Olga Gerassimenko // 14.12.2018
I am a (closeted) LGBT activist, counsellor, and community worker. It is a great honour to join this discussion at Lysebu.
On a more personal note, it was only while preparing the full text of this presentation that I realised it reflects a particular stage in my own journey.
Back in 2014, I attended an LGBT Christian conference called Sailing with Hope. During the opening session, I invited participants to imagine their personal hope: What might it look like? What might it sound like? What might it tell them about their future—if they happened to be the kind of people who prefer having conversations with hope rather than simply watching television together?
This summer, more than ten years later, I attended a working retreat for LGBT and allied Orthodox activists. We began with a session entitled Signs of Hope, grounding our work in the signs of inclusion that already exist within our churches.
If we had more time today, I would love to ask you the same question.
If we share the hope that one day Orthodox parishes will become ordinarily—rather than exceptionally—open and welcoming to every person of good will, including LGBTQIAPP+ people, what image from your own experience would represent that hope? What moment would tell you that we are already on the way towards making that hope a reality?
I would like to share with you the image that represents hope for me.
It is something very small, almost unremarkable—perhaps even invisible to anyone who is not looking for it. The photograph on the slide comes from a different context, but for me it captures the same perspective.
My sign of hope takes place on an ordinary Sunday morning in an Orthodox parish in Moscow. The Divine Liturgy is being celebrated. The priest proclaims, "With the fear of God, with faith and love, draw near."
Some members of the congregation standing at the back of the church feel uneasy and sad—which, in itself, is not unusual.
But this time it is not because they themselves have been denied Communion. They are free to receive it.
They know, however, that the woman standing beside them is not.
The invitation to draw near does not include her.
Some time earlier, she had been refused confession in this parish after mentioning her same-sex partner. She later shared this experience online, and a number of people in the parish had read her story.
It is not common for someone who has once been refused confession to return to that same parish.
But here she is, standing quietly in prayer.
A handful of people who know her story feel deeply uncomfortable. Not all of them would necessarily describe themselves as allies, and they may hold very different views on sexuality. Yet somehow none of them can simply walk forward to receive Communion as though nothing has happened.
Eventually they do receive Communion.
But first, one by one, they approach the woman.
One awkwardly asks, "Would you like me to bring you some prosphora?"
Another simply offers her a hug.
And after receiving Communion, they return to embrace her once again.
That is the whole picture. For that woman, in all the absurdity of her exclusion, these small gestures became a profound sign of inclusion.
A sign that she still belonged to the church community despite her exclusion. A sign that the community itself was not at peace with what had happened. A sign of a deeply authentic and spontaneous liturgical response to the grief and injustice of exclusion—an injustice that usually remains invisible.
This sign of hope is especially precious to me because the woman receiving those hugs was me.
It was a small miracle: injustice recognised as injustice. Exclusion recognised as exclusion. And people choosing to respond, however modestly, instead of letting it pass unnoticed.
As Christians, we know that many of the miracles around us are brought about through ordinary human hands and feet. It is therefore worth asking not only that miracles happen, but how they become possible.
In the story I have just shared, several factors made this small miracle possible.
One was the visibility of what had happened. Because the story had been shared online, people knew about the exclusion.
Another was the embodied presence of the excluded person. Seeing someone standing in prayer, physically present within the community, transformed a disturbing story into a reality that demanded a response.
The parish's practice of exchanging the sign of peace through embraces also mattered. It provided people with a simple and meaningful way of expressing solidarity.
Equally important was the relative freedom and safety parishioners felt to take such a step without themselves becoming targets of exclusion. In this particular parish, the social cost of such an action was low enough to make it possible.
Finally, the parish's practice of celebrating Communion every Sunday also played a role. (In some Russian Orthodox parishes, people receive Communion only once a month, or even less frequently.) Because receiving Communion was an ordinary part of parish life, the exclusion became more visible. People could more readily perceive the injustice of inviting everyone to the Eucharist while knowing that one member of the community was, in practice, excluded.
These are only some of the factors that made this small event possible. There are certainly others. You may notice aspects that stand out to you because of your own professional or personal experience—factors that I have overlooked.
I believe that identifying and reflecting on these enabling conditions allows the signs of hope we already witness to grow into a strategy of hope. Instead of waiting for such moments to happen by chance, we can begin to recreate, intentionally and thoughtfully, the conditions that make them possible.
When I speak of a strategy, I do not mean a universal blueprint.
I mean something much more modest: a way of responding to what is happening immediately around us, using the particular resources available to us in the position we happen to occupy.
That position may be that of a fellow worshipper.
Or a conversation partner.
A deaconess.
A bishop.
A teacher.
Each of us is best placed to recognise the situations that call for our response, and to discern what can be done from where we stand, individually or together with our immediate community.
Although we do not have time during this session to reflect on our own contexts, I believe that our different visions of the signs of hope within the Church—and of the values, skills, and conditions that make those signs possible—are gifts we can offer one another.
What I have brought with me today is a collection of reflections from around twenty LGBT people and allies from Orthodox communities across the post-Soviet region. I asked them what signs of hope they already see around them: what small acts of inclusion or glimpses of a more welcoming Church they have witnessed, what made those moments possible, and what would help them grow into something more enduring.
In gathering these reflections, I drew on an interview framework from narrative practice and narrative community work. Rather than focusing solely on the problem itself, this approach invites us to ask different questions: How does the problem affect people's lives? Which values are threatened by it? How do people continue to care for those values despite the problem? Where do we already see those values being lived out? What knowledge, skills, and relationships make this possible? And what would help expand the territory in which those values can flourish?
Actions
When people spoke about concrete actions, the picture that emerged was modest—but far from insignificant.
Most often, they described hidden forms of support and quiet resistance to exclusion within the Church: helping people find safe parishes and safe priests; helping fellow parishioners conceal their families in order to remain safe; or the example of a Ukrainian priest who travelled once or twice a year to Saint Petersburg and Moscow to provide pastoral care for a small group of LGBT believers.
People also spoke about defending LGBT people during parish discussions, quietly welcoming them into parish life without questioning their family circumstances, and taking personal risks in doing so. Such actions can carry real consequences, especially under the Moscow Patriarchate, where a parish may lose its priest if he is perceived as too supportive.
One form of resistance mentioned surprisingly often by Orthodox allies was, sadly but meaningfully, leaving the Church. They described de-churching not as a rejection of faith, but as a consequence of a church that had lost their trust through discrimination.
I was particularly struck by one respondent: the former spouse of a transgender person, who had left an LGBT-friendly Orthodox parish because misogyny remained deeply embedded there and the idea of women's ordination was openly mocked. He said:
It is not possible to support human rights "a little bit." We cannot decide to stand with one minority while abandoning another.
Many respondents also identified the growing visibility of LGBT Orthodox Christians as a sign of hope, along with ecumenical initiatives such as LGBT Christian forums in Europe, where heterosexual allies are welcomed to pray and receive Communion alongside LGBT believers without discriminatory restrictions.
Taken together, today's signs of hope are modest. They consist of quietly supporting excluded people, creating and finding spaces where discrimination is absent, exercising the freedom to move between communities, and questioning exclusion where it occurs.
For many priests and church workers, even questioning the assumption that LGBT people cannot be saved—or that their families deserve no legal protection—already requires considerable courage.
Conditions that make hope possible
When respondents reflected on the conditions that make these modest but meaningful actions possible, several common themes emerged.
Perhaps the most important is that both LGBT people and their allies are increasingly refusing to accept hatred as morally right. At the very least, many now question whether condemnation truly reflects the values of Christianity.
Again and again, respondents connected this shift to a growing awareness of God's love, compassion, and acceptance. One participant expressed it memorably:
Nowadays even priests sometimes preach about God's love and acceptance.
Alongside this theological development, respondents also pointed to broader cultural changes. Humanistic ideas that emphasise intimacy, dignity, and respect for every person increasingly shape public discussion, and these ideas gradually enter conversations within the Church as well.
In countries where anti-discrimination legislation exists and human rights enjoy broad public support, LGBT allies considered this wider social context an important resource. The Church may not be leading these developments—indeed, many respondents felt it is struggling to keep pace with society—but the surrounding culture nevertheless makes it easier to discuss LGBT issues within parishes and to advocate for LGBT people. It also requires church leaders to engage, however reluctantly, with questions that society is already asking.
Visibility was another recurring theme. Respondents emphasised that when discussions concern real people with names and faces rather than abstract categories, they become more humane. This visibility is costly for those who are publicly exposed, yet it also changes the nature of the conversation.
One Ukrainian respondent mentioned the widespread reporting on LGBT soldiers defending Ukraine as an example. Their courage had become part of public conversation and, consequently, part of conversations within church communities.
Many respondents also observed improvements in clergy education. As one Ukrainian participant put it:
Priests seem to have learned to preach in sermons rather than in confessions.
Another respondent—a Ukrainian priest—suggested that many clergy are becoming better at distinguishing cultural prejudice from sound theology and are increasingly familiar with contemporary theological scholarship.
Respondents also repeatedly highlighted the importance of understanding the Church as a genuine community rather than merely a hierarchy. They recognised that this vision remains rare, yet regarded it as essential.
One Russian respondent expressed this particularly well:
What we lack are Church Councils and Synods. Instead, we are fed somebody's private opinions presented as the teaching of the Church, although they have never actually been discussed by the Church.
To me, this observation is closely connected with another important factor respondents identified: increasing access to theological, sociological, and historical knowledge among lay people. Biblical scholarship, church history, and awareness of how Christian attitudes have changed over time—for example regarding slavery or divorce—enable believers to distinguish tradition from historical development.
Finally, one Russian priest pointed to what he called the digital openness of contemporary society. Social media makes our lives increasingly visible to one another. In doing so, it also makes both exclusion and inclusion more visible—and therefore more difficult to ignore.
Looking forward
When respondents reflected on where hope should be cultivated in the future—a question many had never previously considered—three broad directions emerged.
First, they emphasised the need to embrace the conviction that "we are the Church." This understanding is still relatively uncommon in Orthodox contexts, yet respondents considered it essential. It shifts the focus from waiting for the Church to change towards recognising our own responsibility for shaping the Church through our everyday actions.
Second, respondents called for a broader vision than simply becoming LGBT-friendly. Again and again, they spoke instead about becoming human-friendly: cultivating communities where every person's dignity is protected, where compassion is practised consistently, and where solidarity with one marginalised group is never achieved at the expense of another.
Finally, many respondents spoke about freedom—particularly freedom from excessive dependence on hierarchy. Several observed that chronic dependence can itself become traumatic, making people feel powerless to act according to their conscience. A strategy of hope therefore also requires spaces in which initiative, responsibility, and moral courage can flourish at every level of church life.
Conclusion
Listening to these stories, I found myself returning again and again to the image with which I began.
Not because it is dramatic. Quite the opposite. Nothing extraordinary happened that Sunday morning.
No church policy changed.
No public statement was issued.
No one solved the problem of exclusion.
People simply refused to behave as though exclusion were normal.
They allowed themselves to become uncomfortable. They recognised injustice as injustice. And, within the possibilities available to them, they acted.
For me, this is what a strategy of hope looks like.
It is not a grand plan.
It is not optimism.
And it is certainly not the belief that change will happen by itself.
A strategy of hope begins when we pay attention to the small moments in which the world already resembles the future we long for. It continues when we ask what made those moments possible, and when we deliberately cultivate those conditions so that such moments become less exceptional and more ordinary.
Perhaps this is one way in which God's Kingdom so often arrives: not through spectacular victories, but through ordinary people who refuse to let love, truth, and justice remain abstract words.
As Christians, we often pray, "Thy Kingdom come."
Perhaps part of that prayer is also learning to recognise the moments when it is already coming—and asking what part we are invited to play.
So I would like to leave you with the same question I asked at the beginning.
What are the signs of hope that you already see in your own church?
What makes them possible?
And what is one small condition that you, from exactly the place you occupy today, could help create so that they become just a little more common tomorrow?
Because perhaps our task is not to invent hope.
Perhaps our task is simply to notice it, learn from it, and help it grow.
Thank you.