 RITE AND
REASON: A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St Catherine's
monastery on Mount Sinai. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between
them is a traditional Roman pronubus (best man) overseeing what in a
standard Roman icon would be the wedding of a husband and wife. In the
icon, Christ is the pronubus. Only one thing is unusual. The "husband
and wife" are in fact two men.
-
- Is the icon suggesting that a homosexual "marriage"
is one sanctified by Christ? The very idea initially seems shocking.
The full answer comes from other sources about the two men featured,
St Serge and St Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who became Christian
martyrs.
-
- While the pairing of saints, particularly in the
early Church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was
regarded as particularly close. Severus of Antioch in the sixth
century explained that "we should not separate in speech [Serge and
Bacchus] who were joined in life". More bluntly, in the definitive
10th century Greek account of their lives, St Serge is openly
described as the "sweet companion and lover" of St Bacchus.
-
- In other words, it confirms what the earlier icon
implies, that they were a homosexual couple. Unusually their
orientation and relationship was openly accepted by early Christian
writers. Furthermore, in an image that to some modern Christian eyes
might border on blasphemy, the icon has Christ himself as their
pronubus, their best man overseeing their "marriage".
-
- The very idea of a Christian homosexual marriage
seems incredible. Yet after a 12-year search of Catholic and Orthodox
church archives Yale history professor John Boswell has discovered
that a type of Christian homosexual "marriage" did exist as late as
the 18th century.
-
- Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage
has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has evolved
both as a concept and as a ritual. Prof Boswell discovered that in
addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient church
liturgical documents (and clearly separate from other types of
non-marital blessings such as blessings of adopted children or land)
were ceremonies called, among other titles, the "Office of Same Sex
Union" (10th and 11th century Greek) or the "Order for Uniting Two
Men" (11th and 12th century).
-
- These ceremonies had all the contemporary symbols of
a marriage: a community gathered in church, a blessing of the couple
before the altar, their right hands joined as at heterosexual
marriages, the participation of a priest, the taking of the Eucharist,
a wedding banquet afterwards. All of which are shown in contemporary
drawings of the same sex union of Byzantine Emperor Basil I (867-886)
and his companion John. Such homosexual unions also took place in
Ireland in the late 12th/early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald
of Wales (Geraldus Cambrensis) has recorded.
-
- Boswell's book, The Marriage of Likeness: Same Sex
Unions in Pre- Modern Europe, lists in detail some same sex union
ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek
13th century "Order for Solemnisation of Same Sex Union" having
invoked St Serge and St Bacchus, called on God to "vouchsafe unto
these thy servants [N and N] grace to love one another and to abide
unhated and not a cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with
the help of the Holy Mother of God and all thy saints." The ceremony
concludes: "And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it
shall be concluded."
-
- Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic "Office of
Same Sex Union", uniting two men or two women, had the couple having
their right hands laid on the Gospel while having a cross placed in
their left hands. Having kissed the Gospel, the couple were then
required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up
the Eucharist, would give them both communion.
-
- Boswell found records of same-sex unions in such
diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St Petersburg, in Paris,
Istanbul, and in Sinai, covering a period from the 8th to the 18th
centuries. Nor is he the first to make such a discovery. The Dominican
Jacques Goar (1601-1653) includes such ceremonies in a printed
collection of Greek prayer books.
-
- While homosexuality was technically illegal from
late Roman times, it was only from about the 14th century that
anti-homosexual feelings swept western Europe. Yet same sex union
ceremonies continued to take place.
-
- At St John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's
parish Church) in 1578 as many as 13 couples were "married" at Mass
with the apparent co-operation of the local clergy, "taking Communion
together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and
ate together", according to a contemporary report.
-
- Another woman-to-woman union is recorded in Dalmatia
in the 18th century. Many questionable historical claims about the
church have been made by some recent writers in this newspaper.
-
- Boswell's academic study however is so well
researched and sourced as to pose fundamental questions for both
modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their attitude
towards homosexuality.
-
- FOR the Church to ignore the evidence in its own
archives would be a cowardly cop-out. That evidence shows convincingly
that what the modern church claims has been its constant unchanging
attitude towards homosexuality is in fact nothing of the sort.
-
- It proves that for much of the last two millennia,
in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom from Ireland
to Istanbul and in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships
were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given ability to love and
commit to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honoured
and blessed both in the name of, and through the Eucharist in the
presence of Jesus Christ.
-
- Jim Duffy is a writer and historian. The Marriage of
Likeness: Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe by John Boswell is
published by Harper Collins.
-
- http://www.drizzle.com/~slmndr/salamandir/pubs/irishtimes/opt3.htm
|
