Orthomockery

Did you hear the one about the two gay Hoosiers (one of them, Rev. Daniel C. Kostakis, an “Open Episcopal” clergyman) who went to Manhattan and had a liberal gay Lutheran pastor conductor sham Greek Orthodox wedding? A swell time was had by all.

This, of course, is the kind of precious content that makes the Huffington Post the great newspaper it is not.

I probably should leave well enough alone, since (1) I really can do no better than Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick at taking down the nonsense, and since (2) the Huffington Post is more about buzz than accuracy, so comment feeds the beast.

But let me buzz away, expanding two of Fr. Andrew’s allusions if nothing else. I am on record, after all, as saying that we’re not going to have any same-sex marriages in the Orthodox Church.

Whaddya think they did with the Epistle reading, a sina qua non of an Orthodox Crowning Rite?

Ephesians 5:20-33
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

And what indeed might they “have done with all those prayers of blessing that invoke the names of all those Biblical couples—unrelentingly heterosexual, every one”?

Bless this marriage and grant unto these Your servants … a peaceful life, length of days, chastity, love for one another in a bond of peace, offspring long‑lived, fair fame by reason of their children, and a crown of glory that does not fade away.
Account them worthy to see their children’s children …
Bless them. O Lord our God, as you blessed Abraham and Sara. (+) Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Isaac and Rebecca. (+) Bless them, O Lord our God, as you blessed Jacob and all the Prophets. (+) Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Joseph and Asenath. (+) Bless them O Lord our God, as You blessed Moses and Zipporah Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Joakim and Anna. (+) Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Zacharias and Elizabeth. Preserve them, O Lord our God, as You preserved Noah in the Ark …
… Give to them fruit of the womb, fair children, concord of soul and body.

Without those parts, it’s not even a convincing sham.

Oh: silly me. They used “a new, inclusive translation of the Byzantine wedding liturgy.”

“Translation.” As in “my wife’n’me wuz through having kids, so I went to the urologist and got muhself translated.”

Note that I am not faulting an Orthodox priest for conducting an irregular service. This was not an Orthodox priest. It was a liberal Lutheran clergyman, who has his own horse in this same-sex marriage race. It was not conducted in an Orthodox Church.

You can’t just open up a book and conduct “the Byzantine rites of the Eastern Orthodox Church.” These books are not how-to manuals for do-it-yourself liturgists … Removing a liturgical service from its context necessarily makes it something other than what it is. Storrs and Kostakis may like Orthodox liturgics, but what they did in June was not an Orthodox wedding service. It was a Lutheran wedding service imitating Byzantine liturgics.

(Fr. Andrew) And back home again in Indiana, they have a name for Daniel  Kostakis and Andrew Storrs: “just friends.”

And for Daniel, who says “This day was ultimately sacred because I was one of the grooms” and reportedly Tweeted this as a “historic first Greek Orthodox gay wedding”: “delusional” and “liar.”