Nikolaos Romanos, theologian and author | September 17, 2026 | Orthodoxos Typos
Fr. Alexandros Kariotoglou is a
priest who makes no secret of the fact that he wishes to introduce innovations.
He became known chiefly because of his decision to baptize the children of a
same-sex couple at the Church of St. Nicholas Rangavas. We recently watched an
interview he gave to News247 on YouTube and, admittedly, views were expressed
in that interview that cannot pass unnoticed by anyone with even a basic
interest in Orthodox theology. We shall focus on one particular point:
so-called “inclusion,” because behind this word lies an entire conception of
what the Church is, what her mission is, and, ultimately, what relationship she
ought to have with the modern world.
Fr. Alexandros says that in his
parish everyone is like a family. Fine. But this is precisely where the
theological problem begins. The Church is not simply one large human family.
The Church is the Body of Christ. And this is not an insignificant verbal
distinction, but concerns the whole ecclesiology of Orthodoxy. The family is a
natural, human reality. The Church, however, is a theanthropic reality. The
unity of the faithful is not based simply on mutual affection, emotional bonds,
or the idea that “we all love one another.” The unity of the Church is realized
in Christ and through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is one thing
to say, “we are all like a family,” and another to speak of ecclesiastical
communion as the Body of Christ. And it is precisely here that the shift
becomes apparent: from the ecclesiological to the sociological, from the theological
to the emotional, from the Church as the place of man’s transformation to the
Church as a space where everyone must simply feel accepted.
Fr. Alexandros then states that
he excludes no one from the Church. The doors, as he says, have been opened
also to people from the LGBTQ community, because “they are all our brothers and
sisters.” No one disputes that every person may come to the Church. But here a
fundamental distinction must be made: it is one thing to open the door of the
Church to the sinner, and quite another to alter the teaching of the Church so
that the sinner may feel that he has no need to change. The Church has always
opened her doors to man. She has never, however, opened her doors to the
abolition of the Gospel. Christ accepts man as he is, but He does not leave him
as he is. This is the elementary meaning of repentance. The Church does not exist
in order to validate every condition in which a person may find himself, but in
order to call him to transformation and to the life of Grace.
Fr. Alexandros, however, goes
even further. He publicly acknowledges that he hears the confession of a person
from the LGBTQ community together with that person’s child, whom he himself
baptized. And here we are no longer speaking simply about “love” and
“inclusion.” We are speaking about a very serious ecclesiological and pastoral
issue. For the baptism of an infant is not a social ceremony, it is not a
beautiful family event, and it is not a symbolic act by which the Church says,
“we accept you.” Baptism is entry into the Body of Christ. And precisely for
this reason, the Church has never regarded infant baptism as something detached
from the child’s upbringing within the faith.
St. Basil the Great connects
baptism with faith. Why, then, did the Church baptize infants, and why does she
continue to do so? Because they are incorporated into a Christian reality, into
a family that is called to raise them in the faith. St. Dionysios the
Areopagite, moreover, is clear concerning the role of the sponsor. The sponsor
does not function as some kind of magical substitute for the child’s faith.
Before the Church, he assumes responsibility for raising the child as a
Christian, guiding the child into the love of Christ, and making the child a
participant in the life promised at baptism. Thus, to put it simply: infant
baptism presupposes an environment of Christian upbringing. It is not merely a
ritual act, but the incorporation of a child into a way of life, an ethos, a
specific faith, and an ecclesiastical reality.
And here lies the essence of the
matter. When the Church baptizes a child and at the same time recognizes as a
family a form of cohabitation which Orthodox Tradition itself does not
recognize as marriage and family, then we are not dealing simply with an act of
“love.” We are dealing with an act that creates theological confusion. For the
Church cannot, on the one hand, teach specifically what marriage, the family,
human nature, and sexuality are, and, on the other hand, act as though all
these were now matters that can be reshaped according to the demands of
contemporary society. And it is precisely here that the problem with so-called
“inclusion” is revealed: inclusion, when severed from truth, is transformed
into an ideology. And the Church does not exist in order to validate
ideologies.
Fr. Alexandros further says that
this stance ought to be self-evident within the Church, but that the people of
the Church “cannot yet bear it.” Notice the wording. He does not say that the
Church has a theological criterion which we must examine. He does not say that
there is a Tradition which we must study. He does not say that there is an
ecclesiastical ethos which we must respect. He essentially says that the people
of the Church are “conservative” and that, at some point, they will have to
overcome this conservatism. So what, then, is now the problem? Tradition, or
the people who remain faithful to Tradition? The Church, or the Christians who
are not adapting quickly enough? And, still worse: who decides what the Church
must “overcome”? Christ? The Apostles? The Fathers? Or whatever cultural
fashion happens to prevail at the time?
For when a clergyman says that
“it takes time” and that “someone has to start this thing,” he is not merely
describing a pastoral practice. He is describing a plan to change the
ecclesiastical mindset. And here we must be clear: the Church is not a
laboratory of social engineering. Nor is the priest a social reformer whose
mission is to educate the “conservative” faithful so that they may gradually
accept a new conception of the Church. The priest serves the Church. He does
not serve his own personal ecclesiological reform. It is not his task to change
Tradition so as to make it compatible with the demands of the age. His task is
to transmit intact the faith that he has received.
And now let us return to the
child. The child is not a tool for demonstrating how “progressive” or how
“inclusive” a parish is. The child is not an experiment in social acceptance.
The child is not a means by which a new theological conception is to be advanced.
The child needs Christ. The child needs the Church. The child needs faith. The
child needs a Christian upbringing. The child needs an environment that will
lead him to understand his baptism and to live in accordance with it. And when,
instead of all this, we offer him an ideologized form of “inclusion,” there is
a danger that we place upon him a burden that does not belong to him: that we
use him, without asking him, as a symbol of social and ecclesiastical change. And
here we recall the pointed words of Fr. Stylianos Karpathios concerning the
baptism of a child who is incorporated into such a situation: we must not end
up baptizing the child only to hand him over to an imitation of a family,
instead of leading him into the true family of the Church, into the Body of
Christ.
For this is the crucial point:
the Church is not called to baptize social reality. She is called to baptize
man in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and to
bring him into the life of Christ. The love of the Church is not unconditional
approval. Acceptance of the person does not mean acceptance of every action.
Inclusion does not mean the abolition of the boundaries of the faith. And
pastoral care does not mean that the priest must adapt the Gospel to the
demands of the age. For then we no longer have a Church that transforms the
world. We have a world that transforms the Church.
And this is precisely the point
at which we are obliged to react. For the Church can love everyone. She can
receive everyone. She can call everyone to repentance. But this does not mean
that she can baptize every social conception as Christian. Above all, it does
not mean that she can ask Tradition to “move beyond” itself in order to adapt
to the spirit of the age. The Church does not need to become more modern. She
needs to remain the Church. And for this reason, let us repeat the self-evident
truth that some today are trying to present as “conservatism”: infant baptism
and the Christian family go together. When the one is severed from the other,
the Church does not become more inclusive. She simply becomes more confused. And
confusion is not Tradition. It is innovation.
Greek
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