When the Person of Christ is Desecrated on the Pulpit
I used to think I had seen almost every form of theological deviation that could emerge from certain movements within the Episcopal Church—from the reinterpretation of texts, to tampering with the concept of marriage and Christian ethics, to subjecting the Holy Bible to contemporary culture. However, it seems the ceiling of decline has not yet reached its limit.
This time, we are not facing a disagreement over the interpretation of a single verse or a social issue. Rather, we are before an Episcopal priest, Rev. Flourish Klink, who stood on the pulpit of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York to propose that God is non-binary, go on to describe God as trans, project the concept of "sex assigned at birth" onto the incarnation of Christ, and extend this proposal to the Resurrection itself.
The sermon was delivered on March 21, 2026, during an official occasion titled Celebration of Trans Joy and Resilience, and the cathedral itself documented the event.
Here, I say to this priest with all clarity: By what right do you tamper with the Person of Christ in this manner? Who gave you the authority to take a contemporary ideological lexicon, open the Gospels with it, and reshape the Lord Jesus so that He becomes a reflection of twenty-first-century ideas?
This is neither a biblical study nor a theological discovery; it is the insertion of a predetermined idea into the text, followed by an attempt to force the text to speak it.
What is most astonishing is that when the author of this proposal reaches the point where some disciples did not recognize Christ after the Resurrection, they admit that the Bible does not tell us why they did not recognize Him, and then proceed to fill this silence with their own speculations.
Sir, when the Scriptures are silent, you too should remain silent. Do not turn your imagination into new revelation, and do not place your ideas in the mouth of the Gospel and present them to the people as Christian theology.
One of the strangest assertions made was the attempt to apply the concept of "assigned sex at birth" to Christ—as if the Virgin Mary looked at the child after His birth and decided on her own that He was male! What absurdity is this?
Before Christ was even born, the angel said to the Virgin: "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS." (Luke 1:31). And the angel said to Joseph: "And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS." (Matthew 1:21).
Where, then, is the "assignment error" that some wish to forcibly introduce into the story of the Incarnation?
Furthermore, the fact that Christ did not marry, and that He interacted with women in a manner different from many in His era, is invoked as if it were evidence of something concerning His gender identity! Since when has a man's decision not to marry been proof that he is not a man? What, then, should we do with the thousands of monks, ascetics, and celibates throughout the history of Christianity? And has Christ’s respect for women, His speaking with them, and His raising of their status become evidence regarding His sexual identity? This is not a reading of the text; it is a twisting of the text until it says what the interpreter wants to hear.
Then we reach the most dangerous assertion: the Resurrection. Because some disciples did not immediately recognize Christ after His resurrection, it is proposed that Christ appeared in His "true self," which transcends male and female, and the matter is interpreted through the logic of "transitioning."
To this, we say: Enough with this absurdity. Christ Himself closed the door to such imagination when He said: "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself." (Luke 24:39). "It is I Myself." He who rose is the very same One who was crucified, and Thomas was invited to examine the marks of the Cross on His body. The Resurrection is not the discovery of a new identity, nor is it the correction of a former gender; it is the resurrection of the same Person in His glorified body.
There is also a grave theological confusion between the Divine nature and the Human nature. Yes, God in His Divine nature is neither male nor female in the human, biological sense. But how do we leap from this truth to the claim that Jesus Christ, in His humanity, was not male?
We say in the Creed: "Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and became man." And the Gospel says: "And the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). The Incarnation was not a theatrical act, nor was the body merely a cultural symbol that can be redefined after two thousand years.
Anyone has the right to discuss philosophically how human language is used when speaking about God, but no one has the right to invent for us another Jesus whom Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not know, whom the Apostles did not preach, and whom the Church did not receive.
The undeniable reality is that an Episcopal priest made these statements from the pulpit of an Episcopal cathedral during an officially announced event. Here, the question becomes painful and legitimate: Where have certain movements within the Episcopal Church arrived?
We have disagreed with them on many issues, but for the matter to reach the point of reinterpreting the identity, incarnation, and resurrection of Christ through contemporary ideological concepts places us before a whole new level of deviation from the Apostolic Faith as understood by the Coptic Orthodox Church.
And let no one try to turn the issue into a question of: "Do you love these people or hate them?" This has nothing to do with that. Every human being possesses dignity. Offending any person because of their life or identity is one thing; criticizing a theological teaching delivered from a church pulpit is entirely another. Respect the human being, love the human being, serve the human being. But do not change Christ to conform to the human being.
Christ is not a cultural dough that every generation reshapes to its own measure; the Gospel is not a blank sheet upon which we write the latest theories; and the Resurrection is not an opportunity to project our contemporary vocabulary onto the Body of the Lord.
He who was born of the Virgin is the One who was crucified; He who was crucified is the One who rose; and He who rose said to His disciples: "It is I Myself." This is the Christ we have received.
As for the Christ who is reinvented every few years to match the latest cultural trend—let those who promote it excuse us: this is a Christ of your own ideas, not the Christ of the Gospel.
The tragedy is not merely that an individual uttered these ideas; people say all kinds of things. The tragedy is that such words reach the church pulpit, and that the Person of Christ, His incarnation, and His resurrection become subject to reinterpretation in service of modern ideologies.
Therefore, I say without hesitation to this priest and to those who adopt this approach: Hands off the Person of Christ. Change your ideas as you wish, and adopt whatever philosophies you choose, but do not make Christ a vehicle for them, and do not attribute to the Gospel what your own words admit the Gospel does not say. Enough with this tampering in the name of theology.
An Appeal to the Holy Synod
Finally, I address an explicit appeal to the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church to examine this documented incident as it sees fit, and to issue a firm ecclesiastical admonition to the relevant Episcopal church authorities, requesting a clear stance on these statements and on the measures taken regarding the priest who proclaimed them.
Theological dialogue between churches should not turn into mere meetings and pleasantries while statements are delivered from church pulpits that touch—from our Orthodox perspective—the very core of faith in the Person of Christ, His incarnation, and His resurrection.
The Coptic Church has the right to ask clearly: Do these statements represent the teaching of the Episcopal Church, or does it reject them? What is its stance regarding the one who proclaimed them from a church pulpit?
If there is no clear rejection or ecclesiastical action taken against these statements, I believe it would be legitimate for the Holy Synod to consider suspending official theological dialogue until the position is clarified. Genuine dialogue assumes, first and foremost, the existence of a common ground upon which what takes place can truly be called Christian dialogue.
The Person of Christ is not a matter for diplomatic courtesy. The Incarnation is not a secondary detail that can be bypassed to preserve relations. The Resurrection is not a space for intellectual experimentation. Faith in Christ precedes any dialogue about Christ.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." (Hebrews 13:8).
May the Lord rebuke this blasphemer.
Deacon Dioscorus
