Tag Archives: cross dressing saints

Queer Saints and Martyrs for January

Throughout Jewish and Christian history there have undoubtedly been numerous leading churchmen, including popes,cardinals, bishops, abbots and saints who have had sex with men, or protected those who did, or who commissioned frankly homoerotic artworks. Many others, who as priests or monks kept to their vows of celibacy but had notable emotionally intimate relationships with men, or wrote of the value of such relationships, for the spiritual gifts they could bring. It would be wrong to describe these men as “gay”, which has modern connotations which are inappropriate for earlier times, (especially for those who have taken vows of celibacy), or to describe their female counterparts as “lesbian”.

“Queer”, on the other hands, has a broader range of meanings and connotations, including at the most literal level, simply “strange”. In church history, where the place of women has been so often undervalued, it is also appropriate to draw attention to those women in history who contradict the modern marginalisation of women in ecclesiastical power structures, as ordained deacons in the early church, or as powerful abbesses in the Medieval period. In the list below, there is no suggestion that all were involved in same – sex physically erotic relationships (although some may have been). However, all deserve some consideration by LGBT Christians for the lessons we can learn from their lives or writings, about the place of sexual or gender minorities in our history, or about the spiritual value of our relationships.

The origins of the Christian custom of honouring our saints lay in the state sponsored persecution of the early Christians, with recognition given to those who had died for their faith. The word “martyr” has its roots in the Greek for “to bear witness”, and in later centuries, it can be applied in a quite different sense, to men and women who have been persecuted not for their Christian faith, but for attempting to live honestly as gay, lesbian or trans men and women — persecuted not for the Church, but by the Christian community.  In some cases, this persecution has taken the form of actual murder or judicial execution, in others, it has driven individuals to suicide. Continue reading Queer Saints and Martyrs for January

Queer Saints and Martyrs for December

December features a number of notable dates of significance for queer Church history. Unless otherwise stated, all links in the listing below are to my own posts, here at Queer Saints, Sinners and Martyrs, or elsewhere.

Inclusion below does not imply that those named are “gay”, “lesbian”, or “trans”, or even “saints” in any narrow, modern sense – but all deserve attention by LGBT people of faith, for illustrating how sexual and gender minorities have been a constant presence in the life of the Church, at all levels.

An (incomplete) listing for December includes, among others worth considering, the following:

Queer Saints and Martyrs for November

November

  • (Nov 16th 
    • Edmund?)

Queer Saints and Martyrs for October

October

  • Oct 2nd
  • St Poplia , woman deacon (Womenpriests.org)
  • October 31st
    • Hallowe’en?

Queer Saints for September

  • Sep 21st
    • Henri Nouwen?
  • St Edward II King of England, 1284 -1327 (LGBT Catholic Handbook)

More ‘Cross-Dressing Saints’

Today and tomorrow the church commemorates two more of the band of ‘transvestite saints’ – women who disguised themseves as men to live out their lives in male monasteries.  Wednesday 11th February is the feast of  St Euphrosyne ( later known as Saint Smaragdus), who died in 470.   Tomorrow, Thursday 12th February, is the turn of St Mary (later, Marinos) of Alexandria.




From the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:

” Euphrosyne was the only daughter of Paphnutius, a rich man of Alexandria, who desired to marry her to a wealthy youth. But having consecrated her life to God and apparently seeing no other means of keeping this vow, she clothed herself as a man and under the name of Smaragdus gained admittance into a monastery of men nearAlexandria, where she lived for thirty-eight years after. She soon attracted the attention of the abbot by the rapid strides which she made toward a perfect ascetic life, and whenPaphnutius appealed to him for comfort in his sorrow, the abbot committed the latter to the care of the alleged young man Smaragdus. The father received from his own daughter, whom he failed to recognize, helpful advice and comforting exhortation. Not until she was dying did shereveal herself to him as his lost daughter Euphrosyne. After her death Paphnutius also entered the monastery. Her feast  is celebrated in the Greek Church on 25 September, in the Roman Church on 16 January (by the Carmelites on 11 February).”

St Mary of Alexandria is said to have been brought to the monastery originally by her father.  She is sometimes known as a  “Desert  Father in Disguise”,

Unfortunately, it is also claimed by some that her story,  like others of the transvestite saints, is a fiction.