From "Again", volume 23, number 1:

QUESTION: I am powerfully drawn to the Orthodox Church, but I'm gay. Can I be Chrismated anyway?

ANSWER: The Church as a loving community, following the example of Christ, welcomes to its life of faith all sincere seekers with their gifts, their individual personalities, their peculiarities and even their sins. Just as Christ embraced humanity to heal and liberate people according to His image and likeness, so also the Church opens its arms to alol in order to sharee the fullness of grace and truth, evangelizing, baptizing and teaching all that Christ has commanded (Matt 28:19-20)

As you consider the welcome prospect of membership in the Orthodox Church, the citical question is whether you are willing to take the Church on its own terms, in the light of its own mission or only on your terms. Think about why you are "so powerfully drawn" to the Orthodox Church, Is it perhaps its antiquity, colorful worship or historical character? Are you, as well, willing to be challenged by its witness in its entirety, including its doctrine, ethical teaching and spirituality? You mention that you are gay, suggesting that you wonder if being gay may bar you from membership. Perhaps you know that, according to Orthodox teaaching, homosexual activity is a sin like adultery, fornication and other acts of sexual impurity. While we can't choose our temptations, we can choose our response to temptation. Confession and forgiveness is available to those who struggle to resist sin, but the intention to continue the practice of homosexuality would indeed impede membership in the Orthodox Church. Furthermore, advocacy of it as an acceptable lifestyle within the Church would be damaging tp the community, which values the historic moral practice we've inherited. A repentant, struggling homosexual who refrains from homosexual acts can be received into the Church after the usual course of instruction, but he or she would do best to keep this matter in the confessional, just as is common with every other sin.

Since you've singled out this issue, let me add a few explanatory remarks. It's not just homosexuial activity that has been singled out A sin; the Orhtodox Church opposes today's cultural permissiveness in the area of sexuality generally,, especially with regard to cohabitation, promiscuity and various forms of eroticism, It has always maintained a strong position on the holiness of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit and on the sanctity of marriage. where the gifts of sexuality finds genuine fulfillment. Homosexualtiy is regarded as contrary to God's revealed in His creation of gender and arriage (Gen chapters 1&2) a position clearly affirmed by CVhrist (Mark 10:6-9. Nevertheless, homosexuality is not to be isolated as the only sin. It should be seen in the larger cointext of human sinfullness, which includes fornication, idolatry, adultery, theft, greed and drunkeness, all of which according to St Paul, are obstacles to entering God's kingdom (1 Cor 6:9-10)

To be sure, the Church itself is a historical community of saints and sinners, its members experience various evil inclinationss temptations and falls. The Church must be full of compassion and forgiveness towards all kinds of siners within it and without it. Yet its public witness and word, to be authentic, must be consistent with the Church's God-given nature and mission, even at the risk of appearing harsh and cruel to a permissive culture. To be itself and serve effectively, the Church must sek to incarnate the very vision in which it invites the whole world to share--to be a "royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Pete 2:9)

the Revereend Doctor Theodore Stylianopoulos, professor of New Testament at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology