80 Gays Around the World: Part 6) Greek Beauties

Last time on “80 Gays”: 15) Father Markus Furhman (b.1971) became the first openly gay Franciscan “bishop” after ministering in Cologne, home of the alleged relics of the Three Kings, 16) Caspar, 17) Melchior, and 18) Balthazar, the latter’s gift to the Baby Jesus traditionally being myrrh, an aromatic resin from a plant named after the mother of 18) Adonis.

The name of 18) Adonis has become a byword for male physical beauty. With the ancient Greeks putting so much emphasis on same-sex activity in the training of athletes and soldiers, it comes as no surprise that Adonis was the sexual partner of both male and female deities.

As a young teenager Adonis was the lover of two Greek gods with many gay connections of their own – Apollo (who features many times on this blog), and Dionysos (also featured several times).

Perhaps Adonis’s most well-known lover was the goddess 19) Aphrodite. It may seem strange that the goddess of love and feminine beauty should have some queer connections, but in this other “Star-Gayzing” entry I point out the dual nature of Aphrodite’s sexuality. There I explain how her birth from the severed genitals of Uranus led her to become a kind of patron goddess of same-sex couples.

At the beginning of this series of “80 Gays” I commented that a lot of botanical connections cropped up. Last time I mentioned how Adonis’s mother Myrrha gave her name to the plant myrrh. Another plant connection comes in one of the annual festivals in Athens called Adonia, which was named after him. This was a female-only festival. Women would go up onto their rooves, singing and dancing, mourning the death of Adonis. On the roof they planted lettuce and fennel seeds into pottery sherds (both plants were considered to be aphrodisiacs – there’s Aphrodite’s name again), which they called Gardens of Adonis. The women then went down into the streets and formed a procession which went to the sea shore (or a stream, it varied depending on how far away they lived from the sea), and buried, or planted, the “gardens” along with little effigies of Adonis.

Aphrodite’s floral connection also involves a garden. This time it comes in the form of one of her patronages. Aphrodite was the patron god of vegetation and fertility, and thus she was known as Aphrodite of the Gardens. There was a shrine and sanctuary to her under this name near the Acropolis in Athens. There were two statues of her, one of which was a herm.

Herm is the term given to a tall square or rectangular column with a carved head (and sometimes a torso) at the top, with a carved penis at the proportional height sticking out of the square column. The Aphrodite herm had her head at the top and a penis further down. There’s a herm statue of Aphrodite in the national museum in Stockholm, Sweden, which depicts her as fully female from the waist upwards. She is holding her dress up to reveal a square column underneath with a penis.

It is from herm statues like this that Aphrodite evolved into a separate deity – 21) Aphroditus.

Historically, Aphroditus was probably based on an earlier deity in Cyprus. Once the cult of Aphroditus made it to Greece it was assimilated into that of Aphrodite Urania, the goddess of spiritual love. What makes things more complicated is that some modern websites confuse Aphroditus with the more familiar 22) Hermaphroditus,

The more I read about both Aphroditus and Hermaphroditus the more I realise that they are not the same. I think that the confusion comes from “herm” in Hermaphrodite, and the fact that the name Aphroditus was first used in reference to herm statues of Aphrodite. Hermaphroditus seems to be a later addition to the pantheon of Greek deities. I wrote about both Aphroditus and Hermaphroditus several years ago (see here), so I won’t go into it in detail here. Suffice it to say that in the later Roman period the image of Hermaphroditus as intersex developed from Greek myths about him being the son of Aphrodite and Hermes, a god not really “invented” until a century or two after the first herm statues of Aphrodite were made. If you’re not already confused, Hermes got his name from originally being a herm statue.

But let’s get back to Aphrodite. As well as two statues of her near the Acropolis as Aphrodite of the Gardens (one of which had male genitalia, remember), the goddess had another temple and shrine in Athens dedicated to her as Aphrodite Urania, the goddess of spiritual love.

The temple was in the agora, the inner-city public square and meeting place. In the sanctuary was a statue of her made by a famous sculptor called Phidias (no. 8 in the 2020 “80 Gays” series). I’ll return to Phidias in a later entry in this current series.

Whenever ancient Athens is mentioned Adonis and Aphrodite are not the first names that spring to mind, Athena is, of course. Another thing that springs to mind is the founding of Greek democracy. So it is not surprising that on the other side of the agora there were once statues of the couple who are regarded as being the people who inspired the creation of Athenian democracy. They were 23) Harmodius and 24) Aristogeiton.

Next time: We carry a torch against tyranny, untangle a gay “incestuous” dynasty, and remove a few statues.

Advent 4: Some Basil for the New Year

Of around a hundred Christmas gift-bringers I have researched over the past four years one of the more well-known is St. Basil (c.330-379). He is the gift-bringer to the Greek nation and the millions of people of Greek heritage around the world. Basil delivers his gifts on New Year’s Night, because his feast day is January 1st. Those of Greek heritage will know more about the traditions associated with him than I do.

Recently, historians has looked at Basil’s close relationship with St. Gregory Nazianzen (c.329-390). An increasing number suggest their relationship was homosexual but platonic. I’m very wary about adding people to my files just because someone said he or she was lgbt+. But, as with St. Francis of Assisi, there might be a grain of truth in this case.

A lot of people in the lgbt+ community, and elsewhere, don’t really understand the concept of Christian love and its written expression. Its not sex. With Saints Basil and Gregory it is pure Christian love – soul-mates without all the baggage of sex. Basil and Gregory may be the perfect patron saints of same-sex couples.

Both were born into wealthy families in what is now Turkey. St. Basil is variously named as Basil of Caesarea or Basil the Great. Many members of his family also became saints – his parents and all of his siblings. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nazianzus, or Gregory the Theologian, was about the same age and, like Basil, both of his parents became saints.

Both were among the first generation of Christians to be born after the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 312 and his decree of religious tolerance of all faiths. This meant that they grew up without the threat of persecution and murder.

Part of their privileged education took place in Caesarea in Cappadocia, now Kayseri in Turkey. It is there that the two saints are thought to have first met just about the time they were approaching 20 years old. They then continued their education in Constantinople, named by and after the emperor. After that they then went to Athens.

In 356 they went their separate ways for a while. Basil travelled around before returning to Caesarea to practice law. Gregory remained in Athens before returning to Nazianzen, the town near his birthplace, after which future historians named him.

Gregory’s father was Bishop of Nazianzen and he ordained his son. Gregory was rather reluctant to accept. It wasn’t because he wasn’t a Christian. Legend says that on the ship sailing to Athens a few years earlier a huge storm threatened to sink the vessel. Gregory prayed that if the ship reached Athens intact he would dedicate his whole life to God. What he had in mind was life as a solitary monk, not an ordained minister in the community. But now that he had accepted ordination his father was now his boss. Years later Gregory wrote that his father’s actions were an “act of tyranny”. Anyway, Gregory did what he thought was best. He ran away.

Meanwhile, Basil gave up the law and, like Gregory, decided on an ascetic, monastic life. However, he soon discovered that solitary living wasn’t for him. He gave away his inheritance and returned to his family estates at Annesi and gathered a few like-minded followers in a monastic commune, which included several members of his family. There Basil wrote extensively on monastic life which became the blueprint for monastic rules in the Greek Orthodox Church. It was to Annesi that Gregory retreated to after he ran away.

Basil attended the Council of Constantinople in 360. This is a significant event in Christian history because it was called to settle a dispute among theologians. Some said that Christ was similar to God the Father but was not God the Son (putting it oversimply). Basil agreed, but by the end of the council he had changed his mind. From this council the current Christian doctrine which developed into the Holy Trinity was formulated. St. Patrick famously illustrated the concept of the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) by pointing out that a single shamrock leaf has three separate parts but is still one leaf.

The main supporters of the “losing” side at the council were called the Arians (nothing to do with Aryans and the Nazis) and they were declared heretics. The debate, however, didn’t go away. Both Basil and Gregory were to spend years opposing the Arian supporters. They even agreed to take part in a public debating contest against Arian theologians. They absolutely trashed the Aryans with their arguments and eloquence and were declared victors of the contest.

By 373 Basil had become Bishop of Caesarea and he consecrated Gregory as Bishop of Sasima. Gregory was, again, reluctant to accept and it led to some tension in their friendship. Gregory later told Basil that he was not to be used as a pawn in Basil’s own power play. Despite this, their close relationship remained intact. They had their separate lives, but they lived together on and off, collaborating on various theological treatises or living in communes.

St. Basil died in 329 or 330, on either 1st or 2nd January. No-one knows for certain. This is why both of these dates were chosen as his feast days. He also has several others throughout the year depending on the Christian denomination. In Greek culture his gift-giving day is January 1st.

St. Gregory preached at St. Basil’s funeral, in which he said: “We became everything to each other; we shared the same lodging, the same table, the same desires, the same goal. Our love for each other grew daily and deeper… We seemed to be two bodies with one spirit”.

I’ve read expressions of Christian love, but St. Gregory expressed it far deeper than many of them. Surely, there was more than just Christian love and a bromance between them.

St. Gregory died in January 390. Like Basil he has several feast days throughout the year. The first of these is on January 2nd, on which he is commemorated with St. Basil. Because of their important writings on Christian doctrine and monastic life, as well as their defence against the Aryans, Basil and Gregory were declared Doctors of the Church.

For all his importance as a Christmas-time gift-bringer I cannot find any image of anyone dressing up as St. Basil in the same way that people dress up as Santa Claus in shopping malls or waving at crowds in Christmas parades. I can’t find out why. Perhaps someone else knows and can tell us.

Above is a video which goes into Basil in more detail. I includes stories I haven’t had room to cover, like his influence on your own health – Basil invented hospitals (his hospital is one of the “7 Gay Wonders of the World”, an article I’m preparing for next year).

I’m taking a break in January and will be back on 1st February, so a Joyful Holiday, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you all.

Advent 2: Lucy Boys

The participants in a Lucy procession

This coming Wednesday is the feast day of St. Lucy, or St. Lucia. In Scandinavia and parts of Italy and Croatia, this is the day on which children receive Christmas presents. If they’re really lucky they’ll have had presents on St. Nicholas’s Day (Dec. 6th) and will get more on Christmas Day itself.

St. Lucy’s Day is celebrated with church processions, family meals, and lots of tradition. In 2021 I looked briefly at the history of the Lucy processions from their origins in boys’ schools. In Scandinavia the original processions were led by a boy, originally portraying the Christkind (Christ Child), but this character evolved into St. Lucy, still played by a boy.

With this in mind it seems strange to historians to hear of several places in Scandinavia where controversy erupts over the portrayal of St. Lucy by boys in modern processions. This is invariably the result of the critics’ collective cultural amnesia and ignorance of its origins. Critics claim to be upholding tradition, when they probably mean that they don’t want their Lucy processions to be corrupted by being led by a boy in drag.

Who knows, perhaps before the internet and social media made it capable of discovering who remote or little villages chose to play their St. Lucy, there were lots of male St. Lucys (who I will refer to as Lucy Boys, as opposed to the Star Boys, which I’ll come to later). There was certainly an increase in the reporting of Lucy Boys after 2008.

There were three cases of protests against teenage Lucy Boys in Swedish schools that year which became prominent headlines. The boys who were the targets of those protests were (with the schools they attended): Freddy Karlberg of Södra School in Mötala, Johan Gustafsson of Erik Dahlberggsgymnasiet in Jönköping, and Nils Wiking Furberg of Lillerud high school.

All three teenagers were elected by their respective schoolmates to play St. Lucy in their school’s annual Lucy procession. However, in two cases the school principals objected to the election. They stated that it is traditional for a girl to be St. Lucy, since the saint herself was female. This was echoed by many parents of other pupils at those schools (no doubt angry that their daughter lost out on being St. Lucy to a boy).

I’m all in favour of tradition, but I also believe that there can be some room for change. We live in an era of greater diversity of representation. Diversity should not always have to create division. As I wrote above, St. Lucy was originally played by boys, so there’s no real alteration in tradition in this case. Again, collective cultural amnesia is the reason, and that can be harmful.

Early Lucy processions comprised of only St. Lucy and a group of girls dressed as “Lucy Brides”. Then Star Boys were introduced. In the last part of the 20th century the processions expanded to include such characters as gingerbread men and tomte (Scandinavian house spirits or elves, which I’ll talk about next Sunday).

In the cases of Freddy and Nils Wiking the school principals said that their decision was taken to protect the boys from abuse. This is quite valid, since they did receive abuse, and it is the responsibility of all teachers to protect their pupils. However, the principals stated that that had no personal objection to a male Lucy, if the procession was just confined to school staff and pupils. The processions were open to the public, with parents and local people present. The Lucy Boys might “upset the pensioners”, the principals also claimed.

There were three different outcomes to the three cases.

Freddy Karlberg was prevented from being a Lucy Boy because of his principal’s decision to not recognise his election. Several students boycotted the Lucy procession in protest.

Nils Wiking Furberg pulled out of the Lucy procession before it took place. His principal had actually backed down and was willing to let him be St. Lucy. What changed the boy’s mind was the amount of online abuse he received on social media.

Johan Gustafsson fared the best out of the three. He was allowed to be St. Lucy – with a twist. The school’s Lucy procession began very “traditionally” with a female Lucy, Veronica Ahlund. Halfway through the traditional St. Lucy’s carol, Veronica invited Johan to take her place. Johan had been playing a Star Boy. He removed his conical Star Boy hat and placed the candle-crown of St. Lucy on his head. Media reports say that the congregation cheered. Credit should also go to the school principal, Stefan Claason, for supporting Johan’s election from the start against much criticism.

Incidents of Lucy Boys being elected and denied their place in processions continue as does the debate over what is or is not considered traditional.

But what about those Star Boys I mentioned? In the Lucy processions they follow the Lucy Brides who walk behind St. Lucy. These boys wear white robes and tall conical hats. They usually also carry a star on a stick (hence Star Boys, obviously).

You’d think that there’s be nothing controversial about Star Boys, but you’d be wrong. In 2012 a 9-year-old girl in a Stockholm school wanted to be a Star Boy. Her school principal refused to let this happen, again citing tradition. Instead he girl was offered the role of a tomte, which the girl accepted.

In 2014, an 11-year-old girl from Skellafteå, high up on Sweden’s Baltic coastline, was told she couldn’t be a tomte in her Lucy procession because only boys can be a tomte. This was strange, because for the previous two or three years she had been one, and now she was told she couldn’t because she was a girl. The school principal’s reason? Again, the girl might scare pensioners who were coming to watch the procession. Happily, the principal changed her mind.

Who would have thought that something as seemingly innocent as a St. Lucy’s Day procession could generate so much gender controversy? Changing gender roles in traditional customs should not automatically be taken as an attack on that tradition. History teaches us that Christmastime has always had a large element of switching gender roles, even within Christian tradition (early portrayals of the Virgin Mary in church processions were usually played by young male clerics). True, most of it stems from the historic practice of not allowing women to take part (except that we must not forget girls played the male Christkind since the 17th century). What is important is that all participants and spectators in any traditional custom should be aware that it differs from previous observances, where cultural attitudes and even technology create change. That’s how the modern Christmas has evolved, and Christmas traditions have evolved too.

There are many other modern cases of switched gender roles at Christmas customs that have been accepted. In Spain, where the Three Kings are the dominant gift-bringers and have their own parades, some of the kings have been played by women – some with false beards. There have even been some female Santa Claus’s in the USA since the 1950s, also with beards, and three of them have been inducted into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame. There are even drag Santas.

Whether you enjoy traditional Christmas parades and processions or not, let’s celebrate them all in their fabulous variety. After all, when you see a Santa or St. Lucy, you shouldn’t see the person playing that character. As some Christmas films often say about Santa – once you put on a Santa suit, you become Santa. This can be said of all benevolent Christmas characters, whether it’s Santa, St. Lucy, the Three Kings, the Christkind, or any of the hundreds of other Christmas characters there are around the world. It’s not cosplay. It’s not playing a historical character, even if it’s based on one. You become a manifestation of a concept that enhances both the secular and religious elements of an ever-evolving Christmas.

Advent 1: The First Christmas Card

It’s the start of Advent today, and it’s perilously close to Christmas and I haven’t thought about sending any Christmas cards yet. I prefer sending cards through the post because electronic means removes all physical connection between me and the receiver (and is just an excuse to be lazy and imply that I don’t care enough about my family and friends or think they’re worth the mild inconvenience of buying a card, writing it and posting it). It’s always better to know that the card you receive actually has the person’s DNA on it, don’t you think?

The official history of the Christmas card begins in 1843 when the first modern card was produced. But did you know that there is something that could be regarded as the first Christmas card that was sent in 1611? It also has a link to the lgbt+ community because the person who received it was our old gay friend King James I of Great Britain (1566-1625).

They may not have had our idea of a Christmas card in those days, but they exchanged presents, usually after Christmas Day, and more usually at New Year or the big Christmas feasting day of Twelfth Night (6th January).

The card King James received was actually a folded manuscript which may originally have been presented to him as a scroll. The centre of the manuscript contains the figure of a rose. This is significant, because it was sent and signed by Michael Maier (1568-1622), a German physician, alchemist, and advocate of a new religion called Rosicusianism (or Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross). The shape of the rose figure is made up of text in Latin forming a greeting to King James and an acrostic message of blessings.

Above the rose is a greeting, also in Latin. It says “A greeting on the birthday of the Sacred King, to the most worshipful and energetic lord and most eminent James, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Defender of the true faith, with a gesture of joyful celebration of the Birthday of the Lord, in most joy and fortune, we enter into the new auspicious year 1612. Dedicated and consecrated with humble service and submission, from Michael Maier, German, Count Palatine, Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy, Knight and Poet Laureate.” If that’s doesn’t sound like a very fancy way of saying “Best wishes, King James, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from Michael Maier”, I don’t know what is.

But why did Michael Maier send the message? And what is significant about the Rosicrucian symbolism?

What is Rosicrucianism anyway? It’s not so much a new religion as a new esoteric movement that combined aspects of several other religions. It included Christian mysticism, the Kabbala (a mixture of occultism, astrology, alchemy and bit of Christian and Jewish doctrine), and Hermeticism (the teachings of a legendary figure who was considered to be the Greek god Hermes merged with the Egyptian god Thoth). Rosicrucianism still exists today, but is more akin to a revival, like neo-paganism and modern wicca.

No-one knows when Michael Maier arrived in England, only that it was sometime during 1611. As far as the Christmas message is concerned, there’s no evidence that he delivered it in person, or that he was even still in England at the time. However, Maier was back in England during 1612 for a very special reason – the signing of the marriage settlement between King James’ daughter Princess Elizabeth to Prince Friedrich V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine (later the King and Queen of Bohemia). Maier presented a poem to King James in celebration. Perhaps his Christmas message was a diplomatic greeting during the marriage negotiations. This marriage was primarily political, made to cement an alliance between two Protestant nations, but there has been speculation about another reason for Maier’s presence, to cement a secret Rosicrucian alliance.

In the same year that Maier sent his Christmas message to King James, the monarch published a new version of the Bible, what is still called the King James Bible. Among many Rosicrucian historians there is a belief that this new Bible contains many coded Rosicrucian references, and that many of the men who put the Bible together were secretly Rosicrucian. This would provide Maier with a good reason for Rosicrucian elements to be put in his Christmas message. It all sounds very “da Vinci Code” to me – a lot of circumstantial evidence linked together with fanciful speculation.

Maier himself wrote that he had only heard about the Rosicrucians when he was in England. This makes it unlikely that he would put any secret symbolism in his message. So far, non-one has come up with any evidence that someone else wrote the message and used Maier as a courier. Why would he sign his own name? So it seems unlikely for him to be sent on a secret Rosicrucian mission to England as claimed. But, if he had heard about them early enough in 1611 and got to learn all their teachings and beliefs he may have put them in his message. Who knows?

King James didn’t adopt Rosicrucianism, which was probably a good thing bearing in mind that Rosicrucianism, even today, is quite homophobic. The last thing King James had on his mind was getting rid of his “toy boys” to please a German monarch.

Speaking of which, Michael Maier was involved in the Overbury Murder, the mysterious death of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. King James’ toy boy at the time, Sir Robert Carr, was found guilty of his murder. You can read a bit more about in this article I wrote a few years ago.

While Overbury was imprisoned in the Tower of London his health deteriorated. Several times he wrote to the Lieutenant of the Tower to permit Michael Maier to visit him as his physician. This was denied every time and Overbury died. His death was treated as natural, though several conspiracy theories circulated. It was two years later that evidence emerged that Overbury was murdered, and Sir Robert Carr was one of the people dragged into the conspiracy and found guilty of murder. To be honest, Carr probably was involved.

So, King James’s very first Christmas card has a lot more behind it than just a seasonal message of good cheer. There were secret codes and conspiracy theories. If you are still thinking of sending cards this year, yes, even an e-card, just take a look at the image and the greeting. You never know, there may be secret messages concealed in them.

(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World: Part 5) Monks, Monarchs and Myrrh

Last time on (Not Quite) 80 Gays: The Art Workshop International was founded by 12) Bea Kreloff (1925-2016) and 13) Edith Isaac Rose (1929-2018) in Assisi, a city famous as the home of 14) St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226), founder of the Franciscan order of friars who, in 2022, elected its first openly gay “bishop” 15) Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971).

There are two points I need to clear up. First, despite the title, friars are not monks. Basically, monks keep themselves to themselves in a monastery, while friars go out and minister among the outside community. I thought “monks” worked better in the title than “friars”.

Second, the Franciscan order of friars does not have bishops. That is the term I used because it is the most recognisable term used for someone of a comparable position in other Christian churches. Technically, all Franciscan friars are of equal position. Those elected to take overall charge of the affairs of the global Franciscan order (like an archbishop under the ultimate authority of the Pope) is called the Minister General. The world is divided into provinces (the equivalent of dioceses), and the friar elected to oversee each province is called a Minister Provincial (the equivalent of a bishop).

In June 2022, members of the chapter of the province of St. Elizabeth, the German “diocese”, gathered in Ohrbeck near Osnabruck to, amongst other things, elect their new Minister Provincial in succession to Father Cornelius Bohd, who had served his full term of office. The chapter elected 15) Father Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971). Just a few weeks beforehand he had come out as gay.

I wrote about the Franciscan stance on homosexuality last time on “80 Gays”. The issue of homosexuality in the Catholic Church was among several issues discussed in the Synodale Weg, or Synodal Way, a series of conferences held between 2019 and 2023 by the Catholic Church in Germany. Father Markus had always been a supporter of the Synodal Way and of changing some of the Church’s antiquated and corrupt practices, as was his predecessor. Needless to say, the Synodal Way attracted a lot of criticism from within and outside the Catholic Church in Germany.

Official logo the Synodal Way

During all of this controversy Father Markus came out as gay. He was not just an ordinary friar at the time. He was the Vicar Provincial (the next level down from a Minister Provincial) to his predecessor. Just as there was criticism about aspects of the Synodal Way, so there was criticism of Father Markus’s election. The fact that the province of St. Elizabeth elected an openly gay man as their guiding minister must mean that there is a change beginning to happen in the Catholic Church, at least in Germany.

Father Markus is the third Minister Provincial of St. Elizabeth Province. The province itself is relatively new, having been formed by the merger in 2010 of several smaller provinces. Prior to this, Father Markus was a pastor to the homeless in Cologne, the city at the centre of one of the former smaller provinces, the Province of Cologne and the Three Kings.

There’s a Christmas connection here. The Three Kings refer to those in the Bible story of the birth of Christ. But what are they doing in Cologne, you might be asking? The short story is that Cologne cathedral houses their reputed remains. They were brought there by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa from Milan. Before Milan they were in Constantinople, having been taken there by Emperor Constantine the Great’s mother in the 4th century. She had found them in the Holy Land. No-one today really believes they are genuine, but they help to focus the faith of devout Christians.

I’ve written before about the Three Kings. In my Advent series in 2019 I mentioned how modern scholarship is beginning to look at the Three Kings in a historical context. The earliest translations of the Bible didn’t refer to them as kings. This is a rank assigned to them in the Middles Ages to emphasise their status as important representatives from their countries, and because of several prophecies in the Old Testament.

It is speculated that the kings were in fact priests or astrologers. Taking into account that they are said to have come from “the east” suggests that they came from the areas now covered by Iran, Iraq and Syria. During the time of the birth of Christ these areas predominantly practised the Zoroastrian faith. It is widely believed that their priests were most often either androgynous, intersex, transgender or eunuch.

So, the Three Kings weren’t kings. We don’t know their names either. People of the middle ages liked to give names to anonymous characters in the Bible (such as Simeon Bachos). We still do it. We give names to things that don’t have them (children, genders, nations, inventions, animals, asteroids, etc.). Over the centuries the Three Kings have been given many names. Different early church communities gave different names, and some even said there were more than three kings. So, if other churches had been more influential we may be calling the kings by names such as Eshtanbozon, Zual, or Walastar.

The names that we are more familiar with today first appeared in the 6th century in a famous mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. There, above images of the kings, are versions of the names which became the most universal – 15) Caspar, 16) Melchoir) and 17) Balthasar. Another reason why we assume there were three of them is because they brought three gifts, one each – gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Two of these gifts puzzled me as a child. They probably puzzled you as well. Gold is obvious, a precious gift. But what about the others? Frankincense is just incense, also a precious substance at the time and often presented to kings.

We can’t tell much about myrrh from its name, unless you know that is a resinous substance obtained from a thorny tree of the same name. It is used as a perfume, but also in embalming. Its significance as a gift to Christ is to represent His mortality as the only part of the Holy Trinity who could actually die.

The name myrrh is of Semetic origin and means “bitter”. It entered other eastern nations and languages, including ancient Greece. There a myth was created to explain the myrrh tree’s origin. It tells of a girl called Myrrha who fell in love with her father and tricked him into having sex with her, resulting in her pregnancy. Myrrha became remorseful and went into self-imposed exile. She begged the gods to help her out of her situation and they turned her into the tree that bears her name. As for the unborn child, the gods decided to release the child from the tree. This child grew up to be associated with sex, beauty, and fertility and have various gender-fluid relationships. His name was 19) Adonis.

Next time on (Not Quite) 80 Gays: We step into a garden and play some games.

(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World: 4) Art in Italy

Last time on “80 Gays”: Partners 9) Robert Ferro (1941-1988) and 10) Michael Grumley (1942-1988) co-wrote a book about Atlantic, the latter also writing about Bigfoot (the subject of a novel by 11) Samantha Leigh Allen), and after whom a literary prize is named which grants winners residency at the Art Workshop International founded by 12) Bea Kreloff (1925-2016) and 13) Edith Isaac Rose (1929-2018).

The Art Workshop International is a summer school offering courses in several creative arts – writing, painting, art history – while at the same time offering attendees the opportunity to experience the culture on a famous town in Italy. The second of this summer’s sessions ended a couple of weeks ago.

Several well-known lgbt artists and writers have been among the tutors during the 2-week courses, including 5) Edmund White, and Dorothy Allison (number 28 in my 2020 edition of “80 More Gays Around the World”).

The Art Workshop’s founders, 12) Bea Kreloff and 13) Edith Isaac Rose, met at the opening of an exhibition in 1980. There was an instant connection and they found kindred spirits in each other. They had a lot in common. They were both children of eastern European immigrants – Bea’s from Russia, and Edith’s from Hungary and from what is now Poland. Both of their fathers were in the clothing industry – Bea’s father was a tailor, and Edith’s father made women’s coats. And both Bea and Edith were married.

Bea Kreloff was born Beatrice Magit in 1925. In 1944 she married Bernard Krulovetsky, another child of east European immigrants. He soon shortened his name to Kreloff, and Bea kept her married name for the rest of her life. The couple had two sons.

Edith Isaac Rose was born Edith Ganansky in 1929. In 1950 she married Charles Leitelbaum (often mistakenly called Teitelbaum), again, a child of east European immigrants. They separated in the early 1980s.

In 1950 Bea and Edith were both studying art. Bea entered the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Afterwards she became a private art tutor whilst producing her own work. In the 1970s she became Chair of the Art Department at the Ethical Culture Fieldson School, Riverside, New York City. By this time she had separated from her husband and have moved with her sons into accommodation provided by the charitable organisation, the Westbeth Artists’ Residents Council in Manhattan.

Edith Isaac Rose graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1951. Moving to New York City a few years later she also became an artist and decided to drop her married name and adopted the first names of her parents, Isaac and Rose, for her professional work. Edith’s artwork became increasingly more influenced by social issues, such as political corruption and social inequality. She also expanded into other media, including embroidery. She used all media to produce a body of work in the 1980s, a series of works called “Daily Rage” which displayed which reflected her own left-wing opinions.

The year after Bea and Edith met at that exhibition, Edith left her husband and went to live with Bea. They remained together until Beas’ death in 2016.

The Art Workshop International which the couple founded in 1981 was established in the historic town of Assisi in Italy. Of course, this town is famous for its association with one man, whom we met two years ago, 14) St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226).

Scholars are still discussing the nature of St. Francis’s sexuality. It may never be known. Within the Franciscan Order, which he founded, the attitudes towards homosexuality have changed as society’s attitudes have changed. As a Catholic organisation the Franciscan stance on homosexuality at the moment is “love the sinner, hate the sin”. When I began studying as a Methodist lay preacher several decades ago I began researching Christian doctrine on homosexuality – apart from atheists, no genuinely Christian denomination has ever declared homosexuality one of the sins, except Christian leaders who abuse their position of influence and express their own personal view and claim it is doctrine. Even Popes have done this.

Today, all Catholics are encouraged to treat members of the lgbt community with the respect due to all humans. Some of their doctrines may be homophobic. All organisations have the right to make their own rules which their members are expected to follow, that’s democracy. But change doesn’t always come from outside. The Catholic Church cannot change (in other words, make it more acceptable to those who aren’t Catholic) if there are no lgbt Christians within in to influence change. Even though the Franciscans do not yet accept same-sex marriage within its Order they don’t apply this to same-sex marriage outside it. Some Franciscan friars openly campaigned for same-sex marriage in the USA before it became legal.

Like I said earlier, most established denominations (I don’t recognise the many blatantly homophobic US independent evangelical churches as Christian) “love the sinner, hate the sin”, so there should be no surprise to learn there are lgbt+ Christians can, and have, become church leaders. That brings me on to our next individual, an openly gay Franciscan friar who is currently the equivalent of a Franciscan bishop, 15) Brother Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971).

Next time of “80 Gays”: Some right royal visitors bring gender variation to Cologne, with a sweet smell that leads to a transformation.

The First Queer Evangelist?

At this Easter time, or Passiontide, as non-English-speaking nations call it, millions of people are thinking about the teachings of Christ – some good thoughts, and some bad thoughts. There are more Christian denominations with more interpretations of scriptures than there are gender identities or political ideologies, so there are bound to be differences of opinion and doctrine which offend.

With more than 2,000 years of history behind it, Christianity has much that has been forgotten or deliberately ignored. So, it may surprise you to learn that one of the first black, gender-variant evangelists appears in the Bible. He is venerated by many established Christian denominations to this day.

Whether you think the New Testament of the Bible is history or fiction at this point is irrelevant. Even as an apocryphal tale the story, in theological terms, was an attempt by the early Christians, still worshipping in small, or secret, isolated groups, to show that people of any race, nationality or identity could be accepted as a convert, and go on to be an evangelist.

The tale in question centres on an Ethiopian eunuch, as he is generally called. The Bible doesn’t give his name. In the early centuries people liked to give names to anonymous characters in the Bible. The Three Wise Men of the Nativity are a well-known example. They were given the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar several centuries later. The Ethiopian eunuch has been given different names in different denominations – Qinaqis, Actius, Djan Darada. In western Christianity his most common name is Simeon Bachos, probably first used in 180 AD by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the person who was probably also responsible for coming up with the names of the New Testament book in which the Ethiopian features, the “Acts of the Apostles”.

Here’s the story. The evangelist St. Philip the Deacon had a vision of an angel who told him to travel down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Before he set off he spotted an Ethiopian eunuch, a treasurer to the Candace (a rank similar to Queen Mother) of Ethiopia, who was reading aloud part of the Old Testament book of Isaiah. The eunuch seemed confused by what he was reading, so St. Philip went over to help him. They discussed the passage while they rode along to Gaza. Then the Ethiopian stopped their chariot next to some water, a river perhaps, and asked Philip if there was any reason to stop him from being baptised there and then. Philip said there wasn’t if he truly believed in Christ’s teachings, to which the Ethiopian said he did. So Philip he baptised him in the water. Upon doing so St. Philip suddenly vanished into thin air, transported by the “Holy Spirit” according to the Bible, back to Jerusalem. The Ethiopian, who didn’t seem to very concerned about the sudden disappearance, continued on his way home.

Later traditions say that he evangelised the Ethiopians. There’s no written evidence of this, but it is a fact that some of the oldest surviving Christian Churches, largely unaltered in terms of doctrine and practices, are based in Ethiopia.

“The Baptism of the Eunuch” by Rembrandt, c.1626, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands.

The term “eunuch”, as applied in the Bible, is used for several different other terms that appear in the original Hebrew texts. One such definition is the word “saris” (using the Roman alphabet instead of the Hebrew). This was applied to any man who hadn’t shown any heterosexual sexual maturity or drive by the time he was 20 years old. There was no indication that these men had any difference, or absence, of sexual organs like we recognise today with the term “eunuch”, though some may have been forcibly castrated because of their lack of sex drive. In this respect a saris was like the ancient Greek agamoi. Like the agamoi, the saris was seen as a deviant and banned from places of worship.

On the other hand, a eunuch was often held in high regard. I’ve written before how some eunuchs were priests and holy people. Even the Three Kings mentioned above have often been referred to in recent decades as eunuchs or gender-variant.

The most commonly accepted origin of the Greek word “eunuch” is from a phrase which means “guardian of the bed”. This usually referred to the private royal bedchamber, the innermost living quarters of the king or emperor and his family. These “guardians” were the most trusted of servants. There was an equivalent in the UK Royal Family until the mid-20th century, the Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber which was held by senior courtiers, not eunuchs. Sir William Neville and his partner Sir John Clanvowe were appointed Gentlemen and Knights of the Chamber by King Richard II in 1381.

Over the years, the original highly trusted eunuch “guardians” came to be appointed to higher offices of state, such as treasurer or chamberlain (the man who organised the chambers of the court). It is these positions, eunuchs who held high office, which was the usual translation of the Hebrew saris in the Latin Bible. In the “Acts of the Apostles” the Ethiopian eunuch is explicitly referred to as the treasurer to the Candace of Ethiopia. He was a high ranking courtier.

I was going to go into a deep explanation about other aspects of this story, such as why the Ethiopian questioned his suitability to be baptised, because it feels too much like I’m back in my days as a Methodist lay preacher and I don’t want this to turn into a sermon. So, I’ll just leave it at that. If you want to know more, there are many sites online that cover it.

What I will say is that the Ethiopian eunuch, Simeon Bachos or whichever name he is given, is used in the Bible to signify that anyone with gender variance and of whatever race was welcomed in early Christianity.

Advent 1: How Jesus Became Santa

For most of this year I’ve been doing research for a board game based on the world’s many Christmas gift-bringers. There are almost 100 characters, past and present, who bring gifts throughout the Christmas season, starting with St. Martin (on November 10th) through to Sagaan Ubgen, a Russian-Mongolian “New Year Wizard” (whose gift day is based on a lunisolar calendar and can be on any date between January 24th and March 3rd).

Santa Claus has been slowly been killing off traditional regional gift-bringers. In a world that encourages diversity I think we should rediscover these disappearing characters. Thankfully, many ethnic and regional Santa alternatives have been emerging since the 1990s.

An area that has been growing, or should I say returning, to the lgbt community is gender diversity. I’ve written many articles on gender variance in history. This is reflected in seasonal gift-bringers such the Three Kings whom historians suggest may have been third-gender. Other gift-bringers have changed gender in the past, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. This Advent I’m looking at the gender-switching representations of Christmas gift-bringers, and I begin with the person after whom the Christian Church and Christmas get their names, Jesus Christ.

The evolution of many gift-bringers makes a labyrinth look like a straight road. The evolution of the baby Jesus into Santa Claus is an example. The baby Jesus is also called the Christ Child – Christkind or Christkindl in German-speaking nations. He didn’t become a Christmas gift-bringer until the 16th century when Martin Luther (1483-1546), founder of the Protestant Reformation, called for the abandonment of Catholicism and anything that hinted at it, including saints. St. Nicholas was the major Christmas gift-bringer across Europe at that time, delivering presents on his feast day of December 6th, as he still does in some countries. Luther encouraged the adoption of the Christkind as a Protestant gift-bringer. At the same time he suggested moving the gift day from December 6th to December 25th.

At first the German Protestant Christkind wasn’t represented in physical form as Santa Claus is today in countless shopping malls. How this changed, switching gender in the process, involved angels and the Nazis.

By the 18th century angels were regularly portrayed in art and churches as young girls or women. Around the same time the Christkind began to be portrayed not as a baby but a toddler or young androgynous infant and had acquired wings so that there was very little difference between the Christkind and a female angel. One of the earliest representations of the Christkind that I can find is the one illustrated below. It appeared in a children’s story and picture book first published in 1848 and is clearly female, though contemporary greetings cards still often depicted Christkind as a young boy.

In 1933 the Nazis decided to promote the city of Nuremberg as “the Treasure Chest of the Reich”. Nuremberg was famous for several things at the time – metal work, and its annual Christmas market. Since the 16th century Nuremberg had been producing angels made out of metal foil as Christmas decorations. They were very popular and were called Rauschgoldenengel – Golden Angels. For Christmas 1933 the Nazis chose a young actress to play a Golden Angel at the Nuremberg Christmas market. They called her the Christkind. This began a tradition of choosing a teenaged girl to portray the Nuremberg Christkind every two years that continues to this day. After World War II Nuremberg influenced other German cities and towns to appoint their own female Christkind.

Outside Germany, even in Catholic nations, the original male baby Christ Child also became the Christmas gift-bringer. He is known under various names, such as Gesù Bambino in Italy, El Niño Diós in South America, and Dzieciatko in Poland.

German migrants in the 18th century took their Christmas customs and female Christkind across the Atlantic.

The generally accepted theory is that Christkind (in its variant form of Christkindl) is the origin of the name Krishkinkle. This later changed to Kris Kringle, a name you probably associate with Santa Claus. How Kris Kringle became another name for Santa Claus is also because of German migrants.

In the mid 19th century a new Christmas gift-bringer emerged in Germany. Originally a character called Herr Winter appearing in a satirical magazine in 1842, he was a bearded old man in a hooded coat carrying a Christmas tree. The princely families of Germany adopted him as a non-religious alternative to the Christkind. They called him the Weihnachtsmann (Holy Night Man). German migrants took him to America, while the German-born British royal family introduced him into the UK where he merged with Father Christmas. If you ever see a 19th century Christmas card with a Father Christmas-like figure carrying a Christmas tree, that’s actually Weihnachtsmann, even if he labelled differently.

In America the secular Weihnachtsmann adopted the Christkind’s new American name, Kris Kringle, thus changing the gift-bringer’s gender back to male. In 1821 an anonymous illustrated poem about “Santeclaus” gave the Dutch colonial Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) a look similar to Weihnachtsmann-Kris Kringle. It was the famous illustrations of German immigrant Thomas Nast which modified the costume into a more recognisable one we associate with Santa Claus today. In this way Kris Kringle and Santa Claus merged into one. The current image of Santa was finally consolidated by another German immigrant, J. C. Leyendecker. He can be credited with ensuring that Santa Claus is depicted as the jolly fat man with a big white beard and red coat that later artists such as Norman Rockwell and the Coca Cola company copied, effectively finishing the popular practice of depicting Santa coats of other colours.

And there we have it. The Protestant Reformation turned the Christ Child into a Christmas gift-bringer. By merging with representations of angels the Christkind became female and travelled across the Atlantic to meet a fellow immigrant, Weihnachtsmann, to change gender back into Kris Kringle, and finally into Santa Claus. In effect, the Christkind, having been responsible for replacing St. Nicholas (whose name became Santa Claus), eventually merged back into him.

Next Sunday we’ll see how the female Christkind moved north, merged with a Mediterranean saint, and became a male bride.

The Controversy of the Lustful Nuns

Wouldn’t it be nice of historians agreed on everything? Sadly, politics, prejudice and (quite often) personalities get in the way. This has been the case since the down of historiography. Queer interpretations are often open to criticism, as illustrated when I’ve written about historical people being outed.

A historical figure to be given a queer identity recently is a little-known saint from a little-known (though not insignificant, with almost 36 million worshippers) Christian church. The saint lived in 17th century Ethiopia but her hagiography (saint biography) wasn’t widely available until it was first translated and published in 1912.

The saint is called Walatta Petros (1592-1642). This is an English transliteration of her name in her native Ge’ez language and means “Daughter of Peter” (St. Peter). She was born into an aristocratic, land-owning family. Her family were courtiers of the Negusa Nagast (or King of Kings, I’ll use the title emperor) of Ethiopia. Walatta Petros was briefly married as a young girl to a man who was killed by the emperor. Shortly after 1607 she was married again to one of the imperial counsellors and they had three children. Sadly, all three children died in infancy, and afterwards Walatta Petros decided to become a nun.

Portrait of Walatta Petros from a manuscript located in one of her monasteries, 1716-21.

Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian nations in Africa, adhering to the Coptic faith founded in the 3rd century. Over the centuries, as with other beliefs, factions and sects broke away from the main church. The church to which Walatta Petros worshipped is now called the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which was granted separate status from the Coptic Church in the 4th century at about the same time that the Roman Empire became Christian.

Portuguese Jesuit missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church went to Ethiopia in the 15th century to convert the country to Catholicism. The emperor was converted but there was unrest in the country as he attempted to ban and persecute the Coptic and Orthodox churches and Walatta Petros’s husband was sent to fight the “rebels”. Tewahedo priests helped Walatta Petros to leave her husband and join them in their monastery.

Shortly afterwards her husband led an attack on “rebels” in the town surrounding the monastery. Walatta Petros refused to return to her husband to stop the attack. She did, however, return to her home, only to find that her husband supported the murder of the Tewahedo patriarch (archbishop). That was the final straw, and she devoted the rest of her life to her faith from 1617.

Walatta Petros and the Tewahedo clergy protested against their persecution. She was summoned before the emperor twice charged with preaching orthodoxy and treason. Her family persuaded the emperor not to execute her and she was banished for three years.

From 1621 Walatta Petros founded several communities for Tewahedo worshippers who wanted to get away from the Catholic persecution. She became their spiritual leader and abbess. The emperor eventually accepted religious diversity and restored Orthodoxy as the national faith. He then abdicated.

Walatta Patros died at the age of 50 in 1642. She became one of the few female worshippers to be regarded as a saint in the Tewahedo Orthodox Church.

So, where does the controversy over her life come in? It’s all due to what a Tewahedo monk wrote in her hagiography in 1672. Most obviously, there’s a section which recounts a scene from Walatta Petros’s life in which she accidentally encounters a group of nuns having sex. She is very angry at seeing this. This has been a focus for debate ever since the hagiography was first published. Some historians and religious figures have taken the words literally while others have taken them metaphorically.

Medieval hagiographies often had allegorical and metaphorical stories of saints fighting against various temptations, whether in the form of monsters or people. In the case of Walatta Petros and the “lustful nuns” it is accepted that it was a real event in her life. But a more recent debate/controversy puts the lustful nuns into the shadows.

In 2005, an authority on Ethiopian Christian Orthodoxy, Sevir Černecov, in the last article published in his lifetime, became the first to suggest a non-gender-conforming nature to Walatta Petros’s life. This was picked up by several American historians, in particular Dr. Wendy Belcher of Princeton University who gave a series of lectures in 2014 which went further to suggest that Walatts Petros had a romantic, non-sexual relationship with her companion, a fellow nun called Ehata Kristos.

You can imagine the criticism from the Tewahedo and other Orthodox churches. Historians, too, expressed disagreement, as they often do with queer history, as much as any priest. One historian took a particularly critical view of Wendy Belcher’s lectures and her subsequent publication about the Walatta Petros hagiography. Dr. Belcher makes it clear in the lengthy introduction to her book that interpretations of past events and the words used when translating foreign languages, such as the Ge’ez language that the original hagiography is written in, is challenging.

Last year Dr. Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes of Curtin University, Australia, and an authority on Ethiopian history, published an article (at 90 pages long it’s more of a mini thesis) in which he criticised Wendy Belcher and her collaborator Michael Kleiner for not attempting to understand the Ge’ez language, or at least not knowing the language well enough to translate and interpret the original hagiography properly. He also accused them of deliberate racist and sexualisation of Walatta Petros’s life.

Belcher and Kleiner both wrote responses to Woldeyes’ attack on them, for that’s how his criticism reads. Their responses are both published on Dr. Belcher’s website here and here and go into more detail about the relationship between Walatta Petros and Ehata Kristos.

The relationship between the two women has never identified as a sexual one by Dr. Belcher, despite claims by Dr. Woldeyes. History is full of non-sexual romantic same-sex partnerships. The most well-known version is the Boston Marriage, a term used to describe female companions who lived together, so-called because there were several such romantic female couples living in and around Boston, USA, in the 19th century. Within historical monastic communities, whether male or female, non-sexual partnerships are known (St. Francis of Assisi, for example). Encounters like Walatta Petros and the “lustful nuns” are relatively rare.

The fact that Walatta Petros fell in love with another woman and remained celibate seems difficult for some in the sex-obsessed world of modern lgbt culture to understand. The lgbt community, people of faith, and critics of religion should stop equating love with sex – the medieval Christian Church did, why can’t they?

Franciscan Friends

In my 2019 Advent series I wrote about the creation of the Nativity scene placed in churches around the world at Christmas. The very first one was created by one of the most famous saints in history – St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226).

It is on this day in 1209 the St. Francis founded the Order of Friars Minor, more popularly known as the Franciscans. The queerness of St. Francis is only just being examined and discussed in any great detail among academics. After writing my Advent article I looked further into what research was being done and my original opinion has changed slightly.

Throughout his life St. Francis expressed a flexibility of gender labels used for himself and his beliefs. He adopted the names of Lady Poverty and Mother. The first of these came about from a divine encounter contained in his first biography written by a contemporary and acquaintance, Thomas de Celano.

The encounter occurred when St. Francis was travelling with a doctor friend to Siena. Along the road they were met by three poor women. The one thing that astonished Francis and the doctor was that the women were identical, like triplets.

The women bowed to Francis as he approached them and they said “Welcome, Lady Poverty”. Thomas de Celano writes that this greeting delighted St. Francis as he had renounced his privileged and wealthy background to pursue a life of poverty. Thomas writes that Francis was delighted to be referred to as Lady Poverty.

Francis asked his friend to give the women some money and then continued on their way, but Francis glanced back and was astonished to see that the women had disappeared. The countryside was quite flat and featureless but he could not see where the women had gone. Francis and his friend agreed that it was “a marvel of the Lord”.

Medieval writers such as Thomas de Celano often peppered biographies of saints with apocryphal, and sometimes fantastical, stories to illustrate their subject’s sanctity. This encounter doesn’t appear in Francis’s own writings, or in early biographies of him.

Modern queer academics claim the encounter as St. Francis being met by the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Christian doctrine) in female form. Thomas de Celano doesn’t make this connection. Surely Francis would have mentioned something as significant as believing these women were the Holy Trinity. He said nothing. Academics have an answer for that, the usual answer when you don’t have to prove of your theory – deliberate suppression by the Church.

These three women have always been identified as the allegorical figures of Obedience, Poverty and Chastity, and were depicted frequently throughout medieval Christian art. Academics who support the Holy Trinity theory point us in the direction of one panel from an altarpiece painted in the 1400s by Stefano di Giovanni di Cossolo (known as Sassetta) from the convent of San Francesco in Sepolcro, Tuscany (below).

The panel has always been accepted as St. Francis meeting Obedience, Poverty and Chastity. Some academics claim it depicts the female Holy Trinity. There’s no evidence in the painting to indicate this. If you look closely, and it’s difficult to see on this image, as the women drift off into the sky they are holding something. These are objects that were associated with Obedience, Poverty and Chastity throughout the medieval period. Not one of those objects is associated with the Holy Trinity. It is clear who these women are and who they are not. They are NOT the Holy Trinity, and academics have invented Church suppression to justify their false interpretation to fit their claim (it reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and the equally false interpretation of St. John as a woman and the “Da Vinci Code” nonsense).

This is where my opinion has changed since my 2019 Advent article. I am not convinced by the interpretation of the painting, or other supposed evidence, presented by the academics that indicate St. Francis ever met a female Holy Trinity.

We don’t need to invent queer aspects of someone’s life story like medieval biographers did. St. Francis shows his place on the queer spectrum without it. There was his close friendship, perhaps romantic relationship, with Brother Elias de Cortona (c.1180-1253).

Unfortunately, there is so little information about Elias before he joined the Franciscan Order that researchers, once again, jump on the “suppression and Church conspiracy” bandwagon. Thomas de Celano doesn’t introduce Elias by name until late into the first of his three-volume biography of Francis, after the Franciscans had been founded. He makes it clear that Francis and Elias were very close friends, writing that they loved each other “with great affection”.

Brother Elias does appear in a couple of other biographies from his time. From them we surmise that he was born the son of a mattress-maker and became a teacher. He may also have become a notary in Bologna before joining the Franciscans.

In Thomas de Celano’s biography there’s mention of a companion of St. Francis before the first named reference to Elias. Thomas describes this friend as someone Francis “loved more than any other”, and of the “great familiarity of their mutual affection”. In fact, in exactly the same terms as he used for Brother Elias’s relationship. So, could they be the same person?

This is not unlikely. Francis and Elias lived a century before the patriarchal homophobia of the Church began to dominate, and intimate same-sex friendships were not unknown. When St. Francis renounced his wealth and possessions he also renounced his family and friends – except, perhaps, Elias de Cortona.

There’s still so much we don’t know about their relationship. Sadly, Elias’s absence from written records may have more to do with the Franciscans objecting to the way he ran the Order after Francis’s death than any deliberate suppression of his same-sex relationship with him.

At the end of the day what can we say about St. Francis of Assisi? He had a close, probably physical, relationship with a companion in the days before he founded the Franciscan Order, who may have been Brother Elias de Cortona for whom he adopted the title of Mother. He believed that the figure of Poverty had affirmed his life as a poor friar and adopted the name Lady Poverty for himself. There’s no evidence that met a female Holy Trinity. There is a very queer aspect to St. Francis’s life and it helps to reveal more about the use of gender and sexuality labels in the medieval period. We are only just starting to understand the medieval world.

Slave or Lover? Or Both?

As attitudes within society have changed over the centuries, one thing has changed little. The Bible has been (and still is) used many times to justify terrible actions, abuse and opinions, most of them perpetrated by those who want to impose their political powers by force, or by bigots who want to justify their opinions.

There are several verses and stories in the Bible which have been interpreted as affirmations and condemnations of homosexuality. One story in the Old Testament became so engrained in Christian history that it became the origin of a word occasionally still used today (sodomy) – the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. One story which has been used in modern times as evidence that Jesus Christ affirmed same-sex relationships appears in two books of the New Testament, in Matthew chapter 8 and Luke chapter 7.

The two versions of the story are almost identical and indicate an older common origin, referred to as source “Q” by Biblical scholars. No-one is sure what that origin may be, how old it is, or if it still exists but they tend to agree that Matthew’s account is likely to have been written closest in time to source Q, while Luke’s account has been slightly embellished.

Here is the short version of the story. Shortly after giving the Sermon on the Mount Jesus and his followers went into the town of Capernaum. Jesus had already gained a reputation as a healer of the sick and a Roman centurion in the town approached Jesus and asked him if he could heal his sick “favoured slave” (I’ll explain this term later). Jesus said he would and said he’d go with the centurion to his home. The centurion said he wasn’t worthy to have Jesus in his home and requested that his slave be cured from afar. Jesus admired the faith of the centurion and said the slave would be cured by the time the centurion got home, and indeed he was.

So, what’s the meaning of “favoured slave” and what words do the ancient texts use? The term has often been included in lgbt Christian literature as “beloved slave” which gives us a clue. In the early Greek versions of the story in the Matthew and Luke gospels two words “pais” and “doulos” appear when describing the slave.

“Doulos”, means someone who was born a slave. The other word, “pais”, has many meanings, including slave or servant, but it can also mean boy or child (boy or girl). The common Greek tradition of pederasty (men with young boy lovers) with which Christ and the gospel writers were familiar but no practice also uses the word “pais” to mean a boy lover. Throughout the rest of the New Testament “pais” is used in all its different meanings, so which meaning was originally intended for the centurion’s pais?

There have been a handful of books and academic articles which have examined and offered interpretations of this story. One of the earliest and perhaps the best of these appeared in “The Entimos Pais of Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10” by Donald Mader, first published in 1987 and available to read online here.

It is Luke’s gospel which refers to the centurion’s “favoured slave” or “entimos doulos”. As with “pais” the word “entimos” has several meanings. It can mean honourable, respected, valuable or precious. Slaves were not generally thought of as being worthy of respect or honour, so did Luke translate the word “pais” wrongly? Did he use it to mean a slave when the original source Q uses it to mean a servant, an employee? Luke’s account seems to imply that the centurion thought of his slave as something more than just that. It implies a more personal relationship.

A lot of Biblical, historical and gender studies academics are of the opinion that the centurion’s “pais” was indeed his lover. As a result many lgbt Christian churches and organisations have accepted it as fact. The truth is we’ll never know. The original source “Q” is long lost so any more definitive clues are lost with it.

However, the crucial point about this story, in both gospels, is that it is about the faith of the centurion not his sexuality. There is a danger that this can be ignored in favour of the minor theme of the centurion having a boy lover (assuming that is what source “Q” is supposed to indicate).

The current trend towards using the centurion’s story as evidence to support the idea that Jesus Christ approved of same-sex relationships is not really valid, in my opinion (I studied Bible history during my studies to be a Methodist lay preacher in the 1980s, so I have a little background in Biblical scholarship). Jesus supported all sections of society, including criminals, murderers, slave owners, people with leprosy and diseases, outcasts, prostitutes, tax collectors, those who opposed his teachings, and anyone who had an opinion that modern society would consider offensive. He treated “sinners” (as society at the time would call them) in exactly the same way as he treated his followers. The centurion came to Jesus for help and Jesus gave it. To Jesus the fact that a man had a boy lover would have been irrelevant. If Biblical text involving Christ’s actions are to be taken as evidence of approval or not, then we lgbt Christians should not support divorce or same-sex marriage – Jesus expressed strong opinions against both. Just to be clear, I suppose same-sex marriage (even if I don’t have the privilege of having anyone who to marry!) but it has nothing to do with what Christianity is about (I’ll stop there before I start preaching!).

The centurion and his boy lover presents a very thought-provoking story which has had historians puzzling over its vague meaning for decades. It’s easy to put an interpretation influenced by contemporary thought on stories like this, and this is not the only one in the Bible.

Advent 1: Post Early For Christmas

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, so for this and the next three Sundays I’ll write about Christmas, as in previous years. This year we’ll have a look at some Christmas traditions, most of them literary, and their lgbt connections.

Christmas will be different this year and a lot of traditional seasonal activities may have to be dropped, or at the very least socially distanced. Thankfully, one Christmas tradition can still be enjoyed – sending and receiving Christmas cards.

In an era when people are too lazy to go out and buy a card, write a message, buy a stamp and post the envelope the Christmas card and postage stamp are in danger of disappearing, despite them being more environmentally friendly and having a lower carbon footprint than email, text or electronic message (according to research by the brother of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet).

My opinion is that Christmas cards are more personal than a third-party electronic agent. It proves you care enough to make the effort to post it and it actually has your DNA on it, and you can’t get more personal than that – it’s the nearest you can get to physical contact.

Most nations, those of significant Christian heritage at least, have been producing Christmas postage stamps for almost 80 years. The UK was a little late in joining the trend, which is strange considering the UK invented the postage stamp. I can remember the very first UK Christmas stamp because it was the winning entry in a competition held by the UK’s most popular children’s programme at the times, “Blue Peter” (which holds the Guinness World record for the most consecutive annual Christmas editions of any television programme in the world – 61 and still counting). Since 1966 the Royal Mail has issued Christmas stamps every years, and “Blue Peter” has often revealed the designs on their programme.

Back in September I wrote about lgbt designers of postage stamps. To my knowledge only one lgbt artist has designed a Christmas stamp for the Royal Mail, and that was Enid Marx (1902-1998) in 1976, the tenth anniversary year of the UK Christmas stamp. Enid produced four designs, each one based on medieval English embroideries of the Opus Anglicanum school. This is a name given to the best silk and precious metal-thread embroideries produced in London in the 12th to 14th centuries.

Enid’s designs were inspired by scenes of the Nativity that appeared on several ecclesiastical vestments and decorative panels from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection of Opus Anglicanum embroideries. She submitted rough designs to the Royal Mail Stamp Advisory Committee in October 1975 when the decision was made to base the 1976 stamps on embroidery. Enid then submitted preliminary sketches to the committee on 12th February 1976 and these were approved.

What I thought I’d do was show how Enid went about designing her stamps. It’s not as straight forward as you think. First you have to consider the scale. A highly detailed image will not look clear on a small postage stamp. Then you have to think about where the price and the Queen’s head (or name of country, if you’re designing for another nation) are going to go. In the examples below you can see how Enid changed the original design to fit the requirements of the stamp. Some of he images below are copyright to either the Royal Mall or the Victoria and Albert Museum and are used purely to show the design process. The examples I’ll give are of the lowest and highest denomination of Enid’s Christmas stamps.

The lowest denomination, the 6½ pence stamp, features the Virgin and Child. This comes from the central point of the Clare Chasuble, a vestment made around 1272 or shortly afterwards. It was made for the marriage of Prince Edmund of England, the Earl of Cornwall and grandson of King John, to Lady Margaret de Clare. The separated in 1294, so it couldn’t have been made after that. Here’s the design process.

The image on the left is Enid’s first design, submitted to the Royal Mail Stamp Advisory Committee in 1975. The central image show her sketch for the stamp which she submitted in February 1976. You can see that she changed the dimensions of the image. On the right is the stamp that was issued on 26th November 1967. Compare it to the original design on the left. The price and Queen’s head are not very clear on the original, and have been separated from the image.

The highest denomination stamp was the 13 pence stamp shown below. It depicts the Adoration of the magi, the Three Kings or Wise Men (or third gender priests, as modern scholarship tends to describe them). The design comes from the central point of the Butler-Bowdon Cope, a large vestment worn by clergy like a cloak. It dates from the mid-1300s and belonged to the ancestors of the Butler-Bowdon family of Pleasington Hall in Lancashire. On the left is a close-up of the actual part of the cope Enid used for her design. Her submitted sketch, in the centre, shows the image reversed. I can’t find out why Enid did this. However, the image was switched back for the final design, pictured right. Again the Queen’ head and the price have been placed to one side to make them more visible.

Below are images of the vestments from which the designs were taken. On the left is the Clare Chasuble, on the right is the Butler-Bowdon Cope. I’ve pinpointed the parts of the vestments that Enid chose for her designs with voided white square boxes.