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Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe 2020

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Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe 2020 RICE 2020 RESEARCH REPORT Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe 2020 inclusive-churches.eu Contents 1. INTRODUCTION: LGBTI INCLUSIVITY IN EUROPEAN CHURCHES p. 4 2. SCORES AND RANKING OF CHURCHES p. 8 3. DENOMINATIONS, FAMILIES OF CHURCHES, CHURCH FAMILIES p. 24 4. EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH p. 26 5. ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH p. 54 6. PROTESTANT CHURCHES p. 81 7. OTHER CHURCHES: METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH; p. 109 OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH; UNITARIAN CHURCH 8. ‘TRADITIONAL VALUES AND HUMAN RIGHTS’ COUNTRY REPORTS: p. 114 HUNGARY, RUSSIA, POLAND 9. EASTERN PARTNERSHIP COUNTRY REPORTS: p. 129 UKRAINE, BELARUS, MOLDOVA, ARMENIA 10. NORTHERN AND WESTERN EUROPE COUNTRY REPORTS: p. 147 SWEDEN, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND 11. SOUTHERN EUROPE COUNTRY REPORTS: MALTA, SPAIN, ITALY, CROATIA, SERBIA p. 159 12. TRANSGENDER PERSONS p. 176 13. WAYS FORWARD p. 181 Appendices A. Research methodology p. 185 B. Churches p. 192 C. List of indicators (‘inclusivity index’) p. 195 D. Results per church family: OC, RCC, PC, other churches p. 198 With the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, Council for World Mission, and Open Society Foundation AUTHORS: Pilar d’Alo, Rachael Stockdale, Rein Brouwer, Heleen Zorgdrager Protestant Theological University Amsterdam, Netherlands, 18 April 2021 1. Introduction: LGBTI Inclusivity in European Churches 4 INTRODUCTION: LGBTI INCLUSIVITY IN EUROPEAN CHURCHES During the past half century, remarkable changes have taken place with regard to the recognition of rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) people across Europe. At the same time, Europe has seen many instances of increased hostility towards LGBTI people, including outright persecution. Issues of sexual and gender diversity have become key topics in post-secular conflicts over divergent values in modern pluralistic societies, and in Europe, we also see these so- called ‘culture wars.’ Religion plays a part in all of this. Violent homophobia can be associated with nearly every fundamentalist or traditionalist interpretation of religion in the world. It is against this backdrop and in this context that it is important to explore and research empirically the situation of European churches in terms of their inclusivity of LGBTI people. Networks like ILGA-Europe increase the visibility of LGBTI people and advocate their social and political rights in European countries. ILGA-Europe defines itself as an international, non-governmental organisation that advocates human rights for everyone ‘regardless of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.’ Annually, ILGA-Europe reports on political and social developments that impact LGBTI equality in Europe. Their reporting is published in the Annual Review and Rainbow Europe. Since 2011, the Annual Review has documented the legal, political, and social developments in 54 countries and 4 European institutions throughout the previous calendar year. It tracks positive and negative trends in relation to LGBTI equality and human rights in Europe and Central Asia. Rainbow Europe is ILGA-Europe’s digital ‘benchmarking tool’ for advocacy and policy work. ILGA-Europe ranks 49 European countries on their LGBTI equality laws and policies, but the annual report also provides an impression of how the laws and policies of European countries impact the everyday lives of LGBTI people. The European Forum of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christian Groups (EF), an ecumenical association of LGBTI Christian groups in Europe, is one of the member organisations of ILGA-Europe. The European Forum’s main aim is to realise equality and inclusion for LGBTI people in Christian churches and other religious organisations in Europe. For this purpose, the EF employs several approaches to engage with ecumenical bodies and churches on a European level, and also with civic and political organisations. For example, the EF provides information about religion-based homophobia and advocates for the human rights of LGBTI people within hostile social and religious environments. In spring 2019, the EF invited researchers from the Protestant Theological University (PThU) in Amsterdam to research the inclusivity of churches in Europe and to construct an index for ranking European churches according to their inclusivity, analogous with ILGA’s Rainbow Europe equality index. The EF saw the need for ‘hard facts’ on European churches’ inclusivity to provide churches with an incentive to grow towards a higher level of inclusivity and to convey to these churches practices and policies that would enhance their performance. In autumn 2019, the PThU agreed on a research contract with the EF that began in January 2020, and resulted in this report 5 and the presentation of an ‘inclusivity index’ of European churches in December 2020. The research project is called RICE 2020, the acronym for ‘Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe in 2020.’ The index indicates the extent to which European churches are inclusive regarding LGBTI issues. Consequently, the index might be an important policy instrument for the European churches and for human rights advocates and organisations, the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament. ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow benchmarking tool, which serves as a model for our project, does not highlight the term ‘inclusivity.’ The term ‘inclusivity’ is not included in ILGA-Europe’s glossary of the most commonly used phrases and acronyms. ILGA-Europe’s project title speaks of the ‘human rights situation’ of LGBTI people. However, for us as researchers, ‘inclusivity’ adequately describes the intrinsic nature of the church as an institution and community that can only be properly understood from both a social scientific and a theological perspective. We elaborated this assumption in four arguments. Based on these arguments, we constructed the ‘inclusivity index’. The index was translated into a questionnaire. Our co-researchers, members and partners of the EF, provided us with their answers to the questionnaire, and we, as researchers, analysed the data. Here are the four arguments. As theologians researching inclusivity, we started with the argument that Jesus’ practice of radical hospitality and commensality sets the rule for churches on diversity, equality, and the affirmation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. How does this rule define the recognition of LGBTI people in churches? What are the implications of Jesus’ words and practices for inclusion in the sacraments and the ordination of clergy; the representation in leadership and decision-making in the church; the inclusivity of liturgical language; the acknowledgement of the church’s role in the discrimination toward LGBTI people; the public statements of the church and its political interference? Furthermore, based on the performance of Jesus, we decided to research the lived experiences of LGBTI people with churches, and not settle with the churches’ own presentation of what they perceive as their inclusivity. Thirdly, the research was not limited to written statements and policies, but attempted to probe the operant practises of inclusion, to detect possible illusionary, symbolic, or peripheral acts of inclusion, and possible strategies of silencing. Finally, we argue that inclusivity is a reality with social, economic, political, and other dimensions. That is why we investigated several practices that affect the operant churches’ inclusivity, for example, the churches’ actions with regard to human rights issues of health and safety, employment and education, freedom of expression and organisation. In this report we present an ‘inclusivity index’, an index consisting of 47 indicators to measure the inclusivity of churches (Appendix C), which we made operational as a questionnaire. Next to the index, we present our analysis of the 2020 data the questionnaire generated. The index, together with the analysis of the 2020 questionnaire data, constitute the first annual report on the LGBTI inclusivity of European churches. 6 INTRODUCTION: LGBTI INCLUSIVITY IN EUROPEAN CHURCHES The research results are primarily displayed as scores transposed into rankings (Chapter 2). In our analysis of the data, we focus on three major church families (the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and Protestant churches). The vast majority of churches on which we gathered data in our research is connected to one of these church families (Chapters 3–6). We also gathered data on a few churches that are part of other denominations (Chapter 7). Then we put the analysis of individual national churches, who are part of their respective church families, in the context of their country’s identity and national politics on LGBTI issues. We created ‘country reports’ on Eastern Partnership countries, on countries in Northern and Western Europe, and in Southern Europe, and we also zoom in on countries with ‘traditional values and human rights’ challenges (Chapters 8–11). There is a specific chapter (12) on churches’ inclusivity regarding transgender persons. In the final chapter (13), we suggest possible ways forward for all churches based on our research. The appendices provide our research methodology, the names of the churches in their original languages, the list of indicators (‘inclusivity index’), and the results of the questionnaire per church family. The research and this report could not have been realized without the outstanding cooperation with Wielie Elhorst (Former Co-President
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