Homosexuality and the church: a Coptic Orthodox perspective - Homosexuality: Some Elements for an Ecumenical Discussion

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 1998 by Bishop Serapion

Homosexuals defile the temple of God

"In 1 Corinthians 6 the apostle says, `Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites... will inherit the kingdom of God.' None of these will inherit the kingdom of God. How is it then that some employ unimaginable devices in an attempt to circumvent a biblical text so clearly written? Have we come so far as to challenge the apostle of God who writes, `Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your owe?' Your body is not your own: your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The homosexual is sinning against the temple of the Holy Spirit. St Paul writes, `Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.' When a person sins against the Holy Spirit, that means he is separating himself from the Holy Spirit. Light and darkness cannot exist together in one place. From the beginning God separated light from darkness. The Holy Spirit cannot abide in such a case.

"The apostle exhorts, `glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's', because the body is for God and the spirit is for God. In 1 Corinthians 3 he adds, `Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.' Further along in chapter 6 St Paul writes. `Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!' We are members of Christ because we are his body and his bones. `It is no longer I who live. but Christ lives in me.' If Christ then lives in me, how can we abuse the body or the members of Christ or the temple of the Holy Spirit? How can we abuse or dishonour the image of God and lose our holy image and live in the lust of the flesh? This is against a holy life and against chastity.

"In his epistle, St Jude writes, `As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.' And in his first epistle to St Timothy, St Paul says that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites.' St Paul includes this word `sodomites' or homosexuals among the murderers, among the lawless. among the ungodly. This sin then was condemned in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. So can we disobey God in order to please some sinful persons? Is it not better to correct them?

"In our present day I believe that our Lord has given all of us something quite remarkable to consider. AIDS has come to many who persist in a life-style that places them in both temporal and eternal risk. Death. as a predictable consequence of infection, usually comes slowly. It is possible that those who have been infected may reflect on what God has willed for them, rather than what they have willed for themselves. I do not mean the disease itself, but rather the holy life to which they have been called. Unfortunately, many do not even fear such a warning, even though they suffer a defilement of the body.