Euroforum at Europride: we carried messages of church inclusion and reminded all interested about LGBTI+ affirmative nature of Orthodox theology.
In 2024, the Europride took place in a traditionally and predominantly Orthodox country for the second time (after Belgrade 2022). It was the first occasion to celebrate the progress of such a country in terms of acceptance of LGBTI+ people and respect for their rights: it is this year that Greece introduced marriage equality!
Thessaloniki EuroPride hosted a human rights conference on 28th of June. It introduced a panel discussion “From friendly to welcoming to affirmative. How can Orthodox communities be inclusive for LGBTI+ persons?” Discussion was chaired by Misza Czerniak, co-president of Euroforum, and panelists included Lyoshka Gerassimenko, Euroforum coordinator in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, fr Jerry Hall and Helene Hall, parents of a gay son and founders of the Orthodox Expression for Worldwide Marriage Encounter, and Mari Iakovou Mars, licensed trauma and sex therapist and member of several American psychotherapeutic associations. We talked about personal experiences that have brought us to stand up for inclusion in the Orthodox communities. We talked about the harm that lack of inclusion is bringing to the LGBTI+ persons, families, relatives and friends, other people witnessing discrimination and oppression – and also harm that it brings to Christian values, Orthodox theology and our church organisational development. We talked about signs of hope we already see in the communities around us, and how to support and enhance them. We talked about everyone’s personal responsibility for what is happening in church: maybe, even if I can’t change what is happening right now, I can make the oppression visible, show solidarity and support to the people being oppressed? The interest for the panel was strong. Among others, we received questions which church groups to address with advocacy messages of LGBTI+ organisations and how to work with religious concerns of Orthodox refugee parents about their children gender and sexuality.
The next day, 29th of June, was a Europride march. We joined it as a group of Queer Orthodox activists, some of whom were empowered by scholarships from The European Forum of LGBTI+ Christian Groups that partially covered travel expenses. Thanks to this support and friends joining the group, we formed quite a group with activists from USA and Romania, Poland and Estonia, Finland and Slovakia, UK and Belarus. We carried bright placards designed as postcards with messages about faith, love and inclusion, like “Love one another! from: Jesus to: all” One of our participants, Nik, carried a Godmother icon with rainbow halo and a message “Love wins”. Placards met a lot of attention, gratitude, and recognition, and we were later amused to be called “decent Christians” in social media – meaning decent Christians join Prides and do not protest against them. Yet, unwanted attention was also there – a drunk person who called himself satanist disturbed us during the march, claiming he is offended by the icon Nik carried. Luckily, the police protecting Pride march was close by. Thanks to the placards, we met a lot of friends we would not have met otherwise – we were easily spotted by people, and new and old friends came to hug us during the march.
We left our postcard placards on the street next to the Europride route with their messages turned to the sea promenade. They were still there by the next day evening – a sign that the city had accepted and embraced them.
