Between the Cross and the rainbow flag
Many European confessions have embraced the ultra-liberal agenda – LGBT, abortion, female priesthood, and so on. What can the Church offer in response?
The appointment of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury on October 3, 2025, marked a new stage in the advancement of the liberal agenda within the Christian world. For the first time in history, the head of the Anglican Church became a woman – the “bishopess” of London, Sarah Mullally – an active supporter of LGBT rights, abortion rights for women, and, naturally, women’s ordination.
Attitudes of various confessions toward the liberal agenda
Anglicanism. With the appointment of a woman as head of the Church of England, the liberal agenda has been firmly consolidated. Less than two years earlier, in December 2023, the Anglican Church adopted a pastoral document titled Prayers of Love and Faith, which was specifically written for same-sex couples, enabling the people in these relationships to place themselves before God and ask for God’s blessing for their journey of love and faith.: "The PLF make provision for stable, faithful relationships between same-sex couples and for giving thanks for their faithfulness and their fruitfulness in service to God and neighbour."
Protestantism. The many Protestant denominations – Lutherans, Evangelicals, and others – traditionally strive to please everyone and offend no one. For example, within the Lutheran World Federation there exists a program called the Emmaus Conversation, a process of dialogue, reflection, and “mutual accompaniment” among member churches on issues of family, marriage, and sexuality.
The title refers to the Gospel story of how the Risen Christ conversed with His disciples on the road to Emmaus. To suppose, even by association, that this conversation could have concerned respect for LGBT ideology, same-sex marriage, and similar topics is, of course, inconceivable – yet the Lutherans do not see it that way. As a result, they now display a wide variety of religious practices regarding LGBT, female “priesthood,” and other related issues.
Catholicism. Within the Roman Catholic Church there is no unified position on the liberal agenda. Of course, there exists an official doctrine. For instance, one of its most recent approved documents, the declaration Dignitas Infinita (“Infinite Dignity”), criticizes gender ideology, surrogacy, and euthanasia. Yet it also states directly that “the Church proclaims the equal dignity of all people.” In full accordance with this, Pope Francis has repeatedly taken steps and made statements sympathetic to LGBT ideology.
For example, in 2013 he remarked: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” In 2018 he met with LGBT representative Juan Carlos Cruz and told him: “God made you like this, and He loves you as you are.” In 2023, he called for recognition of the cultural and legal rights of LGBT people and declared that homosexuality is not a crime.
The Catholic Church itself has thus split into two opposing camps: unyielding liberals (Cardinals Jean-Claude Hollerich, Reinhard Marx, and others) and equally unyielding conservatives (Cardinals Raymond Burke, Gerhard Müller, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, and others). The liberals insist on an official revision of Church teaching on LGBT issues and even threaten to do so unilaterally in their dioceses if the Vatican refuses reform.
Orthodoxy. The official documents of various local Orthodox Churches categorically reject the liberal agenda. For example, the Statement on Same-Sex Relationships and Sexual Identity issued by the Orthodox Church in America in 2022 declares: “The Orthodox Church teaches that the union between a man and a woman in marriage reflects the union between Christ and His Church (Eph. 5). As such, marriage is by this reflection monogamous and heterosexual. Within this marriage, sexual relations between a husband and wife are an expression of their love that has been blessed by God. Any other form of sexual expression is by its nature disordered, and cannot be blessed by the Church in any way, whether directly or indirectly.”
“Testing the waters”
Yet even within Orthodoxy, there are signs of “testing the waters” for liberalizing Church teaching on family, marriage, and sexuality. One striking example was the widely publicized 2022 provocation involving the baptism of adopted children of a homosexual couple by Archbishop Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis), head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. In response to criticism, he declared: “Discrimination against people based on whom they love is not Orthodox.”
Another case occurred in 2024, when Archbishop Evgenios (Antonopoulos) of Crete gave an extended interview in which he said of LGBT individuals: “They are our brothers. Do not judge them.”
“Diversity is not a sin,” he said elsewhere in the interview. “I have many LGBTQ individuals who come to me and confess, and I understand their sensitivity and why they have their uniqueness, and we love their uniqueness.” Regarding surrogacy for same-sex couples, the Archbishop of Crete added that “specialists should be involved in assessing their upbringing, as well as their spiritual and psychological well-being.”
In the same vein of “testing the waters” should be seen the recent visit of an entire delegation of LGBT-sympathetic clerics to the head of the OCU, Serhii (Epifaniy) Dumenko. Among the visitors were the “bishopess” of the Lutheran Church of Iceland, Guðrún Karls Helgadóttir, a regular participant in gay parades and vocal supporter of LGBT causes; the head of the Norwegian Bishops’ Conference, Olav Fykse Tveit, who calls for repentance before LGBT people for past discrimination; and the “archbishopess” of Sweden, Antje Jackelén, who officiates at same-sex weddings – along with other proponents of the liberal agenda.
Just days after the creation of the OCU, Serhii Dumenko himself stated that he did not reject the possible adoption of LGBT ideology: “This is a complex issue that we should not raise at the beginning of our journey. You know how Ukrainian society perceives it. For now, we must work so that Ukrainian society comes to accept it. This is a long road. Of course, we will seek answers to difficult questions.”
In essence, the OCU cannot avoid siding with religious liberals of every confession, since this organization itself was born of a liberal approach to Church canons and traditional ecclesiology.
The OCU could not have been created – and the schismatic denominations (the UOC-KP and UAOC) that founded it could not have been “reunited” by the Patriarchate of Constantinople – if the attitude toward the dogma of the Church, its canons, and the commandments of God had been traditional rather than liberal.
The Church’s response
In short, the attitudes of Christian confessions toward the liberal agenda can be summarized as follows: Protestants have almost entirely embraced it, Catholics remain undecided, and some Orthodox hierarchs are only beginning to open the “Overton window.”
We now see that, in response to the formation of a firmly established liberal camp within both ecclesiastical and political spheres, an informal community is emerging in defense of traditional views on marriage, family, morality, and other issues.
For example, in the Anglican Church itself, the election of a woman as its head sparked strong backlash. On October 3, 2025, the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Gafcon), which includes the majority of the faithful of that church, published an open letter protesting the appointment.
The existence of a large conservative opposition within the Catholic Church has already been noted. Virtually all Orthodox Churches – with only a few exceptions among individual hierarchs – remain faithful to the traditional teaching of the Church.
In recent years, parties defending traditional moral values have increasingly come to power in many countries. Once in office, they have adopted laws protecting these values. For instance, in 2024 the Bulgarian Parliament passed an “anti-LGBT propaganda” law, banning in preschool and school education any promotion of “ideas or views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identity differing from biological sex.”
In 2025, Hungary’s Parliament approved constitutional amendments affirming that “there are only two sexes – male and female” and imposing restrictions on public LGBT gatherings. Similar laws have been adopted recently in several other countries.
Finally, with Donald Trump’s electoral victory in the United States, a nationwide campaign has begun to restore traditional values and morals by repealing liberal legislation enacted by the previous administration.
All this shows that significant support for traditional conceptions of family, marriage, and morality still exists worldwide. Humanity still has a chance not to slide into the abyss of triumphant sodomy and other departures from divine law. Yet in the face of the liberal challenge, the Church must respond first and foremost theologically. And if the proponents of LGBT ideology derive their principles from the idea of equality, then the Church must remind humanity of two essential truths.
First, this very principle was the cunning argument the devil used to push humankind toward sin: “You will be like gods” (Gen. 3:5).
Second, the Savior came into the world not to affirm human sinfulness, but to “save that which was lost” (Matt. 18:11).
