Just taking a peek to see how everyone is...

	cheshirecat wrote:
	Yep, yep, yep. Some people are ministers, some people aren't. I'm not. By the way, that joke was about me.

Of course, I believe you without question!

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http://nature-talk.com

Oh trust me, I am fully in touch with my good girl/bad girl twins.

The sisters get along quite well.

Break out the champagne captain, anchors aweigh! lol

Philbert wrote:

	cheshirecat wrote:
	Yep, yep, yep. Some people are ministers, some people aren't. I'm not. By the way, that joke was about me.

Of course, I believe you without question!

I'll bypass Senator Wilson's newsworthy line of the week.

How do you think I can see that joke? I had to see it in me. And get a good laugh.

Wow, I dropped in today and took a look at my last thread with you guys and couldn't help but laugh when I saw how far afield things had gone. Well, the new community that I am in is beginning to settle down... somewhat. Phil, as of late the issue of torment had much to do with the Homosexual issue. Lutherans along with the Episcopals have been tearing themselves apart on the topic... which in reality isn't the issue at all. The real issue, I believe is the authority of scripture and what that means within the context of the Christian community. One side holds to a rigid fundementalism that ironically allows one to justify all sorts of moralism. The other extreme would take scripture out of the loop all together. The center is being held with the notion that scripture is indeed a place where God can indeed interact with people, but not in a rigid way but a dynamic fashion. The topic of homosexualtiy is merely the battle ground upon which the discussion seems to be taking place. Of course there are some homophobics who are just freaked out by the whole thing.

But things are beginning to settle down. And now, as a community of faith, we are beginning to get past the issues that have frozen us dead in our tracks and are talking about how to be a community of faith. Which is a pretty cool discussion to have....

Thanks everyone who has posted on this thread... I have appreciated your comments and pictures!

I saw this in a local paper:

When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite
By ThosPayne

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay "wedding" is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (AD 512 - 518) explained that, "we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life". This is not a case of simple "adelphopoiia." In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the "sweet companion and lover" of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus's close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as "erastai,” or "lovers". In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century rite, "Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union", invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to "vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the 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 lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing 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.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican 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.

Prof. Boswell's academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and committment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

I did, from a local paper but that link is dead...here is another link:

http://nathanr.ca/queer-related/st-serge-st-bacchus-when-marriage-between-gays-was-a-rite/

other stuffs here:

http://www.gaychristian101.com/Gay-Marriage.html

Wow! Claudia, thank you for posting that, I really found it fascinating, and a big hello to Ole too (if he is still around)!

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"Look for peace and you will find a search" - Gangaji

Yes very interesting article!

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Ego schmeego.