Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 00:49:34 -0400 From: AxiosUSA@aol.com New York Chapter Plain ASCII Online Edition N E W S L E T T E R Vol. 12, No. 2 AXIOS USA Inc. March-April 1995 Eastern & Orthodox Christian Gay Men and Women +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In this issue: Cover: Icon of St. George and Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem of Syria: ----- Lord and Master of my life, cast away from me the spirit of laziness, idle curiosity, love of power, and vain talk. But grant to me, Your servant, the spirit of wisdom, humility, patience and love. Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brethren. For You are blessed forever. Amen. ----- Orthodox Culture........................p. 3 Life of St. Dionysius...................p. 4 Chapter News............................p. 5 General News............................p. 6 Romania, Holy Cross, OCAMPR, Internet, AIDS Interfaith, Albania, Cyprus Reactions to NCC & NOLA.................p. 8 =========================================================== [begin page 2] A X I O S ------------------------ \ _|_ / \ __|__ / \ | / \ \| / \ |\ / \/ Eastern & Orthodox Christian Gay Men & Women The Axios Newsletter is published every two months by Axios USA, Inc., a nonprofit organization of Eastern and Orthodox Christian Lesbians and Gays founded 1980 in Los Angeles, CA. The New York and other chapters were then founded on the same principles. This year our New York chapter newsletter enters its 12th year of publication. Submissions are most welcome and encouraged; for example, articles on theology, Orthodox spirituality, lives of saints, homosexuality and the Church, as well as news of relevance to the Eastern and Orthodox gay and lesbian community. Please send also your letters, comments and suggestions, so that we may better serve our membership. Material submitted for publication should be in plain text (ASCII), WordPerfect, or Windows Write format (if by modem, disk, or e-mail), or clearly typed (if faxed or mailed); please call ahead before sending via fax or modem. Axios meets in New York on the second Friday of each month (the next meeting will be April 14, 1995) at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, 208 West 13th Street (near Seventh Avenue), in Manhattan, at 8 p.m. Meetings begin with a Vespers service, followed by the particular program or topic for that month's meeting. Special events are also scheduled from time to time. At our April meeting, member Edward Gaweda will speak on the Crucifixion. Axios D.C. usually meets on the third Friday of each month, but has rescheduled their meeting to April 30 at 1 p.m. this month due to Holy and Great Friday. Please see the Chapter News for more information. Some readers may have noted the omission of the planned OCAMPR article in the last newsletter. This article, as well as the article on the AIDS Interfaith service, are in this issue. Also, the issue of St. Sophia Quarterly which was reviewed was the Winter 1995 issue. The article "NCC, MCC and NOLA" in the previous Axios Newsletter generated much commentary, mostly quite complimentary, which is included in this issue. Most members have not sent in their dues yet for 1995. Dues are still $18 per year, which includes a subscription to this newsletter, and voting privileges in our elections. Our ad only covers part of the cost of each newsletter, so please be sure to send your dues as soon as possible. Please make checks payable to: Axios. Our mailing address is: Axios P.O. Box 990, Village Station New York, NY 10014-0704 Telephones: (718) 805-1952 (voice/fax/modem) (212) 989-6211 (voice) (718) 463-2901 (voice) E-mail: AxiosUSA@aol.com The appearance of the name or likeness of a person or organization in the Axios Newsletter is not an indication of such party's sexual orientation unless explicitly stated. =========================================================== [begin page 3] Orthodox Culture Cultus and cultura are two forms of the ancient Latin word meaning to dig, plow, and prepare gardens and fields. Even today farmers and gardeners in America still talk about "cultivating" their crops and fields. The work of cultivation has similarities to other aspects of life, and down the ages the same word has been used to describe education and worship. In societies where almost everyone had direct contact with gardening and farming in one form or another, the links between those activities was obvious: A cultivated person who desired to know God and understand His creation realized the great effort, both physical and mental, needed to prepare himself to receive and nurture the words of wisdom and divinity that alone fee d people's souls. The Old and the New Testaments as well; together with the patristic and liturgical texts of the Church -- all Iikewise works of wisdom and divinity -- are filled with images taken from the work of gardening and farming; beginning with the Garden of Eden in Genesis. The Lord Himself spoke about the seed of the Word of God which needs to find deep, fertile soil prepared and kept in cultivation so that truth and wisdom will take deep root, grow freely without being choked; and bring forth fruit a hundredfold (Matt. 13:3-23, Mark 4:3-20, Luke 8:5-15). Whole groups of people who shared such a concept of life have come to be known as "cultured" or "cultivated" societies. Yet as our own society is now largely removed from an understanding of the work needed even to produce the food it eats, it seems that other aspects of culture have been lost as well. Today, the word "cult" is frequently used to refer to narrow, mindless religious groups, which are like cut flowers deprived of their source of life, not to the hard work of learning, changing and growing according to the Gospel. Let us look at the original meaning of cult in our Orthodox church societies. For example, Church services normally have called forth intense personal effort (cultivation) from nearly everyone. To this day in many Orthodox churc hes; the "priesthood of all believers" has been proclaimed at every service by alI the people standing and concelebrating with the priest, singing their parts as he sings his, and moving with the processions and other changes of the services. Worship is meant to be a cultural event, involving effort as real as digging and hoeing a garden. Without culture and cultivation, without the involvernent of the entire person -- soul, mind and body -- worship often leaves people's hearts untouched, and the words of wisdom and divinity that are there find little prepared ground where they may take root and grow. Often people's minds, as well, no longer understand the liturgy. Their education has not included reading or hearing the Bible. Therefore they also miss most of the connections made by the liturgical texts they hear in church. They may be drawn to the external expressions of worship -- icons, incense, musical settings, prayer ropes, vestments or foreign garb -- and latch onto these without being rooted in the effort that produced them. Then even Orthodox worship can be tumed into yet another very American "cult." The use of the Jesus Prayer by people who are not thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures, becomes a classic expression of such cult worship. Jesus Himself said: "Not everyone who calls Me: 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). It can be easy to say words, count beads, and for some, even to make prostrations. It is very hard work to meet the Word of God revealed to us through the Gospels, for this meeting means nothing less than the complete transformation of our life; it requires the deep digging of cultivation, rooting out sins and turning over our lives in repentance, together with pruning passions and cutting off prejudice. Down the ages the culture that has produced alI of the various externals of worship has been the culture of response to the Good News of man's salvation by God in the Person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, these external expressions have differed with every society that has received the seed of the Gospel and brought forth its own characteristic fruit. Yet as each has been grounded in the Gospel, a common culture is formed, no matter how its external expressions may vary. A person who is rooted in Christ by daily reading and pondering the Gospel message found in the Old and New Testaments and the patri stic writings, finds himself at home with fellow Orthodox throughout the world, as well as with the parish of another ethnic jurisdiction on the other side of town. One who has not met God in Jesus Christ as revealed through the Scriptures, may well feel that he is a stranger if he does not find the exact "cult" he is used to when visiting elsewhere. In America, many very different Orthodox societies have come together and how many of their people are rooted in the Gospel experience of Christ? Customs that developed originally as expressions of Gospel unity now often seem to bring instead confusion and division. All of the small details matter: God became incarnate in Jesus Christ without leaving aside any aspect of human life, no matter how small or insignificant. Every blade of grass, every strand of hair, every grain of incense, has universal and eternal meaning through His infinite love, care, and mercy. Yet here on this earth, all of these things pass away. Here, our efforts to hold on to small externals and details can be for our own fallen reasons apart from God. Thus we often do not show care in our love for these externals and details, but stubbom pettiness. How often this is manifested in our ethnic traditions: those things that should add to our culture, to our (-->) =========================================================== [begin page 4] common joy and the beauty of God's Church, become rather sources of sin and division. Perhaps we may need to cut off certain familiar practices. We should question ourselves in this matter when the only reason we can offer others for a custom is that it is what we have always done. The Lord has told us in the Gospels that it is better to cut off a hand or a foot that causes us to sin rather than to have our whole body perish (Matt. 5:29-30). Perhaps some of our customs are now in this category. And there are further differences in daily culture for those with various voca tions in the Church. Monks and nuns are called to give up marriage and family life, personal income and work in the marketplace, as well as setting the agenda for their own lives. In place of all this, they have the joy and support of others in their monastery, hours spent in the worship of God and the meditation of Scripture, and the cultivation of many talents and skills they would never have discovered on their own. Theirs is obviously a Christian culture and they have little excuse if they do not seek "the one thing needful" (Luke 10:42). Those who are called to live their Christian vocation in the world will have a very different culture. They are not called to be less Christian or even part-time Christians. They, too, must find appropriate ways of sanctifying eve ry moment and aspect of their lives. They will need to cultivate a type of relationship with God similar to that which a married person has with his or her spouse. They will need to make special times when this relationship is consciously cultivated in order to re-orient their lives around the fact of the presence of God. Just as a happily-married man when away from his spouse is still aware of her and consciously and unconsciously behaves in such a way that others know he is married and not "available," so the Christian in the world should be aware of his God even when he cannot be present at Church services and must have his mind on other things. There is an old English prayer that well illustrates such culture: "Lord, I shall be very busy this day. I may forget Thee; do not Thou forget me." We know from friends who share with us that we have much company in our own struggles to make the culture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ our own. May we all together work and pray that God's Holy Spirit will bring the shattered cultural fragments of our society into the unity that is His own life. With love in Christ, The Sisters (Ed. note: The Community of the Holy Myrrhbearers is not affiliated with Axios, but this article, from their Christmas Lent, 1994 newsletter, is, in my opinion, an insightful and relevant article for both the readers of the Axios Newsletter and for all. The Sisters may be reached at R.D. 2, Box 188, Otego, NY 13825). The Life of St. Dionysius the Areopagite Saint Dionysius was born in Athens. His family was rich and noble. He studied all the contemporary sciences, and earned the reputation of a wise man among the Athenians. He was elected one of the nine members in the Areopagus (Supreme Court) where Paul the Apostle, invited by the Athenians, taught "The Unknown God": "Certain men joined him, and believed: among them was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman called Damaris, and others with them" (Acts 17: 34). While listening to Paul speaking, Dionysius recalled an event that took place in Egypt when he was a young student. He had witnessed a sun eclipse which was to him absolutely inexplicable; he was astonished and thought: "Some Unknown God is suffering, that is why now it is dark and the earth is trembling". At that moment, he understood that the Unknown God was Jesus Christ, who had been crucified on Calvary. It is from this event that sprung Dionysius' deep faith in Christ. He was baptized and ordained a priest. Later he became the second bishop of the Athenian Church. Wishing to meet Jesus' mother, Dionysius visited the Theotokos in Jerusalem and assisted in her Dormition upon a glorious cloud. Dionysius was also a Christian philosopher. He had two disciples, Rusticus and Eleutherius, with whom he visited Rome and Western Galatia (France) in order to teach the Christian religion. When he arrived in Paris, he built a church. Emperor Dometianus, who was informed about all his activities and his great fame in Britain and Spain, sent an officer to tell him that he had to deny Christ or die. Dionysius chose to die, and he was decapitated in 96 A.D. along with his two disciples. The Saint miraculously took his head in his hands and gave it to a woman named Catulla, who with other Christians buried the three bodies. Today his head is preserved at the Holy Monastery of Dochiarion on Mount Athos, donated by the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. (from the informational pamphlet for the Church of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Athens, Greece) =========================================================== [begin page 5] Chapter News Washington, DC: Axios D.C. celebrated Lenten Vespers on March 17, 1995. Afterwards, there was a Forgiveness service, and then the congregation sang "Many Years" for their priest, Fr. Ed, whose birthday was also on this day. There will be an iconography exhibit by Dan, an Axios D.C. member, beginning Friday April 7, 1995, at Mars Gallery, Connecticut Av. and R St. N.W., in Washington. The chapter is planning a music book for the Divine Liturgy using traditional melodies. Please contact Niko at (202) 387-5326 or Alex at (202) 393-5804 for further information on any Axios D.C. activities. Their next meeting will not be on the usual third Friday this month because that is Holy and Great Friday. This meeting is rescheduled for Sunday, April 30, 1995 at 1 p.m. The usual schedule resumes in May (3rd Friday at 7:30 p.m.). Meetings consist of a Vespers (with a Divine Liturgy planned for four times during the year) service followed by a potluck social and a lecture or discussion. The location is always St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 18th and Church St. N.W., Washington, DC, which is about one block from Dupont Circle and the Metro (subway) station. San Francisco: Anyone who would like a vial of oil from St. John Maximovitch's tomb at the Joy of All Who Sorrow cathedral (26th Avenue and Geary Boulevard, San Francisco), please write or call; Mother John would be happy to mail it to you. Please write her c/o Axios S.F., 601 Van Ness Av., #E3134, San Francisco, CA 94102 or call (415) 673-6729. Los Angeles, CA: Axios L.A. now has a homepage on the Internet's World-Wide Web (WWW). It can be accessed at http:://axios.html. We continue to have an FTP site on ftp.netcom.com at: /ftp/pub/ba/battweb/Axios. For more information please contact George at Axios L.A. at P.O. Box 461423, West Holly wood, CA 90046-9423; phone (213) 851-2256; fax (213) 851-2372, e-mail gbattell@netcom.com. Many texts and other information are available: online icons, transcripts of Net discussions on Orthodoxy, Apostolic Succession, the Rite of Brotherhood, Christian Resources, Christian Gay Saints, and other topics including the incident at St. Seraphim Orthodox Church (OCA) in Long Beach, CA (c. 1980) where everyone in the parish was praying and working together for the parish, including the gay members, until the old priest left and was replaced by a new one who excommunicated "all twelve" of the gay parishioners, including the choir director (though the new choir director, unknown to the priest, was also gay and otherwise "out"). This resulted in the disintegration of the parish; within a month the formerly many communicants dwindled down to 3 or 4 who moved to a shopping center. St. Sera phim's was no more (This should be a lesson to those clergy, seemingly rare on the east coast, who would consider mass excommunication as a "pastoral" option for a parish. In New York, we have seen a refreshing difference at the well-known cathedral where a visiting antigay theologian and priest told the bishop, "You have all these gays here. You should excommunicate them!" and the bishop explained that the gay parishioners were devout, serious about their faith, and helping to restore the cathedral. The bishop then forbade the priest to preach in this cathedral, though he may still celebrate Liturgy. It should be noted, however, that this bishop is much more ambivalent when it comes to certain gay priests). New Orleans, LA: Fr. Damien's husband Jeff fell asleep in the Lord February 22, 1995. May his memory be eternal! =========================================================== [begin page 6] Other News Prayer Book The Axios Prayer Book is nearing completion. We will inform our membership when it will be available. Liturgies in New Jersey Fr. John, who spoke at last month's meeting, celebrates the Divine Liturgy every Sunday at 103 Parkview Av. in Elmwood Park, NJ at 9:30 a.m. Parkview Av. is right off NJ Route 4 before the bridge. Axios members are cordially invited. For more information, please contact Fr. John at (201) 797-1866. Compromise with Evil in Romania Observers of Romania since the ousting and killing of the ruthless Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu on Christmas 1989 have noted that the initial euphoria has given way to a realization that many things are not much different, and that government posts are held by former Communists who are old-order Communist in all but name. In Romania, the Orthodox Church was never banned and churches were not shut down as in the former Soviet Union and especially in Albania. In fact, the church externally flourished during the Communist era in Romania. The price, however, was infiltration. The Church was permitted to operate, but only in a compromised status, with state agents deciding on policy. This is similar to what happened to the Moscow Patriarchate after the Patriarch's imprisonment: the Church did not speak out against the state and indeed claimed that the state's victories are our victories, which is curious indeed for a militantly atheistic state. The Church was used in this way to further the goals of the state. According to a 1986 report in The Advocate, Romania under Ceausescu was one of the worst places in the world for gay people. A man who reached age 30 and was unmarried would be assumed gay by the secret police. He would be confronted and be given the "choice" of imprisonment or becoming an informer on his gay friends. Imprisonment would be brutal and include electroshock and/or chemical aversion "therapy" to attempt sexual reorientation to heterosexuality (just what Drs. Nicolosi, Socarides, and Bieber recommend in the U.S.). All gay bars and organizations were closed by the government and anyone who would congregate at these locations or at cruising areas was monitored and harassed by the secret police. After the killing of Ceausescu and the fall of Communism, homosexuality was decriminalized in Romania, with the exception of sex in public venues, such as cruising areas. Late in 1994, however, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Teoctist, called for the recriminalization of homosexuality and a return of severe penalities and imprisonment for homosexuals. He rejected the distinction between private and public activity that the current government makes, saying that "The church rejects impure love, the tyranny of selfishness, barren passion." He claimed that the Communists had a superior moral sense to their successors, stating that even during the worst periods of the Ceausescu regime, Romanians knew how to "distinguish between sin and virtue, natural and unnatural, normal and abnormal." The homophobic editor of St. Sophia Quarterly, reviewed in the last newsletter, applauded his statements. It is clear, however, that Teoctist and his supporters are much more sons of Stalin than of the Church in this shameful episode. OCAMPR Conference Held at Hellenic College / Holy Cross Cambridge, MA (from The Orthodox Observer and other Greek Archdiocese sources) : The symposium on "Homosexuality: Orthodox Perspectives in View of Insights >From Modern Research" was postponed to November 18, 1994, as reported in the November 1994 Orthodox Observer [which, incidentally, is often not received by the l8th due to delays in distribution]. This symposium was convened by the Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology, and Religion (OCAMPR) at their research center on the campus of Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA. Not surprisingly, the Observer did not say why the conference was postponed, nor even that it was the same conference that was to have taken place September 24-25 and was announced in the Observer and the Easter 1994 Axios Newsletter. Nevertheless, a Greek Orthodox Archdiocese source has confirmed that this is the same conference, though inexplicably postponed. However, the wording of the November announcement is somewhat toned down from the original announcement, which was replete with explicit and implicit references to the etiology of homosexuality and its "cure" by "clinical intervention" -- typical ly involving chemical and/or electroshock aversion therapy. The November announcement states that "scholars" will address issues including "What are the differing etiologies of homosexuality? Do different etiologies require different attitudes about homosexuality? Should homosexuals be permitted to participate in Church life (i.e. receive Communion, marry, adopt children)? and Should homosexuals be guided to change their sexual orientation to heterosexuality?" On the one hand, these topics are phrased as questions, and they do theoretically permit the discussion (-->) =========================================================== [begin page 7] of the topic from a reasonable, decent and humane perspective -- but that, on the other hand, is of course up to the speakers. The conference included an evening symposium open to the public (this was NOT mentioned in the first announcement), to "explore how Orthodox Christianity understands and responds to homosexuality today given current medical and psychological findings". The scheduled participants varied; Fr. Milton Efthimiou attended as an observer only; Fr. Stanley Harakas was also listed. The well-known quack, Dr. Charles Socarides, also listed, undoubtedly participated solely by virtue of his Greek name. Other listed participants were: Bishop Methodius of Boston, Dr. John J. Chirban, George Morelli, Theodore G. Stylianopoulos, Dr. Paul Kymysis and John L. Infante. Computer network forum honors John Boswell Vienna, VA: A forum on Remembering John Boswell has been created on America Online, where all users of this computer network can read the previous submissions or add their own. There are eulogies, discussions, and prayers. Occasionally there have been malicious homophobic postings, but these simply showed such attitudes for what they were in the eyes of the other participants . This forum is located in the Gay and Lesbian Spirituality section (use keyword "gay" and then locate "Spirituality"). John Boswell, renowned author of The Royal Treasure; Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (1980); Rediscovering Gay History (1982); The Kindness of Strangers: the Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (1988); and Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (1994), died on December 23, 1994 of complications from AIDS. AIDS Interfaith Service New York, NY: The fifth annual Interfaith Service of Hope and Remembrance took place on November 30, the eve of World AIDS Day 1994. The service began at St. Francis of Assisi Church at 6 p.m., followed by a candlelight procession to Marble Collegiate Church, where the main service then commenced. A broad spectrum of religions -- Christian, Jewish, and Islamic -- participated, as well as medical and social-service organizations. The only Orthodox jurisdiction which was represented officially was the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America: Archbishop Iakovos sent an "official representative" to the service who sang an evening prayer beautifully in Greek and then spoke it in English. Axios was also officially represented: some of us attending as a group with a banner, others in the audience, all of us meeting together after the service and at the reception where Axios members also had a fruitful discussion on topics of mutual concern with the Archdiocesan representative. Albanian Activism The Austrian gay magazine Lambda Nachrichten interviewed the leader of Albania's gay movement earlier this year. The leader, Rubin Cela, 25, said his organization, Shoqata Gay Albania ("Shoqata" means "association"), has no telephone or meeting place, but they had a private party to celebrate Gay Pride in the summer of 1994. He says that the nation is very homophobic and most homosexuals marry heterosexually. There is also an AIDS organization in Albania called AIDS Help Action Plus which is publishing a pamphlet about homosexuality and an AIDS brochure for gay men via a grant from the Swiss government. Cela said that HIV infection is very rare in Albania; there are nine cases recorded for all of Albania, and seven of these are heterosexually transmitted. Cyprus Decriminalizes Gay Sex The European Court of Human Rights ordered Cyprus to decriminalize gay sex in 1992 in a case brought by Alexander Modinos of the Gay Liberation Movement of Cyprus. The court said the ban violated the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Cyprus is a signatory. On January 30, 1995 the government of Cyprus submitted a bill to Parliament to legalize anal intercourse between men. According to the Cyprus Consulate, the bill was passed immediately. Cyprus had been the only nation in the Council of Europe which had such a ban. (Agence France-Press; Rex Wockner/Gaynet; Consulate of Cyprus) Pride Day is Just Around the Corner Volunteers are needed for Pride Day to set up our information table and to march. Also, if ten people volunteer, we can staff a concession stand at no risk or expense to Axios -- Heritage of Pride would pay Axios; which itself would keep our budget out of the red into next year. This year the march route returns to the usual Fifth Avenue route, and information tables are out on the day of the march (Sunday, June 25, 1995) only, not on Friday or Saturday. Please contact George at (212) 989-6211 or Nick at (718) 805-1952 to volunteer, or speak to us at the next meeting. =========================================================== [begin page 8] Reactions to "NCC, MCC, and NOLA" >From Fr. Damien in New Orleans, LA: Mr. Pasisozis left the conference early. Therefore, he missed other speakers who were not like those depicted in the article, and should not have judged the conference so harshly. It is worthwhile to participate in the NCC. James Miller from Kentucky writes: Congratulations on the current issue of the newsletter....The article "NCC, MCC, & NOLA" was excellent. What, by the way is NOLA? [Ed. note: New Orleans, LA] Apart from the title I could never find any other reference to it in the article. I find I am generally in strong agreement with the author, other than on the abortion issue. As to tha t, I cannot see the fetus as a person -- a potential person, yes, but a person, no. (I don't eat scrambled chickens for breakfast.) The conservatives/Republicans are not our friends, but then the Democrats barely give us the time of day, if that, and I think the conservative position on most issues is sounder. Of course, the NCC is hypocritical. But why are the Orthodox part of it anyway? I see no point at all in the "dialogues" between Orthodox and whomever.... Back to the abortion issue, I cannot see why gay activists involve themselves with the issue at all. Actually, it would be difficult to think of an issue farther removed from our reasonable concerns. >From Seattle, WA: "As Florovsky said, keep an iron in the fire because there might be a window of opportunity but forget about being a voting member [of the NCCC]." "Is Mr. Pasisozis from Seattle?" [Seattle is known as the Emerald City which is what the pseudonym Smaragdinopoleos refers to] >From Integrity (Lesbian and Gay Episcopalians): During the conference, Integrity spoke with Axios' Nick Zymaris over the phone, severely criticizing Mr. Pasisozis because he was unable to come out, and also for the views he had expressed -- indeed Integrity was engaging in name-calling, using the terms "dense" and "retarded" towards Mr. Pasisozis. On February 14, 1995, Edg ar K. Byham, Integrity's Director of Communications, wrote Axios to criticize the views expressed in Mr. Pasisozis' article, saying he felt our representative was a "strange choice" because he felt the NCC to be largely a waste of time and because he wasn't out (It seemed that Integrity's irritation was largely due to the content of Mr. Pasisozis' speech: viz., that the other delegates were too busy being politically correct to consider God, and also to his own right-wing politics, though Mr. Byham denied this). Because Integrity reimbursed him $90 for his plane ticket, Integrity felt they "invested" in our delegate and expected him to speak to the Orthodox hier archs there, as Axios' John Taktikos did in 1992. However, Mr. Pasisozis stated that no one had informed him of such requirements, and he felt he did what he could. Regarding Mr. Pasisozis' theological criticism of the meeting' s priorities, Mr. Byham stated twice that this was irrelevant; however he then stated he felt we were in full agreement. It is true that we agree that our delegate should have been out of the closet; however, he was previously out and had only recently gone back in owing to his homophobic jurisdiction. Also, it would be better not to enter into such reimbursement agreements (even for small amounts as here) since they can lead to misunderstandings. (Advertisement) Konstantinos J. Antonopoulos Orthodox Funeral Director A N T O N O P O U L O S F U N E R A L H O M E, I N C. Available for questions and to advise on pre-arrangements, last will and testament or any other questions one may have. Services are available in all communities. 38-08 Ditmars Boulevard (718) 728-8500 Astoria, New York 11105 1 800 281-8486 ===========================================================