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by: LezBeOut.com writing staff
7/2003
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When
Marriage Between Gays Was a Rite
As the churches struggle with the issue of homosexuality,
a long tradition of gay marriage indicates that the Christian
attitude towards same sex unions may not always have been
as "straight" as is now suggested, writes Jim Duffy.
A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine's
monastery on Mt. 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 seems initially 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. 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 twelve 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
as a concept and as a ritual.
Professor Boswell discovered that in addition to heterosexual
marriage ceremonies in ancient church liturgical documents
(and clearly separate from other types of non-marital 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 a 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.
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 another and to abide unhated and not 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 the 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 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 antihomosexual
feelings swept western Europe. Yet same sex unions continued
to take place.
At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish
church) in 1578 a many as 13 couples were "married" at Mass
with the apparent cooperation 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 attitudes
towards homosexuality.
For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives
would be a cowardly cop-out. The 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, writer and historian.
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