Why do ‘straight’ bishops want to exclude women and gay men from their frock-fests?

EVER notice that those church leaders who are most vocal in their opposition to homosexuality are also those who who flounce about in the campest of creations?

We all know that Pope Benedict is a peacock with a penchant for ostentatious drag – and so is Archbishop Akinola. But it’s only come to our attention that the relatively young Bishop Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church is not far behind in the finery stakes. And he too is a rabid homophobe.

Bishop Hilarion in all his finery

Hilarion is in the news today because the Russian Orthodox Church has just issued an ultimatum to the Anglican Communion:

Don’t consecrate women or gay bishops, or we we’ll boycott all your fancy-dress parties.

On July 28 Bishop Hilarion met with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and his secretary Canon Jonathan Goodall during the Lambeth Conference to discuss the state of Russian Orthodox-Anglican relations.

Following that meeting, Moscow at the weekend revealed that Hilarion told Dr Williams of its distress over the July decision by General Synod not to provide legal safeguards for traditionalists opposed to the consecration of women bishops.

Such consecrations would be an “additional obstacle” to Orthodox-Anglican dialogue, Bishop Hilarion told Dr Williams, adding that the move would exclude “even the theoretical possibility of the Orthodox churches acknowledging the apostolic succession” of Anglican bishops.

The ROC indicated its fury over the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, pointing out that Robinson’s appointment in 2003 had led to the “total curtailment” of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Episcopal Church after 150 years of dialogue – and now Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, the ROC’s representative to European institutions – a pushy young twerp, it would appear – has said it would sever ties with the Anglican Church if its demands were not met regarding women bishops.

It also wants assurances that no gay bishops will ever be consecrated.

The Moscow statement noted:

The representative of the Moscow Patriarchate expressed the hope that a similar event [to that of Robinson's consecration] would not be repeated in the Church of England and that the Anglican Communion as a whole would continue to support traditional standards of Christian morality, as expressed in the Gospels and the writings of the Church Fathers.

A third demand made by Bishop Hilarion concerned the participation of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church in Anglican-Orthodox talks. Moscow has objected to the inclusion of the Estonian Church – which broke away from Moscow with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch following the collapse of the Soviet Union – in ecumenical dialogues with the Anglican Communion and Roman Catholic Church.

Moscow “would be forced to leave” any meeting where the Estonians were present, Bishop Hilarion said.

Hilarion’s demands mirror those of the Vatican. In addresses to the bishops at Lambeth, three Catholic cardinals urged the Anglican Communion to set its house in order and warned that gays and women bishops could wreck ecumenical relations with Rome.

Hilarion in another of his ostentatious outfits

Here is what the reactionary Hilarion said earlier about homosexuality:

We are being told by some allegedly Christian leaders, who still bear the titles of Reverends and Most Reverends, that marriage between a woman and a man is no longer the only option for creating a Christian family, that there are other patterns, and that the church must be ‘inclusive’ enough to recognize alternative lifestyles and give them official and solemn blessing …

When are we going to stop making Christianity politically correct and all-inclusive? Why do we insist on accommodating every possible alternative to the centuries-old Christian tradition? Where is the limit, or is there no limit at all …?

I am convinced that liberal Christianity will not survive for a long time. A politically correct Christianity will die … traditional Christians will consolidate their forces in order to protect the faith and moral teaching which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers preserved.