X Close

SSEES Research Blog

Home

A showcase of research from UCL's School of Slavonic and East European Studies staff and students

Menu

Holy Sodomy: Incarnation and Desire in Russian Religious Thought

By Sarah J Young, on 27 February 2014

The Place of Christianity in History, by V. V. Rozanov

The Place of Christianity in History,
by V. V. Rozanov

Modern theological studies into the nature of embodiment, desire and sex could enhance contemporary scholarship on Russian religious philosophy, especially in its studies of love and homosexual relationships, argues Adam Ure.

I started writing this on (Orthodox) Christmas Day, and it seems appropriate to consider one of the most contentious issues facing contemporary Christianity: the evaluation of homosexual love, as well as of homosexual sex. I mention Christmas Day, as a prominent strand in current academia is focusing primarily on Incarnation Theology in a re-examination of how Churches should appraise same-sex relationships.

Although many studies have concentrated on questions of love and sex in revolutionary Russia, little work has discussed homosexual relationships during this period. Here scholars of Russia should, as in other areas, perhaps start drawing on other fields of study to enhance their work: bringing recent developments in western theological scholarship into Russian studies could help provide new approaches to the questions which faced pre-revolutionary religious philosophers (and contemporary scholars), most particularly how to overcome apophaticism (the conception that knowledge of God is only accessible in terms of what He is not) in Russian Orthodoxy and the resulting bifurcation of religion and culture, which in turn affects the appraisal of homosexuality. Here the body might well be key: a reconsideration of the nature of Jesus’ flesh should help in a reinvestigation of the axiology of the human body (Christ, according to Chalcedon, was of both divine and human nature), and could possibly assist in the Church’s reappraisal of homosexual marriage, as well as answering important questions in Russian studies.

Prurience might provoke reticence amongst some; people are sometimes squeamish when discussing matters of the body – and what the body does. To discuss bodily matters relating to the Holy Family, including birth and sexuality, is more contentious. Yet for us to understand the Incarnation, we should accept that it was a human birth. Jesus was a normal human male and had a penis. But what did He do with it? And what, if any, is the nature of the desire Jesus felt? Can desire be understand as something sacred, where normally in Christian thought it is disregarded or considered something base and even demonic? (more…)