Coming Out Orthodox, Fifteen Years Later

I’ve been Orthodox now for almost 36 years.
(For context, that’s my entire life.)

I’m not Greek.
I’m not Russian.
I’m not Romanian, although a lot of folks think that since I grew up in a Romanian church and know about that incredible chicken salad with mayonnaise, potatoes, pickles, and peas. I really like it when it has peas.

I’m Scotch Irish, German, English, and a good deal of American farm folk.

My parents converted a few years before I was even born from a mostly Reformed background. While I’ve never been a Calvinist myself, and still don’t really know what “Reformed” even means, I still have a graduate degree from the same Presbyterian seminary my dad got an M.Div. from.

I usually refer to my master’s degree in counseling as my “master’s degree in empathy,” which helps after working more than nine years in customer complaints.

I’ve lived in Chicago now for almost ten years, but 2026 will be my last. I need to go home to St. Louis.

When I made my plan to leave Missouri after grad school, the idea was that all my friends and my parents were also leaving, going to far-flung corners of the country. I didn’t want to be left behind, and I thought the people and friends I was making in Chicago were pretty cool.

I also wanted to be a therapist, and let’s face it, there are a ton of Greeks in Chicago. We know they have money, and they definitely have problems, and could probably use a therapist.

The St. Louis plan now is to buy a house. My non-therapist career handling complaints for major financial technology companies has done surprisingly well, and I’m in the unexpected position of being able to buy a real house and pay for it myself.

The undergrad finance and banking major who once thought he might be the next Warren Buffett, and who still has a concerning soft spot for billionaires, mostly the yachts, assumed he’d have a house someday. The therapist did not.

I’m not quite sure where I’m going with all of this, but I think a bit of biography is necessary for the rest of this essay, so I appreciate you bearing with me.

Before we go back to the Orthodox part, I should probably mention one other part of my biography.

I’m gay.

That’s probably not a surprise to most of you reading this, given that the entire premise of the blog this is published on is somewhat founded on that reality. The almost fifteen years of public blog posts talking about it also might have been a giveaway.

What’s wild, though, is that it feels like now, at almost 36 years old, the fact that I’m both gay and Orthodox is a bigger deal today than it was when I first started blogging at 21.

The Church is starting to feel less like a safe home to me now than it was when I first confessed that I was emotionally and physically attracted to the same gender to a camp priest at Antiochian Village when I was fifteen.

The dialogue seems to have moved from the debates of the 2010s about labels and identity, and whether one could still have a place in the Church, to something much starker. Now it often feels as though including LGBT people in the Orthodox Church is dismissed outright as political “wokeness.”

The implication is that people like me should simply go join the Episcopal Church we are clearly destined for. For the record, I have many dear friends in the Episcopal Church, and they are far more than their online reputation would suggest. But the message I hear is that we have no place in the One, True Faith.

I should probably note here that I was also homeschooled.

I’ve worked for years trying to help my own priests, and other clergy I come into contact with, think more thoughtfully about LGBT people and our place in the Church. After fifteen years, I am still almost the only currently Orthodox and publicly out person I know in the English-speaking Orthodox world who would still personally adhere to the Church’s historic sexual ethic.

I don’t mean this to discount the work of other Orthodox LGBT people who are quite active online and pushing for greater inclusion. I simply mean that I still believe there is wisdom and spiritual fruit in the Church’s historic understanding, even as I struggle to live within it.

I’ve quietly worked with clergy and bishops seeking to develop better pastoral resources and support, but sometimes it feels like too little and too late. My position is inherently moderate, and moderate positions seem to have less and less space in Orthodox discourse. The loudest voices are deeply at odds with one another, leaving very little room for real dialogue or communion.

Lately, when I visit Orthodox churches, I find myself looking around with a sense of apprehension. I wonder what some of the newer converts would think if they knew that I sometimes paint my nails or wear a Pride Apple Watch band, let alone been in love with men.

A lot has been written recently about the influx of young men into the Church. While much of it feels overblown, I can’t deny what I’ve experienced in Orthodox spaces over the past few years. Even the most well-intentioned clergy are overwhelmed by the demands of catechesis and pastoral care. There is no realistic way for them to know the hearts and lives of everyone they receive, let alone keep up with the online worlds their parishioners may be immersed in.

Another part of me, though, is genuinely glad that so many people are excited about my Church.

It is a beautiful thing to watch people discover Orthodoxy. It is no longer hidden behind ethnicity and language in the way it once was, and in many places the doors are wide open. It has also never been more accessible to experience the liturgy or learn about the faith.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the great pleasure of introducing newly illumined members of my parish to my favorite monastery, showing them around the grounds, and explaining what is happening in the services. I have come to inhabit a small role as something of an old-timer, sharing stories from my years in the Church.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this other than to say that I still exist, and I am still here. Still Orthodox. Still doing my thing, even if more quietly than I once did.

To other LGBT Orthodox Christians who might be feeling increasingly alone, I want to say that there are others out there still muddling along. And to those who are new to Orthodoxy, I hope I can serve as a reminder that people like me are also here, wrestling with faith and sexuality, and doing our best to stay in the Boat.

On what may be a controversial note, there is something deeply paradoxical, and yes, even queer, about our Christian belief that the Church is the Bride of Christ. Our faith is full of reversals and inversions. Power is revealed in weakness. Glory comes through the Cross. Even as men, we are called to be radiant and faithful brides.

As a celibate gay man, it is a comfort to remember that I do, and will, have a husband: Christ Himself. May His love, and my often unfaithful heart as His bride, be enough in the life to come.

Amen.

-Gregg