Sunday, September 05, 2010

Icon on a Magazine Cover

Dear Tikkun,

I am an an Orthodox Christian.  I, somtimes, pray standing before an Icon of Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas.  I love them, together with the other Holy Martyrs who suffered together with them, Ss. Revocatus, Saturus, and Saturninus .  And when I first saw them on the cover of your magazine my first instinct was to Cross myself and kiss the cover.  Then I read the words printed on the cover.  I am sad you dessecrated their Holy Icon by using it to promote the evil of homosexual behavior.  It is hard for me to believe you would slander these two women like you did. Both Saints Perpetua and Felicitas were married women, the former a mother, the latter was 8 months pregnant at the time of her arrest and gave birth two days before whe was killed in the amphitheater.  The Icon you desecrated was not, as you implied by the words you printed on the cover, a depiction of a homosexual embrace.  Rather it shows that last act of the women, a liturgical act all Orthodox Christians are familiar with, the Kiss of Peace.  Yet, now, all who are uneducated who see the cover of your magazine will think these two were homosexuals.  Did they not sufer enough from the torturers and the wild animals that were set on them before their execution?  How dastardly of you.  But I am not writing to you to express outrage.  Instead, I am extending an invitation.  God forgives slanderers.  He even forgives those who cause others to fall by saying what is wrong is right. If you repent God will have mercy on you.

Matt

2 comments:

DebD said...

Let us know if you hear anything back.

Matt said...

One of the editors wrote back. I don't have permission to post his whole letter, but in short he said the Icon was used in a way similar to the usage of the pledge of Ruth (e.g. "your people will be my people...") is used in some weddings. The words were not spoken in romantic love but can apply to romantic love. According to the editor, the magazine did not intend to say Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas were homosexuals but the cover was supposed to borrow their holy embrace and suggest that all love, including homosexual love, is holy.